(A) Introduction. (Read the reference)

This passage is about the whole church discipline of one man whose behaviour gave the fellowship at Corinth a bad name rather than how to react to an individual who has wronged you personally.

There is disagreement among commentators about the incident Paul was referring to.

(1) Some believe the man concerned opposed and, perhaps, even slandered Paul during his second visit to Corinth. This led to Paul insisting that the church discipline the offender - something the members were reluctant to do. So when Paul returned to Corinth he wrote a severe letter - the letter with tears - that has been lost. This led, belatedly, to the church taking action against the sinner.

(2) I take a different view. There were several who spoke ill of Paul. For example, there was a faction that said: In person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing. 2Cor10v10. Paul did not ask for these critics to be disciplined. It seems too much of a coincidence that there were two separate individuals in Corinth guilty of such immorality that Paul advocated their expulsion from the fellowship.

I believe that the man Paul is referring to is the one he condemns in his first epistle for having sex with his stepmother. See exposition on 1Cor5. Paul certainly told the Corinthians to discipline this man. He wrote: Expel the wicked man from among you. 2Cor5v2. It must have been very painful for Paul to write this of one of his converts.

Paul may have found on his second visit that the Corinthian hadn't done what he instructed. This is understandable. Many of us put off doing what we find distasteful and distressing. I have done so when it came to church discipline. However, after Paul exerted further pressure the church as a whole eventually took the necessary action.

(A) The trouble the sinner caused.

I don't find the NIV translation of verse 5 very helpful. The best reading is probably: But if anyone has caused pain he has caused it not to me - but in some measure - not to put it too severely - too you all.

This is a typical Pauline sentence. Paul was going to say: But if anyone has caused pain he has caused it not to me but to you all. But then he realises this is not entirely true so he breaks off mid sentence and admits: Well, perhaps, I had pain to some extent, not to put it too strongly ... .

The Living Bible conveys the sense quite well: Remember that the man I wrote about, who caused all the trouble, has not caused sorrow to me as much as to all the rest of you - though I certainly have my share in it too.

So there are three things to note:

(1) The trouble the immoral brother caused Paul.

He did so in three ways:

(a) Paul had to criticise the church members for their inaction. He was very scathing: And you are proud! Shouldn't you rather have been filled with grief and put out of your fellowship the man who did this. 1Cor5v2

I never found it very agreeable when, during my time as a teacher, I had to criticise a class for witnessing, but not reporting, an act of vandalism. There were always a few who did not deserve censuring amongst the majority. It is even more unpleasant when a leader has to rebuke his church. Some always deserve to be rebuked more than others but everyone comes, as it were, under the lash. This may cause some resentment among those who don't really deserve to be chastised.

(b) Paul had to advocate a course of action that the church as a whole was reluctant to implement. I've been in this position as a school teacher. Sometimes during morning briefing the staff had the opportunity to discuss a disruptive pupil. I might well suggest the sort of action I thought should be taken to discipline the pupil. This often did not go down well with the pastoral staff who had to deal with ill behaved children. They didn't want to take the action I proposed. They hated being boxed in. Their inclination was to adopt a 'softly, softly' approach. So I wasn't very popular with some of my colleagues!

The same thing happens in churches. The leaders might have to bring before the church someone whose behaviour necessitates disciplinary action. There are always going to be some members who don't want to be involved in this sort of thing - who take umbrage at being put in a situation where they do have to make a decision.

(c) The man who sinned brought Paul into conflict with the church at Corinth. Paul admitted he was more troubled by the churches' lack of disciplinary action than the sin of the adulterer. He wrote: The reason I wrote to you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. 2Cor2v8.

Paul had to wait to see if the Corinthians would obey him. It must have been a tense and anxious period for the apostle.

Again I had the same kind of experience as a teacher. Just occasionally I would report a pupil for persistent unacceptable behaviour. I might suggest to one of the pastoral staff what sort of action would be appropriate. I then had to wait to see if I would be backed up. It was always a trying time for me.

All church leaders who initiate disciplinary action against a person guilty of blatant immorality are in exactly the same position as Paul. The policy of the leaders may bring them into conflict with members of the church who don't want to take responsibility for a collective decision to punish. This hardly makes life easy for the leaders who probably found it profoundly disturbing to take the initiative at all.

Paul is much more concerned about the trouble the immoral brother caused the church than the wrong he did his father! Or so it seems. Paul wrote later in his second epistle: So even though I wrote to you, it was not on account of the one who did the wrong or of the injured party, but rather that before God you could see for yourselves how devoted to us you are. 2Cor7v12.

The sinning brother caused trouble to the church in four ways:

(a) By bringing the church into disrepute in the eyes of the world. Paul found it necessary to write: It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans. 1Cor5v1.

When any church member indulges in such behaviour the church must take action otherwise it must share the guilt.

