I think we all have that one time that is etched into our minds of when we were disciplined as a kid. For other of us, they kind of all blur together because there was so many of them. My earliest memory of being disciplined was around five years old. I don’t remember exactly what I did, but I do remember the leather strap that my dad used to sharpen his razor blades. It’s a memory in a sea of memories that that included such disciplinary devices such as hands, shoes, belts, spoons, and I’m sure even more household items that I have blocked from my memory.
In those moments of discipline, they seemed to be a punishment for wrong acts. Yet looking back on it, I realize that my parents’ discipline were actually loving acts to correct the wrong choices I had made. And that’s what discipline is, corrective loving acts who’s purpose is to bring about good outcomes.
And it’s this idea of this type of discipline that brings us to our fourth week in our summer series, where we’ll be picking it back up in 2nd Corinthians chapter 2, verse 5. And as we pick back up in 2nd Corinthians 2:5, let’s look at our first three weeks.
In our first week we looked at Paul’s opening greeting, and the joy he had for the restoration of the Corinthian Church. This is because, his last visit and last letter, were not a happy time in his life.
It’s the unhappiness that we talked about the next two weeks. Though it was a painful situation with the Corinthians that Paul didn’t want to happen, by him confronting the situation in a godly way, Paul showed how the least harsh route in dealing with such a situation can lead to both God’s comfort and Christian restoration. Because in this life we will always experience troubling situations, and so, God calls us to face them in his strength, by his wisdom, and by doing so, we can experience his peace through it all. It’s this very thing that Paul rejoices about in his greeting.
It’s from this place of Paul’s rejoicing in restoration, that we now turn to 2nd Corinthians 2:5-11. Let’s read together.
5 Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure—not to put it too severely—to all of you. 6 For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, 7 so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. 9 For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. 10 Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, 11 so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.
In these seven verses, Paul speaks of the restoration of an individual. In the past, I have to confess, that I have misinterpreted these verses. Before I sat down and began to really analyze 2nd Corinthians, I read these verses in light of 1st Corinthians. In chapter 5 of that letter, a man within the Church body is being sexually immoral. It’s Paul’s counsel to that he be removed from the Church community, “so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord (1 Corinthians 5:5b).” When reading that passage and then this one, I always assumed that Paul was seeking to restore that man. But he’s not. The person spoken about in 2nd Corinthians, is not the same as the one that is spoken about in 1st Corinthians.
We know that Paul had a painful experience on his last visit to Corinth; an experience so bad, that he wrote a now lost letter where he laid out all that pain. We know that letter led to the Corinthians repenting and from that repentance, we have this letter. Paul now is bringing up the man who set all of this pain into motion. But Paul underscores something about that man here. Paul states, “Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me…but…to all of you (v.5).” This man’s actions, that led to Paul writing his painful letter, was not the cause of Paul’s pain, but rather caused the pain of broken relationship between Paul and the Church. In this letter Paul reveals that it wasn’t the man, but the lack of support from the Church itself that caused the pain. This man’s actions sent a wedge between Paul and the congregation, but it’s the inaction of the Church itself and not the man, that Paul points to as the source of the hurt. So Paul reveals that the man has pained the Corinthians, and not him, because there own inaction has brought about the rebuke and correction from Paul.
And yet, Paul’s goal is always restoration. It’s implied through Paul’s writing here, that the Church finally took action and dealt with the man. Yet Paul speaks of forgiveness and comfort for this person. Though this man has caused pain and division, Paul doesn’t want an overcorrection on their part. Paul doesn’t want an excess of sorrow in their disciplinary action. So Paul calls on the Church to reaffirm their love for the man.
Paul wrote to them to see if they would indeed seek godly discipline and wake up to their own sinful inaction. They did! So now, he wants to curtail their discipline so that they would not then fall to Satan’s designs of destroying Jesus’ Church. So Paul calls on the Church to forgive, letting them know, he personally has already forgiven the man. In taking this approach, Paul is helping the Corinthians in their faith and administrative duties in Jesus’ body.
It’s fulfilling what Paul said in verse 24 of the 1st chapter. “Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.” In the case of this man, Paul is working with them to bring about a loving and disciplined congregation.
