Dwell in the Word: 2 Corinthains 2:5-11
Contemplate these questions as you dwell in 2 Corinthians 2:5-11:
1. The concept of church discipline can be challenging in today's context. How can the biblical principle of addressing wrongdoing within a community while affirming love and aiming for reconciliation be applied in modern church settings, considering the complexities of individual freedom and differing cultural perceptions of discipline?
2. Forgiveness and reconciliation are highlighted in Paul's message. How can the act of forgiveness, even amidst wrongdoing, safeguard individuals and the community against the potential schemes of temptation and division? How does the refusal to forgive create a vulnerability that Satan can exploit?
3. The passage stresses the importance of avoiding ignorance concerning Satan's tactics. How can a conscious understanding of Satan's strategies empower believers to cultivate a culture of forgiveness and grace within their Christian communities? In what practical ways can this awareness be applied in everyday interactions and relationships?
Transcript:
As I said, we're just looking at a short passage today, but I kept it short when I was reading through deciding how to break this down, because I think it's an important thing that we talk about. Now, obviously all of scripture is important, but forgiveness is a big thing. And as we think about this, we see here.
Why church discipline is important and, you know, in our modern day, we really don't see church discipline that much because we have this concern that if we do too much to confront people with issues, well, they're just going to drive to another church. We have good cars. Um, good roads. There's another church down the street, across the road, and so we don't address church discipline very often.
Well, not too long back, well I guess it is a while back now, it was probably three years ago, I happened to be at a church service at the prison. In Sioux Falls, Cornerstone Prison Church, a Christian Reformed Church, for those of you who don't know the story of Cornerstone, and while we were there worshiping, which we do on a relatively regular basis, we go, myself and one of our elders from our church go, and there was a reinstatement service for someone who had been excommunicated from that congregation.
They had done something, they were removed because they, at the time, they were obviously unrepentant, so they had excommunicated them from the church, and then they came back, they had asked for forgiveness, they repented, and so they were reinstated into the church, and I immediately thought, boy, you don't ever see that.
This will probably be the only time I ever see a reinstatement like that or an excommunication because where else was he going to go to church, right? And that really has caused me to think a lot about what church discipline is. The goal of church discipline is not to excommunicate people. The goal of church discipline is to bring them to repentance to bring them back in. The goal is not to bring the hammer on them. The goal is to affirm our love for them and wanting them to turn from their sin and that's what we see here. Is it not? Verse six for such a one this punishment by the majority is enough Paul is saying You know, you have had a punishment for this person who was in sin. That's enough. You don't want them to have excessive sorrow. You don't want them to turn away from the faith completely because you keep on beating them over the head with this.
Instead, what does Paul say? He says, Reaffirm your love for this person. And so, that is what we need to think about. Now, like I said, it's very rare that you would see an excommunication and a reinstatement in modern church, but at the same time we are wronged by our brothers and sisters on a regular basis.
We need to Look at what Paul is saying here, and we need to reaffirm our love for them. We need to forgive. We need to do as Jesus said, turn the other cheek. We need to be desiring to forgive those. And in hopes, first off, because you and I will be the ones who will wrong other people too. We are not innocent in this.
And so, we need to be doing this in hopes that they will also show us the same love. That they will forgive us when we fail. And that we would be convicted by the Spirit and we would repent of the sin we have committed, the wrong that we have done to others, and we would be brought back in. That is important.
And we see why at the end of this passage that we've read today, don't we? Verse 11, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan. Notice the idea of, of holding on to this, not forgiving somebody. Paul is suggesting that this is used by Satan and we know that it is think about how you've Harbored things in your heart against someone who's wronged you it probably is the reason that your relationship has never been the same right?
Satan uses these are these things. It's a major temp major temptation because there's an easy justification when we are wronged to wrong someone else. It's really easy to say they have done this to me I am going to separate ties from them or I am going to do such and such back But but we need to be aware of this for notice what it says for we are not ignorant of his designs and so we need to understand that forgiveness is a huge part of how we resist temptation because Like I said when we're wrong that gives us Like, we feel, we feel it gives us permission to do something back, but that is used by Satan.
We need to not be ignorant of the designs of Satan's and instead, we need to have hearts of forgiveness. We need to remember that we are all people who sin. We are all people who needed grace. We needed Christ's salvation. That's what brought us into the church in the first place, did it not? And so, we need to remember that grace that has first been shown to us, and we need to remember that it is so important that we show it to others, because as Paul says here, this can be used to tempt us once again.
So may we not be ignorant of the designs of Satan, but instead, let us have forgiving hearts that we might bring glory to God in how we love one another.