(b) It brought Paul into conflict with the Corinthians because he strongly disapproved of their inaction. It is never pleasant to be criticised, to have our conduct questioned and to be found wanting in resolution and courage.

That is one of the problems that occurs in schools. A disruptive pupil damages himself, his classmates and also relationships between teachers who don't agree on how he should be handled.

Sadly this happens in churches. Someone who is difficult and causing trouble will create divisions among church members who cannot agree how the offender should be disciplined - if disciplined at all.

(c) By revealing divisions in the church. Paul insisted the whole church should agree to expel the immoral brother. In the end a majority of members voted to do this. A minority disagreed notwithstanding the seriousness of the man's offence.

Sadly this often the way when an erring brother or sister is disciplined. Some church members are incapable of acting dispassionately on the merits of the case. They may well let their personal attachment to the offender affect their judgment. This is particularly true of the family of the immoral brother. Family members may have the plank of bias in their eye.

It happens in schools. If the person in charge of whole school discipline likes a serial offender he or she might get away with blue murder. I knew a deputy head who would often say of a malcontent about whom I was complaining, "But I like him." As if that should make a blind bit of difference!

It shouldn't make any difference in the church either. I knew of a pastor who took a young Christian girl to task for marrying a non-Christian. All her family turned on him and he had a difficult time in the church. He didn't stay long.

(d) Because the action the church needed to take was distressing.

I found it very distressing on the few occasions it was necessary to expel a pupil from my class. No teacher wants to do this. Similarly no church wants to cut a sinner adrift. All Christians are sinners saved by grace anyway. Very often the only difference between the brother who needs disciplining and the rest of us is one of degree. This is particularly true of sexual sins. However, action must be taken against those guilty of the behaviour Paul lists: sexual immorality, greed, swindling, idolatry, slander and drunkenness. These problems still exist in churches. I know of fellowships where a member has been over familiar with the ladies, a fellow Christian has over charged for work done, a treasurer has misappropriated church funds, a couple persistently slander the leadership, the vicar is a hopeless alcoholic and factions idolise a version of the Bible. People guilty of this sort of behaviour have to be disciplined even if it causes trouble and grief to the leadership and the church as a whole.

(C) The disciplinary action was effective.

Paul wrote: The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him. 2Cor2v6. The severe action taken appears to have worked. The erring brother was sorry and repented.

The reasons the punishment was effective are:

(1) The man committed a sin that could be repented.

The immoral believer could stop having sex with his step mother.

All the gross sins on Paul's list can be stopped. The person who overcharges or misappropriates church funds can pay the money back, the faction obsessed with inessentials can grow up, the slanderer can desist and apologise publicly for the lies told and the drunk can attend AA.

One of the great problems for the church occurs when a Christian abandons a spouse, gets divorced and marries a new partner because in such circumstances there is no evidence of repentance. Adultery can be repented but not divorce and remarriage.

(2) The punishment was inflicted by the church as a whole.

The vast majority of the church members at Corinth agreed to expel the immoral brother. He couldn't complain that he was victimised by the leadership and that it was the elders who ganged up against him.

(3) There was only one church in Corinth.

Unlike today there was nowhere else in Corinth to go for Christian fellowship other than the one the sinner was expelled from.

In modern Britain it is a very different story. A great variety of churches exist in even a relatively small town like Bury St Edmunds. This means the exercise of discipline is rarely effective. The individuals concerned just go and worship somewhere else. There is always a price to be paid for disobeying Jesus. The chronic disunity evident among Protestants impacts upon church discipline.

(4) The erring brother felt his loss.

Paul acknowledged that the sinner was in danger of being overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 2Cor2v7.

This suggests that the man was a genuine Christian who had been led astray by a combination of sexual desire and the pernicious teaching that: "Everything is permissible for me." 1Cor6v12

The immoral brother's sorrow reflected well on the church at Corinth. The fellowship had much to offer. It was vibrant, vital and exciting. Sadly there are moribund churches in Britain from which it would be almost a relief to be ejected.

Any true believer would find it grim to be alone with no other genuine Christians with whom to have fellowship.

(D) The necessity of forgiveness.

(1) For the sinner.

Paul did not forget about the sinner expelled from the church. He did not consider that punishment was primarily for retribution but reformation. The little apostle did not want the adulterer cast adrift in the world to be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. Paul never stopped loving the man who had caused him grief. So he urged the church to forgive and comfort him .... to reaffirm your love for him. 2Cor2v7and8.

If the church forgave the man he would be invited back into fellowship. To comfort him the church would need to help the repentant sinner with his problems - guilt, shame, embarrassment and insecurity. The expelled member would need more than this. He would need people to talk to, some hugs, invitations to supper and a basket or two of fruit. Only love would provide these.

There are times when each of us needs to forgive or be forgiven. I can remember losing my temper once in a church meeting. I did apologise and felt bad about it. Next day Dorothy sent her husband round with a sponge!

