>> Jen: Howdy, and good morning, friends and faithful listeners, and welcome to the Bible Explained podcast, where we're going to be talking about the subject of church discipline today. So stay tuned for that. You might be able to tell, but I have a pretty bad cold right now. And, uh, it's just, you know, I'm getting sick, like, every two months. That's not even a joke. I got sick in November. I got sick in September. I got sick in June. Like, I've been sick with a cold
every two months. I don't know why I'm getting so many freaking colds, but it's driving me nuts. I hate them so much. So if you could pray for me. I think my immune system is, like, compromised this entire year. You know, just with, like, all the stomach things and, uh, the, um, colds that I'm experiencing and just the
other various weird stuff going on. It's either because I'm around teenagers a lot more and so I'm just getting sick and my immune system is, like, building up the immunities that it should, or my immune system is extremely compromised. I don't know. But I'm really hoping I can get past all of these colds and live a more normal life. Let's go ahead and read Second Corinthians, chapter 2:1 through 11.
And this will be talking about church discipline and when church discipline is enough, when we should accept people back in to the church. I'll be reading this today out, uh, of the Web. Grab your cup of coffee or your cup of tea or your cup of water, which is what I'm drinking today. And let's go ahead and enjoy reading God's Word together. But I determined this for myself, that I would not come to
you again in sorrow. For if I make you grieve, then, then who will make me glad, but he who is made to grieve by me. And I wrote this very thing to you, so that when I came, I wouldn't have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice, having confidence in you all, that my joy would be shared by all of you. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote to you with many tears, not that you should be made to grieve, but that you might know the love that I have so abundantly for
you. But if any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not to me, but in part, that I not press too heavily to you. All this punishment, which was inflicted by many is sufficient for such a one. So that, on the contrary, you should rather Forgive him and comfort him, lest by any means such a one would be swallowed up with his excessive sorrow. Therefore, I beg you to confirm your love toward him. For to this end I also wrote that I might know the proof of you whether you are
obedient in all things. Now I also forgive whomever you forgive anything. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, that no advantage may be gained over us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes. Verse 1 says, I determined this for myself that I would not come to you again in sorrow. We know that the first time that Paul visited the Corinthian Church after he founded the church, he
did not have a very good visit. It was filled with a lot of conflict. Probably there were some people questioning and confronting Paul on various issues. And not to mention, Paul had finished writing the letter of First Corinthians to the church of Corinth, and he had a lot of negative things to say in that letter. So when he went to go visit the church in Corinth on his way up to Upper Greece, he did not have a very good visit. So then when he came back down, he decided to bypass the church of
Corinth completely. And now he's explaining exactly why he did this. He says, I didn't want to come to you guys again in sorrow because I already had a bad visit with you guys last time. And I don't want you to think that I don't love you. I do love you, but one of the reasons I am, um, disciplining you in this way is because I love you. But I don't want to keep on disciplining over and over and over again. So I'd rather come to you in joy and write these
letters to you for guidance. He says, for if I make you grieve, then who will make me glad but he who is made to grieve by me? So in other words, even Paul was thinking about himself. He's like, another reason I didn't want to go and visit you guys is because I, I want to be proud and joyful of you. And yet every time I come to see the church, I am, um, saddened by something I hear about or I see. He says, uh, for my own well being, I also want to come
to you in joy. Verse 3. I write this very thing to you so that when I came I wouldn't have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice, having confidence in you all that my joy would be shared by all of you. So there we go. Paul says, I shouldn't be sorrowing in you guys. I should be rejoicing because you are a church that I founded. You are doing great things for God. You are spreading the gospel to Corinth, a city of
evil, basically. And so I should be happy when I come to visit you, not filled with sadness and sorrow every single time. He says I should be joyful. And in fact, he says he has confidence in them that eventually he will be joyful and his joy will be shared by the entire church. So Paul is saying, I do think you guys went off the wrong path. But I think and believe that through God's grace and God's power,
you're going to correct it. And eventually I'll be able to share in that joy with you all again. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote to you with many tears, not that you should be made to grieve, but that you might know the love I have so abundantly for you. So there we go. Paul wrote the Corinthians a very sad letter. And it was most likely not First Corinthians.
