To Err Is Human

Recap Discomfort in Correction

We continue in our series on the early church. Last week we looked at the fact that Paul is seeing his delay to coming to Corinth as a blessing. It is beneficial for them because they will have more time to work through their anger at Paul for calling them out. Paul knows it is good for him because when he finally arrives, the visit will be joyous rather than him having to come in and correct them for their poor behavior. Time can heal a lot of wounds and iron out wrinkles in relationships. I know this to be true in my life. At one point, when I was onboard the Cole, I was standing watch in Combat Systems Maintenance Central. A Sailor from the Weapons department had messed up the aloft chit in a major way. Rather than owning up to it, he tried to justify his actions and blame my division for his faux pas. I was briefing the Weapons Department head when I heard the guy running his mouth, I stopped my communication with WEPS and proceeded to correct that Sailor on the spot. He did not appreciate it and he did everything he could to avoid me for my remaining time onboard. Fast forward four years later and he and I are at a wedding for one of our buddies. All that hostility was gone and we had a great time and we have since become friends on Facebook.

When it comes to correction, we must be willing to accept it. At the end of the day, the only person responsible for our sin is ourselves. We have no one else to blame. We cannot blame God, we cannot blame the enemy, we cannot blame society. We are the ones that have to commit to doing the sin ourselves, no one can force us to. So when we receive correction, rather than being mad at the person giving correction, we should be mad at ourselves.

On the other side of the coin, when we are giving correction, it must be done with gentle words and love in our hearts. Further, when we correct people, we must not place more condemnation on their sin than we place on our own. We should always keep in mind that every last one of us is sinful. There is no such thing as a good Christian. Instead, we are just a bunch of beggars, running around and telling other beggars where to find bread. We have no right to get a “holier than thou” attitude with others. There is only One that is holy and good and that is Jesus Christ.

Today we are going to look at part of the issue there in Corinth. There is a problem of forgiveness. So before we get started, I want us to ask ourselves a question.

Do we forgive and forget? Or do we forgive with our mouths, but hold onto resentment?

If you have your Bibles, please turn them to 2 Corinthians 2:5–11

2 Corinthians 2:5–11 CSB

If anyone has caused pain, he has caused pain not so much to me but to some degree—not to exaggerate—to all of you. This punishment by the majority is sufficient for that person. As a result, you should instead forgive and comfort him. Otherwise, he may be overwhelmed by excessive grief. Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love to him. I wrote for this purpose: to test your character to see if you are obedient in everything. Anyone you forgive, I do too. For what I have forgiven—if I have forgiven anything—it is for your benefit in the presence of Christ, so that we may not be taken advantage of by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his schemes.

Paul goes in here to remind them why he was so harsh toward the individual that was embroiled in sin. The man’s sin was not going to cause him harm, he was far off at that point. Instead, this sin could have caused problems for the entire church there in Corinth. The question is “why”? Why would the sin of one person wind up being problematic for everyone else? Well, there are plenty of examples in the Bible about what happens when someone sins. Of course there is the entire account about the fall of man. When Adam sinned, he brought that curse down on all of us. We work hard to work the ground, all because of a bad decision he had made.

The fall is just one example. We can look at the judges and the kings in the history of Israel and see how the sinful people and leaders affected everyone. When God sent Israel out on the exile, not everyone that was sent away was far from the LORD and sinful. We know for a fact that there were plenty displaced Israelites that went and lived godly lives in the pagan nations. We’ve talked recently about David, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Those four young men are in the Bible because their faith in God was so strong that they stood up against the Babylonian empire. They were not bad, but they were sent away anyway.

Even before the exile, when Joshua is the leader of the Israelites, the sin of one person affected the group. After Israel easily defeats Jericho, they go up against AI, another land that they were supposed to easily conquer. God had given them this swift and easy victory against Jericho, certainly going up against AI wouldn’t be a problem at all. Unfortunately, they go to fight and God’s hand is not with them this time. They fall. No one had any idea what had happened and why God had stopped helping them. After the defeat, Joshua mourns, tears his clothes and prays. He has the elders put dust on their heads another sign of mourning in those times. When Joshua is done praying, God answers him in Joshua 7:10–11 “The Lord then said to Joshua, “Stand up! Why have you fallen facedown? Israel has sinned. They have violated my covenant that I appointed for them. They have taken some of what was set apart. They have stolen, deceived, and put those things with their own belongings.” Except, it was not Israel that had sinned. It was one man by the name of Achan. Joshua gathers all the tribes and through the process of casting lots, Achan’s guilt is revealed. Joshua 7:20–21 “Achan replied to Joshua, “It is true. I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I did: When I saw among the spoils a beautiful cloak from Babylon, five pounds of silver, and a bar of gold weighing a pound and a quarter, I coveted them and took them. You can see for yourself. They are concealed in the ground inside my tent, with the silver under the cloak.””