A great deal is lost where an unforgiving attitude persists as this story illustrates:

A childhood accident caused poet Elizabeth Barrett to lead a life of semi-invalidism before she married Robert Browning in 1846. There's more to the story. In her youth, Elizabeth had been watched over by her tyrannical father. When she and Robert were married, their wedding was held in secret because of her father's disapproval. After the wedding the Brownings sailed for Italy, where they lived for the rest of their lives. But even though her parents had disowned her, Elizabeth never gave up on the relationship. Almost weekly she wrote them letters. Not once did they reply. After 10 years, she received a large box in the mail. Inside, Elizabeth found all of her letters; not one had been opened! Today those letters are among the most beautiful in classical English literature. Had her parents only read a few of them, their relationship with Elizabeth might have been restored. (Daily Walk, May 30, 1992.)

(2) For the church - including Paul himself.

Paul was very keen for the Corinthians to forgive the adulterer. He said he wrote to them in the first instance so that they would reciprocate his condemnation of the man's inappropriate sexual behaviour. The reason I wrote to you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. 2Cor2v9. But now he is prepared to reciprocate the churches' spirit of forgiveness. If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. v10. The Corinthians had done what Paul asked even though they found it difficult now they could welcome back the erring brother. Paul reassured them that there was no fear of him taking umbrage. He was all for the repentant sinner being welcomed back into the fold. He was particularly keen for this to happen in order that Satan might not outwit us. v11.

Satan can use an unforgiving spirit to:

(a) Forge a hard legalism. Some churches are quick to expel anyone who breaks their rules and usually there is no re-admittance. Habitual action of this kind will undoubtedly produce the unlovely legalism displayed by the Pharisees at the time of Christ.

(b) Produce a festering spirit of disunity. If a church expels a member there should be a concerted, collective effort to forgive if the member repents. If disagreements persist for too long over whether an immoral believer should be readmitted and the subject is raked over again and again it will lead to a sick, disunited fellowship.

Sen. Mark Hatfield recounts the following history: James Garfield was a lay preacher and principal of his denominational college. They say he was ambidextrous and could simultaneously write Greek, with one hand and Latin with the other.

In l880, he was elected president of the United States, but after only six months in office, he was shot in the back with a revolver. He never lost consciousness. At the hospital, the doctor probed the wound with his little finger to seek the bullet. He couldn't find it, so he tried a silver-tipped probe. Still he couldn't locate the bullet.

They took Garfield back to Washington, D.C. Despite the summer heat, they tried to keep him comfortable. He was growing very weak. Teams of doctors tried to locate the bullet, probing the wound over and over. In desperation they asked Alexander Graham Bell, who was working on a little device called the telephone, to see if he could locate the metal inside the president's body. He came, he sought, and he too failed. The president hung on through July, through August, but in September he finally died-not from the wound, but from infection. The repeated probing, which the physicians thought would help the man, eventually, killed him. (Roger Thompson)

This is what happens when church members cannot leave a wound alone! The church sickens and can even die.

(c) Create a self-righteous spirit. Some pastors believe that they have a mandate to cleanse a church. They conceive it their duty to purge the church of worldly or doctrinally unsound members. Leaders of this ilk expel long-standing believers not in order to produce repentance but to get rid of people they disapprove of or disagree with.

(d) Give a church a reputation for being uncaring. If a church permanently excludes certain categories of sinner: unmarried mothers, men or women who marry non-Christians, gamblers or the loud and uncouth who swear a lot they will acquire a reputation for being uncaring, lacking grace and not really trying to seek and save the lost.

Paul wrote: I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake. It is not really clear what Paul meant by this. He probably wished to stress that he had forgiven the sinner all the trouble he had caused by Christ's authority. We can be in no doubt that Jesus and God the Father expect us to have a forgiving spirit.

When Peter asked Jesus: "Lord how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times." Mt18v21and22.

Christianity is founded upon God's grace - his willingness to forgive sinners who trust in his Son's redeeming work at Calvary.

In, 'A Forgiving God in an Unforgiving World', Ron Lee Davis retells the true story of a priest in the Philippines, a much- loved man of God who carried the burden of a secret sin he had committed many years before. He had repented but still had no peace, no sense of God's forgiveness.

In his parish was a woman who deeply loved God and who claimed to have visions in which she spoke with Christ and he with her. The priest, however, was sceptical. To test her he said, "The next time you speak with Christ, I want you to ask him what sin your priest committed while he was in the seminary." The woman agreed. A few days later the priest asked, "Well, did Christ visit you in your dreams?"

"Yes, he did," she replied.

"And did you ask him what sin I committed in seminary?"

"Yes."

"Well, what did he say?"

"He said, 'I don't remember!'"

What God forgives, He forgets.

If God forgives and forgets our sins we should forgive and forget the sins against us.

Acknowledgement: Some illustrations found on Christian Globe.