It was likely a letter that we don't have that was lost to history, because there's a lot of scriptural evidence for this particular letter. And it was a very harsh letter that Paul wrote to them. Paul says, it didn't make me happy to write those things to you. In fact, I was crying as I wrote it down. He said, I had much affliction and anguish of heart, and I wrote
to you with many tears. And Paul says, not to make you guys angry or to grieve or to make you feel guilty or stress you out, but to show you how much I love you through this discipline. And actually, discipline is a sign of love because the people who care enough to discipline you or to correct you do it usually out of love for you. There's actually a proverb that talks about parents disciplining their children. This is Proverbs 13, verse 24. It says, out, uh, of the
NIV. Whoever spares the rod hates their child, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them. So in other words, parents who don't care about their children are going to be the ones that never discipline them. But the parents who care about their children and love their children are going to be an active presence in their lives and discipline them and correct them until that child leaves the nest.
Basically, if you've ever listened to Jordan Peterson, he is a psychologist that talks a lot about disciplining children and how good it actually is for children to be disciplined. Nobody likes a spoiled child, but people love being around children who are fun and obedient and just nice kids to be around. So for the well being of your child to be accepted by their peers, it's actually very important for a
parent to discipline their children. And then Also Hebrews chapter 12 talks about God loving us and disciplining us. Hebrews 12:58 says, My son, don't take lightly the chastening of the LORD, nor faint when you are reproved by him for whom the LORD loves. He disciplines and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his
father doesn't discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then you are illegitimate and not children. So in other words, every single child that God has, that God has adopted, he will discipline those children. So that means if you are a Christian, God is going to discipline you. Sometimes God disciplines the people he loves, just as a loving father will discipline his children for the
well being of that child. And so Paul says here, you know, he didn't write this letter to just abuse the people of Corinth or to discourage them or anything like that. He wrote this letter out of love for them. And it was hard for him to discipline them in this way, but he was doing it genuinely from a heart of love so that this church could be a better church in the future once they accept experience this discipline. He says, I wanted to do this, not to cause you
sorrow. And then verse 5, but if any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow. In this verse, Paul is mentioning an unnamed person. He just calls this person he. If any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow. And we don't know who this person was, we don't know what he did. But we know whoever this person was, he was a member of the church of Corinth and he caused some sort of trouble. Whether he sinned in some way, or it could be that this was a man that caused Paul himself
a lot of damage, a lot of harm. Last time Paul came to visit the Corinthian Church because as we know, Paul experienced a lot of people backstabbing him, saying that he was an illegitimate apostle, just saying some really nasty things about him as we addressed in 1
Corinthians. And perhaps this man that Paul is addressing here was part of that or head of that in some way or it could be that this unnamed man is the same man mentioned in First Corinthians 5 who was living in an incestuous relationship with his stepmother, which is real nasty. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 5 and read that part. First Corinthians 5:1:5. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as not even named
among the Gentiles. That one has his father's wife. You are arrogant and didn't mourn instead that he who had done this deed
might be removed from among you. For I most certainly, as being absent in body, but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has done this thing in the name of our LORD Jesus Christ, you, being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our LORD Jesus Christ, are, uh, to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of flesh, that the Spirit may be saved
in the day of the LORD Jesus. So Paul recommends that this man, who was living in a sexual relationship with his stepmother, be removed from the congregation because he was not living as a Christian lives. In fact, Paul even says here, this man was living even worse than a pagan was living. Even the pagans didn't sleep with their stepmothers. It's just a nasty thing to do. And yet the Corinthian Church was not removing this man. Even though it was a public sin that this man was doing. They
weren't correcting him in any way. And so this was one of the things that Paul had to correct in this letter to the. To the Corinthian Church. If you research this in any depth, you'll definitely hear some arguments that this was the same man that Paul is discussing in 2nd Corinthians 2. But I personally don't think it was, because Paul does kind of insinuate in 2 Corinthians 2 that this man, whoever he was, had done some damage to Paul himself,
that he had caused some sorrow. And also Paul mentions that he forgave this man. Now, why would Paul, uh, need to forgive somebody who didn't sin against him, as in the case of the man in First Corinthians 5 that was sleeping with his stepmother. That was not a sin against Paul. Paul wouldn't have to forgive that man. That would be the job of the Church to deal with that and also of God to forgive that man. But Paul insinuates in 2 Corinthians 2 that this particular unnamed man has caused