This is an important seven verses, because it helps us see the word of Jesus from Matthew 18 in practice. In Matthew 18:15-17, Jesus sets out a way for us to deal with sin between our brothers and sisters within the Church. It seems so simple as Jesus teaches that, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
It seems so simple, but what we see in 2nd Corinthians is how hard it can be, when the rubber meets the road. And when we re-read Jesus’ words in Matthew 18, with 2nd Corinthians, we can see how muddy that painful that process can be.
If a brother or sister sins against us, we would hope that we could easily approach them and tell them how we’ve been hurt, and they would ask for forgiveness and we could all move forward. But, what if they don’t recognize their fault? Then more people have to get involved, and if that does’t fix it, then the whole Church has to get involved. If that doesn’t fix it, then they are not to be part of the Church body.
But what if it’s Paul’s case? It was the whole Church body that had committed the sin? How does Jesus’ words in Matthew 18 work then? Church discipline, whether that be on a small scale of two people working out an issue, or on a larger scale that involves everyone, it’s not a fun situation to be in.
A few years ago, we hired a guy to be our youth pastor. Through the process everything looked good. A few background checks were performed, and came back clean. The congregation was for it. And other than a feeling of uneasiness with the wife, due to it being a hard ministry for people so far from home, we moved forward with hiring him.
About a month after the couple moved into the parsonage, on the way up to Kingman for an Alliance Pastor meet up, I received a phone call. A disciplinary action from the district against the young man had been enacted. A letter had been sent to the district, that the young man we just hired, and sexually touched a young boy several years earlier.
It wasn’t a phone call that I wanted or was prepared to receive. When I got back to Quartzsite, I immediately met with the elders, and then with the couple. They were suspended from all ministerial duties and we had to address the situation with the church body.
If you were here when that happen it wasn’t fun, nobody was happy about it. And the worse part of it all, was that in the type of situation that occurred, unless one party confessed that they either made it up, or that it did happen, there most likely would never be a conclusive end to the situation. There would always be that question, did he?
But from the start, I thank our elders that their mindset was that of truth, healing, and restoration. Because, like Paul told the Corinthians, we don’t want to be outwitted by Satan; we don’t want to be ignorant of his designs. Satan desires that the body of Christ be hampered in any way possible. So he finds any chink in the armor and uses it to bring affliction.
And if we bow to the pain of the affliction, if we try to sweep the problem under the rug, or if we over discipline to the point of the destruction of people, we fall prey to those designs. Restoration, forgiveness, mended relationships should always be the goal of the Church.
Handing out grace, as much as possible, needs to be the end goal of a disciplinary action that we have to take when situations such as these come about.
I saw, when our congregation went through our split back in 2013, how much was done without grace. There were individuals who sought reconciliation, but there was a large group that didn’t. And the pain it brought continued for years. There has been some healing since then, but it took a while’s and not all of that situation is resolved even today.
Paul is encouraging the Corinthians to not go to far in their discipling as to give Satan another place to work. But rather to bring about forgiveness and restoration. But this type of restoring work can only come from a place of personal acknowledgement of our own sin.
Early in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 7, verse 5, Jesus states this, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.” Jesus’ teaching on judgment starts with ourselves. We must recognize our own motivation before we move forward in correction. If our motivation is from a sinful place, restoration becomes a jagged rock face that we cut ourselves on trying to overcome it. But if we go before the Lord and seek him to open our eyes to our own fault, we can then move forward in correct judgment.
Jesus states three verses earlier, “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you (Matthew 7:2).” When we move forward in correction, in discipline, in judgment, we must temper ourselves with restoration in mind. Because if we judge from a place of vengeance or wrath, the uphill march to restoration, will be hampered by our own sinfulness. And in the end, we will be judged by our own gracelessness.
God is calling us to restorative work. Paul is showing us how to do this work. God desires that we are confront pain, in the least harshest way we can, all the while working with the intention of restoration. If we’re approaching the harmful situations we encounter with this three step approach, we will see more restored relationships, and less long terms hurts. This will then lead us into greater Gospel work, as we’ll see from Paul in the weeks to come.
So my challenge for you this week is two-fold. First, go before the Lord and ask if there is anything in you that is keeping you from restorative work. It could be a past hurt that needs to be forgiven. Or it could be a sin that needs to be confessed. Second, if you’re dealing with a bad situation, seek the Lord in approaching it as Paul did; confronting the problem, seeking the least harsh approach, and faithfully desiring that the relationship would be restored.
It starts with calling out to God just like David did in Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
Let us be a people of restorative work, that the world would say of us, that they sought the grace and peace of their Lord in all things. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment