Paul and the Corinthian Church (2 Corinthians 8:1-12)

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The church in Corinth, originally founded by Paul himself, was struggling. 

It was about 20 years after Jesus had died, and risen, and then gone away promising to return that Paul arrived in Corinth for the first time, around the year 50.  

In those years, the Church had blown up, and I'm not talking about just the Corinthian church. The big “C,” everybody Church. We started in Jerusalem and spread into the Roman Empire and the known world, along the Roman roads.  

Sometimes that expansion was driven from behind, by persecution. By hostility. By even hatred. By people who were trying to silence this new religion, and did not want it to continue. So the Christians had to go somewhere else.  

Sometimes that expansion was driven from in front, when people like Paul and Peter and other Apostles looked out and said, “There are cities out there where people don't know about Jesus. We have to go! We have to tell them because people need to know.” That was part of how Paul arrived in the city of Corinth.  

Corinth was a big, important city. It was like New York or Toronto. It was a centre for its region, and Paul arrived there by a roundabout route in around the Spring of the year 50. (Not 1950. I mean like, actually 50.) Paul's usual MO when he arrived in a new place was to find a synagogue and to connect with the people there. He would start preaching to them about Jesus, and debating. He would get into amazing arguments (I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for some of those conversations) and as Paul preached the gospel, people would come to believe. The work of the Holy Spirit, and the things that Paul was saying, would bring them to belief in Jesus. Then Paul would round them up, all these people who came to believe in Jesus, and he would say, “OK, you guys are a church now.” He would give somebody the responsibility of overseeing things, and then after a time go on his way to do the same thing in other places. That was what Paul did in the city of Corinth in around the year 50.  

Around the Spring of the year 55 when 1 Corinthians was written, Paul had received a report that some things were going wrong in Corinth. They were getting off track, and needed to be corrected, needed to be addressed. 

Because in those five years, the Corinthian church had grown enough to get into trouble. They were not experiencing any persecution or active opposition. There were no laws against worshipping Jesus in Corinth. People were free to worship as they saw fit. But freedom is hard work, and in those five years, they had gotten a little bit off track. So Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthian church—First Corinthians. 

He reminded them that how they lived their everyday lives mattered. That belief in Jesus isn't just fire insurance. It's not just, “Ask Jesus into your heart. You're going to go to heaven, so you can basically do anything you want.” Doesn't work that way. There's far more to the life of faith in Jesus than just getting across a line. 

He wrote to them about the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection. He encouraged them to take seriously the sharing of communion, and the consequences for treating it lightly. He preached against sexual sin. He commanded them to hold each other accountable for how they lived. He lectured them about taking other believers to court. He laid out for them some of the best and most Jesus ways of worshiping together, of working together, of being the Church together. That was all in First Corinthians because these were all things that needed to be addressed or corrected. 

Later that year, in the Fall of 55 (after the Corinthians had had the first letter for six months or so) Paul received another report. “Paul, your letter didn't work. Nothing's changing in Corinth. Everything is the same as it was. They didn't listen, and there has been no change as a result of that letter.” So Paul decided, “OK, writing a letter didn’t work. I'm going to visit in person.” He arrived in Corinth for the second time. 

This was not a happy visit. This was not Apostle Paul Appreciation Month. There was no cake. There was no party. There was tension, there was anger, there was resentment, there were hard conversations, and there was some digging-in of heels on both sides. After a while, Paul had done what he could in Corinth. Again he left the city. 

About six months later, in the Spring of 56, he got another report. “Nothing has changed. They’re still doing the same things wrong.” 

So Paul wrote another letter. 

This letter is lost. We don't know what happened to it. It was not preserved. I guess it's just not something that we needed to read today. I imagine it was very personal. There were probably names named, and angry language. 

In 2 Corinthians, Paul describes writing this letter: 

...so I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you [I really don’t want to do that again!] ...  [Instead] through many tears I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart, not to grieve you, but to let you know how much I love you.  (2 Cor 2:1ff) 

Whatever was in that letter, Paul poured out his heart—his pastor's heart—and his love for these people.  

The report that came back to Paul after the Corinthians got that letter was, “Yeah. That made a difference.” 

In about the Fall of 56, writing in 2 Corinthians, he talked about that difficult letter that had been so hard for him to write. 

Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Although I did regret it  (I can picture Paul clicking 'send' and immediately thinking, ohhh, what have I done?), I now see that my letter caused you sorrow, but only for a short time. And now I rejoice, not because you were made sorrowful, but because your sorrow led you to change. For you felt the sorrow that God had intended...Godly sorrow brings change that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. (2 Cor 8:8ff) 

Paul was thrilled that the Corinthians had understood. Sometimes we have to say hard things to each other. Sometimes we have to say the last 10% of what's in our head to really communicate truth. Sometimes we need to hear that last 10% of what's in somebody else's head in order to really understand what we’ve done. Sometimes Pastors have to say hard things. Sometimes parents have to say hard things. Sometimes the Police officer with the radar gun has to say hard things. When we receive what’s been said, it prompts us to change and to move in a good direction.  

But we don’t always listen. 

There were some people who did not like hearing the hard things Paul wrote in the lost letter. They did not want to be told that they needed to stop what they were doing, so they started undermining Paul's credibility. They started talking about him behind his back, trying to trying to bring him down in the estimation of the people of the church. Because if he’s not ‘all that,’ we don’t have to listen to him. 

So Paul took time to remind the believers of the church of his story, of his mission, of his identity, of the task that he had been given by Jesus. In 2 Corinthians 13, he addressed the people who were contradicting and trying to undermine him: 

I already warned you the second time I was with you. So now in my absence I warn you again: [Don’t make me come over there!] if I return, I will not spare you, since you are demanding proof that Christ is speaking through me. (2 Cor 13:2ff) 

You want the proof? You can’t handle the proof. 

That message was received, and understood, and taken to heart. 

______

Paul did go to Corinth to see the church for a third and final visit in the winter of 56/57. Nowhere in the New Testament do we see that, on that visit, there was any drama, or any conflict between Paul and the people of the church. 

What we do know for sure about his last sojourn in Corinth was that he spent some of the time sitting down and... writing letters to other churches.  

Corinth had gotten back on track. 

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