The Word Made Fresh
1This will be the third time I have visited you. Remember that any complaint must be supported by two or three witnesses. 2I warned those who sinned and all the others, too. And I’m warning them now in my absence, just as I did when I was there for my second visit. I told them that if I come again I won’t lie down and roll over for them. 3I know you want proof that I speak for Christ. He will deal strongly with you. He is not weak. 4He may have been crucified in his weakness, but now he is alive by the power of God. And we share his weakness; but when we deal with you we will do so with Christ by God’s power.
5So, examine yourselves. Are you truly living in faith? Test yourselves. Don’t you see that Jesus Christ is with you? Unless, of course, you fail the test. 6I do hope you find that we have not failed. 7We ask God in our prayers that you may not do anything wrong. It isn’t that we have met the test, but rather that you may do the right thing even if we seem to have failed. 8We can’t do anything against the truth; what we do is for the truth. 9We really are glad when we are weak and you are strong, and we constantly pray that you might be made perfect. 10I write this while away from you so that I won’t have to be severe when I come; I want to use the authority the Lord has given me for the purpose of building up, not tearing down.
11Rejoice, then. Get everything together and encourage one another. Be at peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.
12Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints send a greeting to you.
13May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the presence of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Commentary
1-4: Previously Paul had chastised them for putting up with sexual immorality in their community and for their bent toward litigation (see 1 Corinthians 5 and 6). He will not drop those charges, he says, but for their own good he will “not be weak in dealing” with these sins. We do not know what authority Paul had in any of the churches other than the authority they grant him by dint of his knowledge of scripture and his relationship with Christ. He is depending on his reputation to be all he needs to whip them into shape, so to speak.
5-10: He urges them to engage continually in self-examination; he does not wish to use the authority God has given him except for the purpose of building them up.
11-13: The letter ends rather abruptly with an exhortation that they should live in peace with one another and “greet one another with a holy kiss,” a practice in the early church which we have regrettably abandoned. The benediction in verse 14 is still used in church services around the world today.
Takeaway
It is difficult to deal with immorality in the church. Banning anyone from worship just doesn’t seem good or right unless they are obviously interfering with the worship of others. Yet, the church needs to be a model for the community at large, and therefore must find a way to either guide the guilty into a more Christian way of life or dismiss them from participating without being judgmental. That is what Paul is trying to do in this letter. We never really find out how successful he was since there is no 3 Corinthians.