sorrow, verse 5. If any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not to me, but in part that I press not too heavily to you. All this punishment which was inflicted by the many is sufficient for such a one, so that, on the contrary, you should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest by any means such a one should be swallowed up with his excessive sorrow. Therefore, I beg you to confirm your love toward him. Let me read that
actually out of the NLT version. I love the web, don't get me wrong, but because it's in older English, sometimes it's harder to understand. Reading this out of the NLT, verses 5 through 8, I am not overstating it when I say that the man who caused all the trouble hurt all of you more than he hurt me. Most of you opposed him, and that was punishment enough. Now, however, it is time to forgive and comfort him. Otherwise he may be overcome by discouragement.
So I urge you now to reaffirm your love for him. So the NLT does a little bit better in translating, I guess, Paul's involvement in that. That yes, this man actually did hurt Paul in some particular way. Paul basically has forgiven this man already because he's not telling the church to continue the punishment for this man, even though Paul basically could have and would have probably gotten away with it. Instead he's saying, show your love for this man. Yes,
he sinned. Yes, he hurt me, and he probably hurt you all worse than he hurt me. But show your love for him because he's had punishment enough, so accept him back, because if you don't, he might actually be overcome by excessive sorrow or excessive discouragement, is what Paul says. So likely this man was repentant over what he had done.
And it's possible the Corinthian Church was not forgiving this man fully, not really accepting him back as a member of the church and just continuing the punishment of this man. Paul says it's enough. Let him back in. I know there's a lot of churches out there that take church discipline far further than they should. I grew up in a church like that. Actually, my family got kicked out of the church for questioning the pastor over something. And so did another family friend of
ours. They also got kicked out of the church, and they got kicked out first. So my mom actually stood up for that family and asked the pastor, like, where does it say in the Bible to kick somebody out of the church who is like, repentant over sins? And the pastor had no answer for my mom, so he just kicked her out also. And so my childhood church that I grew up in, with all of My friends, suddenly that was just taken away from me, and I
had no more friends. And that was a very hard thing for me at, uh, 12 years old to go through because I was homeschooled at the time as well. And so all of my friends were in the church. So suddenly I go from having friends in the church to having no friends whatsoever. And that was very difficult for me. That was excessive, and it probably shouldn't have happened in both cases, both my family's case and also the friends that we have that also got
kicked out. Sometimes churches will take church discipline way too far. And so Paul is saying here, don't take church discipline way too far. If this man is sad over what he did, let him back in, forgive him and comfort him. Show your love for him. Is what what he says in verse 8. Therefore, I beg you to confirm your love toward him. The church is supposed to be loving in every single thing that they do. That includes with church discipline. Sometimes church
discipline is absolutely necessary. In fact, Jesus talks about it in Matthew, chapter 18, verses 15 through 20. This is Jesus speaking. If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained back your brother. But if he doesn't listen, take one or two more with you. That at the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. But if he refuses to listen to
them, tell it to the assembly. If he refuses to hear the assembly, also let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector, most certainly. I tell you, whatever things you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever things you release on earth will be released in heaven. And again, assuredly I tell you that if two will agree on the earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there
I am in the middle of them. So Jesus talks about church discipline there, and he says there's an order to church discipline. You don't just kick somebody out. The pastor has no authority to do that. It has to be done in the proper way, where you're bringing several witnesses together, you're talking to this individual about what they did wrong and how they hurt a member of the church. And you do this multiple times before you actually kick this
person out of the church. But then even once they're kicked out of the church, if they repent, then you let them back in and you show your love for for them. In fact, continuing on in Matthew chapter 18 with Jesus, right after he's finished talking about church discipline, here's what he says to Peter, literally the verses afterward. Then Peter came up to him and said, lord, how often should my brother sin against me and I forgive
him until seven times. And Jesus said to him, I don't tell you until seven times, but until 70 times seven. So church discipline should not be the norm. In other words, Jesus tells us to forgive and to show love first before trying to get somebody kicked out of the church. Everything has to be done with love in the church. And unfortunately, not a lot of churches follow this model for church discipline. And I'm sure there are some churches out there that do.
