5 But if anyone has caused sadness, he has not saddened me alone, but to some extent (not to exaggerate) he has saddened all of you as well. 6 This punishment on such an individual by the majority is enough for him, 7 so that now instead you should rather forgive and comfort him. This will keep him from being overwhelmed by excessive grief to the point of despair. 8 Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. 9 For this reason also I wrote you: to test you to see if you are obedient in everything. 10 If you forgive anyone for anything, I also forgive him—for indeed what I have forgiven (if I have forgiven anything) I did so for you in the presence of Christ, 11 so that we may not be exploited by Satan (for we are not ignorant of his schemes).

REFLECTIONS

Written by Daniel Chew

How would you respond to a fellow believer whose sin caused serious harm to your whole church? Would you say something about it publicly? Exclude them? And if they repented—could you forgive them? Could you welcome them back with open arms, or would you try to avoid them?

These are some of the tricky issues Paul addresses in our passage today. We don’t know the exact cause of Paul and the Corinthians' sadness, but we do know that someone within the Corinthian church sinned so seriously that it hurt the community and strained Paul’s relationship with the whole church. After facing some punishment—probably being excluded from the fellowship—this person repented. Now the challenge was how the church would respond to the person’s repentance.

If the Corinthians followed the "wisdom" of modern Australian morality, they might say: "Keep excluding him! Cancel him! He wronged us, so he deserves it." That’s the problem with modern morality. It has no place for grace, mercy, and forgiveness. It doesn’t acknowledge how messy and broken we all are, nor does it like to admit that every one of us has the potential to do great harm because of our sinful hearts.

But the beauty of the gospel is that it reveals how messy we truly are, yet also teaches that God forgives us in Christ. Because of this, we can forgive others who are just as broken as we are. Paul urges the Corinthians to forgive, to reaffirm their love for this person—not keeping him distant as a threat, but welcoming him back as a brother.

Our world struggles to genuinely forgive. Don’t look to the world’s standards to learn about forgiveness—that’s exactly what Satan wants. Instead, look to how Christ has forgiven you. Is there someone you need to extend that forgiveness to today?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniel is one of our student ministers.