Here’s poor Achan, he sees this beautiful cloak and silver and decides to take it. What harm could it possibly do? Except, it caused great harm. Men were killed in battle because of this sin. He had taken some of the set apart things The LORD had told them not to. So it was not just Achan that paid for it, but all of Israel. The sin of one affected many.

Achan is called out for his sin and then he is summarily punished by the Israelites. The poor guy is stoned to death and a great big heap of stones becomes his burial place. All because he decided to take some stuff that was not his.

Now, that sounds harsh, but it was a good thing for Achan to be discovered in his sin. The fact is, if he had gotten away with it, then he would have done it again. Then odds are that someone else would see him doing it and decide that it must not be that big of a deal, since Achan has done it. Then before you know it, everyone is doing it. Sin is a big deal. Paul had written to this group about instilling a level of church discipline so that the person involved would repent and the rest of the believers would go on undetected.

You Endorse What you Don’t Enforce

If God had let the sin of Achan slide, it could have been seen as an endorsement. If Paul had let this other guy slide, it could have been seen as an endorsement. If we do not hold ourselves to a standard and hold others to that same standard, then we could be seen as endorsing slack standards.

I stood a lot of watch on DDGs. In a normal watch rotation, you’ve got the officer of the deck, the petty officer of the watch, and a topside rover. The officer of the deck and petty officer of the watch maintain the quarterdeck. They are responsible for checking people onto the ship, checking the mooring lines, looking for leaks or any other issues that might pop up. Then there is the topside rover. This watch stander does just what the title entails. He is supposed to rove the top of the ship looking for any threats that might be headed to the ship. When it gets to be late fall and winter, it gets cold out there. It’s not Wisconsin cold, but when the wind is whipping off the river in the dead of night, it can get downright frigid. When that happens, the officer of the deck and the petty officer of the watch, depending on the ship, will get a magical heater that they can stand somewhat close to and get that wonderful heat while it is 30 degrees outside. The topside rover, sadly, does not get a heater and is instead supposed to continue roving the ship. Well, on those cold nights, what would wind up happening is all three watch standers there on the quarterdeck. The officer of the deck would feel bad for the rover and allow him or her to just hang out on the quarterdeck where there was at least a heater. That’s bad enough, then it got real bad when the Chiefs and Officers start showing up to work and see all three on the quarterdeck and don’t correct the behavior. It’s endorsing an improper standard. For the most part, it may be innocent, but if something goes wrong and a small boat or swimmer is able to move along the side of the ship and put a hole in it, who is to blame? The rover and the officer of the deck. Who is going to suffer for it? Everyone.

Paul’s point is that this stuff needed to be nipped in the bud before it got out of hand and caused real problems.

However, there is another problem happening here. The man in question repents of his sin. Most of the Corinthian believers then welcome him back into the fold and give him comfort. They forgive him for what he has done. However, there are some Corinthians that continue to hold a grudge against the man. Rather than forgive him and move on, they refuse to forgive him and want to make his life difficult still.

Forgiveness does not work that way.

When we forgive, we should forget. That is not to say that we have to sit back and take abuse or continue to tolerate bad behavior. When someone truly repents and asks forgiveness, though, we should forgive this person and let bygones be bygones.

Forgiveness is a lot easier said than done. In the case of Corinthians, they wanted this guy to continue to suffer, to be put out of the group, and live a life of discomfort. That’s not how this is supposed to work. A while back, I was talking to a friend that works in the prison system. For the most part, he gets along with the majority of inmates. He isn’t mean to them, he doesn’t cuss at them, he is generally jovial toward them. However, there are other guards that do everything they can to be cruel toward these people. Then he said something very profound. “The punishment for their crime is prison, that’s the punishment. They are cut off from their families and friends and confined to a cell most of their days, so why would anyone think it’s a good idea to punish them more? Their punishment is prison.”

In the case of the Corinthian that sinned, he repented and was forgiven. Paul had already forgiven the guy. What’s more is that God had forgiven the guy. God had wiped the man’s sin away. These people needed to forgive the man, but they did not want to.

Matthew 18:15–17 ““If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he won’t listen, take one or two others with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. If he doesn’t pay attention to them, tell the church. If he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like a Gentile and a tax collector to you.”