But overall, not a lot of churches follow this model that Jesus lays out and it causes a lot of issues. But going back to our portion for today, 2 Corinthians 2, it seems that the Corinthian church did enact correct church discipline. But the one way they were wrong was that they didn't accept the man back in once he had actually said he was sorry and truly showed his sorrow over what he had done. Paul says, accept him back in and show your love
toward him. For to this end, I also wrote that I might know the proof, uh, of whether you are obedient in all things. Now, I also forgive whomever you forgive anything for if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ. So there you go. Paul says he already forgave that person for the sake of the church. But in the future, if the church forgives somebody for any sin, Paul says, I will also forgive that particular
person for that sin. But then Paul ends with a warning. He says forgiveness is necessary so that no advantage may be gained over us by satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes. satan's prime goal right now is to destroy the church in any single way that he can, whether it's through petty little disagreements or something much bigger. satan's goal is to cause disunity in the church. So the church should be doing everything they possibly can to be
unified. Because a strong church is the enemy of satan. A strong church will just constantly be bringing people closer to God all the time. And so because satan hates God, he wants to make sure that the church is always divided. So Paul says another way to make sure the church is not divided is by A doing church discipline the right way. Not just kicking people out willy nilly, but doing church discipline the right way.
But then B, once you enact church discipline, you accept that person back in and you show them love because they're still a child of Christ, even though they sinned in a really big way and got kicked out of the church. And it takes a lot to kick somebody out of the church. As Jesus mentioned in Matthew 18, there's a lot of steps to go through.
But even though somebody sinned to that capacity to get kicked out of a church, once they show that they are sad and they are ready to be accepted again, you accept them back again. But to conclude, I want to bring all of this back to us because, um, I'm talking in a very broad sense about the whole church, basically. But we're just one individual in our church, so how can we live this out? Well, first and foremost, we can forgive people. People who have done hurt to us. We can
forgive them. It's easier said than done. But the second thing we do. This is going to sound really cliche, but we bloom where we're planted. If God is keeping you in a church, even though some people are difficult to be around in that church, or you're having some sort of problem where somebody insulted you or something along those lines, if God placed you in that church, you stay in that church, you bloom where you're
planted. And you do what you can while you're in that church, God will move you away from bad churches. He will. You'll know when it's time to go. But if God places you in a church and you have irritations here and there, you don't just run away to the next church down the street. You stay where you're called. But that's only in the case of churches that aren't, you know, doing damage to you and your family or, you know, spreading some sort of fake gospel or something like
that. These are just, uh, ordinary, everyday irritations that you will experience at any church that you go to. You bloom where you're planted. But faithful listeners, I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. I hope that it was helpful for all of you guys. But I'm gonna let you all go with a happy listening and God bless, because my throat is killing me and, uh, I am ready to be done. So, faithful listeners, I'll see you all tomorrow, 6am or whenever you choose to wake up
and listen. Happy listening and God bless.