THURSDAY
Next in our overview of some expressions of love on the part of the Apostles, we come to 2 Corinthians 2.
2 Corinthians 2:4 4 For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.
At the beginning of 2 Corinthians, Paul is explaining why he didn’t make his second trip to Corinth to visit them as he had planned to do. It seems as if, instead of visiting them a second time, he wrote them a strong letter of rebuke. The beginning of The Bible Project video below gives one possible storyline as to how the events played out with Paul’s letters and Paul’s visits.
The letter that Paul references, here, could be a different letter that is now lost. It could also be portions of 1 Corinthians or the whole of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians is a harsh rebuke of the church, so it very well could be referring to what he said there, especially to the influential man in the church who was sleeping with his father’s wife, likely his step-mother. Paul likely visited after sending that letter and found many of them unrepentant and unwilling to follow his teaching. A number of “false apostles,” as Paul calls them in 2 Corinthians, had caused quite a stir in the church. This guy could have been among them. By the time he writes this second letter, however, many of the believers have repented and come to agree with Paul. So the tone of this letter is much different.
In any case, whichever letter he is referring to, it was a difficult letter for him to write. It was “out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears…” Even though this letter was difficult for him to write, his love for them compelled him to write it. He didn’t just want to cause them pain. He wrote to them out of his “abundant love” that he has for them. So it was Paul’s great love that led him to write a rather harsh rebuke to the church in Corinth who wasn’t living in line with the gospel of Jesus.
Therefore, out of our love for one another, we can say the hard things that need to be said. There are many examples in Scripture of rebukes. Paul rebukes Peter for not eating with the Gentiles when the Judaizers were around. Paul rebukes false teachers in 1 Timothy. The prophets constantly rebuke the people of Israel. Jesus rebukes the Pharisees a lot.
Now, the base principles are certainly the same (we ought to only rebuke in love, speak the truth in love, be patient, trust God to change the heart, etc.) but these are set in a culture that tended to appreciate hard words more than today. We live in a culture in which many view disagreement as violence and absolutes in truth and morality as oppressive. To rebuke someone, even in love, is rather difficult. How do we do this, then? Unfortunately, I don’t have any great answers for how to rebuke someone in love other than to listen to the Holy Spirit and allow him to lead you in your decisions.
However, flipping to the other party in this scenario, we must be the type of people who can receive rebuke. This, I believe, is where we must begin in Christian community. Instead of lamenting the reality that many Christians are stuck in their pride, unable to receive a rebuke, we must first remove the log from our own eye and be sure we are the type of people who can receive rebuke. This requires us to humble ourselves, seek the kingdom first (when we seek the kingdom and God’s holiness, rebuke from a beloved brother or sister is valuable), share our lives with one another, as we talked about yesterday, and invite close friends and mentors to rebuke us when needed.
Additional Content
Reflection
Are you the type of person who can receive a rebuke from beloved brothers and sisters in Christ?