Put his Fears to Rest
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Wednesday, June 7, 2023
2 Corinthians 7:2-16 (Forward, p. 40) CEV p. 1209
The apostle Paul has had some very well-grounded and sound reasons to feel somewhat uneasy about the church at Corinth. As mentioned elsewhere in his extant letters, there was the matter of people miss-using the Lord’s Supper, the matter of order and discipline in worship, the question of spiritual gifts, the incidence of blatant immorality, uncertainty about the resurrection, and the ever-present feelings of self-pride and aggrandizement on the part of certain members. And those are just the start, just the tip of the iceberg! So, Paul had good reasons to be on tender hooks or pins and needles as he awaited news of them.
But now his fears have been put to rest, his heart can be easy. Titus, his messenger and emissary, was surely and fully welcomed. You might think that after Paul’s second, and hitherto unknown, letter of reproof and correction, they might not have wanted anything to do with Paul or with any associate of his, but this turned out not to be the case. Thanks be to God.
And, this was not all. The church at Corinth has taken his words to heart, his words of reproof or correction. (What this explicitly refers to we cannot be certain, but this doesn’t matter.) Their godly grief over their sin, over their past failings, has caused them to turn back to God and be restored to life, and restored in their relationship to Him.
Here Paul cannot but contrast this kind of grief with a far different kind of grief, a worldly grief, which only leads to self-incrimination and death. Here we can contrast the godly repentance of Peter after denying the Lord three times as opposed to the worldly grief of Judas, which caused him so much sorrow, grief and self-loathing that he took his own life.
Here, then, is a worthy and useful warning to each of us. Probably all of us at some time experience ‘worldly grief’ or ‘worldly sorrow’, where we beat ourselves up or reprove ourselves over some past sin or failure. It is easy to feel disgust or hurt over such things. But such self-recrimination in itself usually gets us nowhere. Firstly, most certainly it erodes something of our self-dignity and respect and worth as individuals. And secondly, such self-loathing doesn’t lead us to any useful or healthy resolution: we fail to see the grace of God, the mercy and forgiveness of God, that is extended to us, available to us, in such times as things (Might I say, especially in such times as this). Judas felt that he was too far gone; that there was nothing that God could do to save him. He felt that he had to take his sin and its penalty upon himself, albeit with fatal consequences. Peter knew better: he knew that no matter what, he could always return to Jesus and freely receive from Him His mercy and forgiveness, and a brand-new start.
That, indeed, is what the believers in Corinth had done as well. They had turned back to God, thereby setting Paul’s heart and fears to rest. And, so too can each of us do the same with our lives, and receive that same mercy and forgiveness, that same brand-new start. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Forward notes: “I often boast about you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with consolation; I am overjoyed in all our affliction” (verse 4).
“I haven’t had more than one extended interaction with my bishop, but when I read about the apostle Paul boasting about the congregations he founded and nurtured, I imagine a bishop beaming today as they talk about a particular parish under their care, how loving or earnest or how generous it is.
“There may have been a time when bishops would do ‘humble brags’ about Sunday attendance or the number of congregations prospering financially. But with the state of our tradition, and of the church in America more broadly, that era seems far gone. With the decline of the church (by traditional metrics), there’s an opportunity to reorganize and restart and thus, in some ways, to identify with the early church (as it existed at Corinth and in other parts of the Mediterranean world). As we do so, I hope our boast is not according to the metrics of our eras of power but rather of the ancient church—collectivism, love, earnestness, energy, and generosity.”
Moving Forward: “What aspects of your church generate great pride? What areas could use some attention?”