Jesus gives the guidance on correcting a brother or sister. When there is an issue, you go straight to the person, not to anyone else. How many times do we get ourselves in trouble because rather than talk to someone directly, we go to another person to talk about the problem. That’s no good, right? When we go and talk about someone behind their back, that’s that terrible thing called gossip. Gossip is one of those things that God hates. Proverbs 6:16–19 “The Lord hates six things; in fact, seven are detestable to him: arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that plots wicked schemes, feet eager to run to evil, a lying witness who gives false testimony, and one who stirs up trouble among brothers.” When people talk about other people behind their backs, they are not trying to solve a problem, they are trying to stir up trouble. They are not seeking to solve a problem, they are seeking to pour fire on it. That’s the funny thing about gossip or slander or any of that. The person it is directed at has no idea. The fact of the matter is that people cannot solve a problem unless they know it is there. My very first actual factual chew out session in the Navy was on Christmas Day 2021. The air boss had complained about an issue with his headset in primary flight control. I went up and began troubleshooting and he kicked me out because “you can’t troubleshoot during flight operations.” Being the good Sailor I was, I simply said, “aye, aye” and began walking out of the shack. Then he follows me out just so he can tear into me about how this has been a problem since we got underway and it needs to be fixed, he’s been complaining about it for months now. I simply responded with, “yes, sir, I know, but the fault only seems to be present when you are up here. I do the morning com checks with your Sailors and they say everything works. I do the evening comm checks with your Sailors and they again tell me it works. The fault is intermittent and I can only isolate the problem when it is present. I can’t fix the problem that isn’t there.” He did not like that.

All that to say, it’s important that if we have an issue, we handle it in a Biblical way. After Jesus tells the disciples this, Peter asks Him in Matthew 18:20–22 “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them.” Then Peter approached him and asked, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? As many as seven times?” “I tell you, not as many as seven,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven.”

Good old Peter, I love that guy. He tries so hard. He really does. In this question, he is looking for favor from the LORD. So he comes and asks the question about how many times he needs to forgive a brother and then gives the nice solid number of seven. There’s a reason for that. In Israelite numerology, seven represented the perfect number. So Peter figured that this would be way more than is required of him and Jesus would tell him what a great job he had done. I am sure Peter was dismayed when Jesus responded that he had to forgive 70 times seven. That essentially meant that we should forgive every single time a brother apologizes. Again, the command to be quick to forgive does not mean that we should continue to take abuse. We can forgive a person, but that doesn’t mean we have to continue keeping company with that person. If the person keeps sinning against us in the same way and apologizing, but not fixing him or herself, then it might be that they are just paying lip service. We should be quick to forgive and we should forgive often.

Immediately after Jesus gives Peter this math lesson, He tells one of my favorite parables. It’s the parable of the guy that is in tremendous debt. The king calls him to account for it, but there is no way this man could pay the king back. The fact is that the guy was so in debt, even if he gave all of his wages for the rest of his life and many years after, he would still not be able to pay the king back. So the king orders that the man his wife and kids be sold into slavery to pay the debt. The man falls on bended knee and begs for some compassion and forgiveness from. The king, in a surprising and touching move forgives the guy’s debts there on the spot.

This man that just found freedom from debt, was so overcome with joy and compassion that when he runs into a friend that owes him five bucks, he demands that the friend repay him right now. When the friend asks for some compassion and time to pay it back, the man demands that he be put in jail. Others that saw how the king had treated him are incensed at this behavior and report it to the king. Matthew 18:33–35 “Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And because he was angry, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay everything that was owed. So also my heavenly Father will do to you unless every one of you forgives his brother or sister from your heart.””

We have all been forgiven much, so we too should forgive. Paul sees the issue here with being unforgiving. That is not from God, it is from the devil. We have been forgiven from all the sins we have committed or will commit, shouldn’t we be willing to forgive others and let it go? We should, but there are some that will want to hold onto that grudge, that will want others to pay for what they have done. That is not the Holy Spirit talking, that is the spirit of the antichrist. I know that sounds harsh, but it is.

Here’s the thing about our unwillingness to forgive. It will lead us into sin. At the Wednesday night Bible study, we were looking at Absalom, one of David’s sons that was very upset with his older brother for a very heinous act. It was truly horrible what the older brother did. However, Absalom did not let it go. He did not forgive the way that others did. Instead, he remained silent and bitterness brewed until he finally had the older brother killed which then led to him being out of his home in Jerusalem and away from his family for three years. Un-forgiveness can lead to bitterness and when that bitterness takes root, it can lead us to sin. When we choose to withhold forgiveness, it’s like drinking poison and thinking that the person we are upset with will get sick.

We have been forgiven of much, so we too can be quick to forgive. I told you the story of my buddy that was blinded by a crazed gunman. After God got ahold of Mike, the victim, He did a mighty work in Mike’s life. God did such a mighty work in Mike’s life that Mike went to the court hearings and advocated for the man that shot him. That’s extreme Christianity right there. Willing to go and forgive a person that shot you twice. That’s the kind of forgiveness that can only come from God. After all, it was our Savior that cried out to forgive the very people that were killing Him because they did not know what they are doing.