2 Corinthians 7:2 - Exposition

Receive us; rather, open your hearts to us; make room for us . It is an appeal to them to get rid of the narrowness of heart, the constricted affections, of which he has complained in 2 Corinthians 6:12 . We have wronged… corrupted… defrauded no man. The "no man" in the original is placed first, and this emphatic position, together with its triple repetition, marks St. Paul's insistence on the fact that, whatever his enemies might insinuate, there was no single member of their Church who could complain of injury, moral harm, or unfair treatment from him. Clearly he is again thinking of definite slanders against himself. His sternness to the offender may have been denounced as a wrong; his generous sanction of broad views about clean and unclean meats, idol-offerings, etc., may have been represented as corrupting others by false teaching ( 2 Corinthians 2:17 ) or bad example ( 2 Corinthians 4:2 ; 1 Thessalonians 4:6 ); his urgency about the collection for the saints ( 2 Corinthians 12:16 ; Acts 20:33 ), or his assertion of legitimate authority, may have been specified as greed for power. The verb pleonektein is often used in connection with other verbs, implying sensuality. It is difficult for us even to imagine that St. Paul had ever been charged with gross immorality; but it may have been so, for in a corrupt atmosphere everything is corrupt. Men like Nero and Heliogabalus, being themselves the vilest of men, openly declared their belief that no man was pure, and many in the heathen world may have been inclined to similar suspicions. Of Whitefield, the poet says—

"His sins were such as Sodom never knew,

And calumny stood up to swear all true."

We know too that the Christians were universally charged with Thyestean banquets and promiscuous licentiousness. It is, however, more natural to take pleonektein in its general sense, in which it means "to overreach," "to claim or seize more than one's just rights" (see 2 Corinthians 2:11 ) In 1 Corinthians 9:1-6 he is defending himself against similar charges, as also in this Epistle ( 1 Corinthians 5:12 ; 1 Corinthians 6:3 ; 1 Corinthians 10:7-11 ; 1 Corinthians 11:1-34 .; 12. , passim ). For similar strains of defence, see those of Moses and of Samuel.