We do not know how the first letter to the Christians in Corinth was received, or whether Paul paid the visit he promised them. Acts is silent on these questions, and our next letter from the correspondence is so taken up with more recent matters that the questions raised in 1 Corinthians are barely referred to. Indeed, after that letter was written, Paul's relations with the Corinthian church evidently went through a difficult period. Some member of the church had committed a serious offence, and the Corinthians had failed to punish it in the way demanded by Paul. This had led to a direct challenge to Paul's authority; and Paul, fearing that a personal visit from himself at such a juncture might merely cause pain and embarrassment, sent a stern letter by the hand of Titus; but he was not at all sure how this would be received, and he spent an anxious period of waiting, unable even to carry on with his missionary work in northern Greece, until Titus eventually rejoined him with the news that the Corinthians had yielded to his authority.

Paul's side of this story is told in the course of the first two chapters and in part of chapter 7 of 2 Corinthians. At the end of his account of it he frankly expresses his relief at the way things have turned out, and his tone is as cordial as anywhere in his letters.