We serve a God of 2nd Chances.
In this passage, Paul is addressing the church regarding a member who has experience church discipline. His instructions to the church are for them to focus now upon forgiveness and reconciliation rather than continual punishment. Here are the principles taught regarding Church Discipline:
1. The purpose - Restoration, not revenge.
2 Cor. 2:6-10 “Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many. So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.”
2. The motivation - Love, not hate.
“Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him. For to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye be obedient in all things.”
3. The model - Forgive others as God has forgiven us.
“To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ;”
~Mike
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