2 Corinthians 2:1 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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2 Corinthians 2:1

Comments

If you have ever been in any of the drill halls of the famous regiments of the army, you will have seen that in some of them the walls are covered with great murals, paintings of battle scenes, historical battles. They are very graphic, very gory also. They are the battle honours of the regiment – sometimes three, four, five, six, seven or more great murals of past battles. And this is Paul’s subject here – spiritual battle honours. There is in these verses a record of spiritual battle honours. The chapter starts with Paul’s apparent reluctance to visit Corinth where there are problems remaining to be addressed. ‘I determined this with myself, that I would not come again to you in heaviness.’ As you read, it might sound as though the great apostle is concerned for his own emotional comfort. He does not wish to go and to be the reprover, the corrector of the people, the bringer of sadness and grief. He would rather go later at some stage when these troubles are passed. But the reason is quite different. He had written to them to urge them to correct serious wrongs, and particularly the wrong of a notorious sinner, an incestuous sinner in their midst. You can imagine that many people might recoil from the idea of any discipline in that church. The idea of having to exclude someone because of their sin was something that would be very disagreeable. But nevertheless the battle had to be fought, and the temptation of the devil to leave alone something which was serious had to be dealt with, and they had to get on with it. He could have come and dealt with it personally but he has no wish to do that. Not to preserve his own emotional comfort and well-being but because it was their calling and their role and their responsibility to do it. They must prove the Lord and obey him and seek his grace and carry out the unpleasant and necessary steps. The Lord does not resurrect apostles and parachute them into churches every time there is a trouble, to solve the problem. The church is equipped and given the responsibility before God to keep itself pure and to watch out for such things.

Application

Questions

What was the discipline? Well, this was the incestuous man of 1 Corinthians. There is another view, started probably shortly before AD200 when Tertullian formed the view that there was an intervening epistles and the apostle Paul is not here referring to the incestuous man of 1 Corinthians but perhaps something else had happened. Paul perhaps had been severely insulted or resisted by some of the people and an apology was called for. All this kind of thing is imagined and put in. Now that theory died a death, one would have thought, many, many centuries ago, but in more modern times, at least in the last century, it came back really through the writings of unbelieving, cynical liberal scholars. There is a missing epistle in between 1 and 2 Corinthians, they said, and some to go so far as to say, oh we know where it is, it is the last four chapters of 2 Corinthians. They are different in character. But the traditional view and the sensible view is that there is no imagined missing epistle, but what the apostle Paul is talking about here in 2 Corinthians is the need now to restore the notorious sinner who was dealt with in 1 Corinthians.

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

2 Corinthians 2:1 Commentary and Bible Study