Highlight: Adult Sunday School on 2 Corinthians at Kootenai Community Church

Good morning.

Now I feel affirmed. There are no safe spaces in here, so please affirm me. Actually, the entire church is a safe place. Welcome to Adult Sunday School at Kootenai Community Church. We will start the last chapter of 2 Corinthians today.

It's a bittersweet morning. Yeah, there's been some suggestions. Yeah, we're probably gonna dive into something in the Old Testament. Since Jess is in the Old Testament, I'm gonna chase him. Testing, we're on the air again, okay.

Well, good morning again. We're back at, we're gonna just kind of review what we finished up last week. Last week was, in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, was two verses that had a litany of some of the sins that Paul had seen in Corinth, and that he was going to have to deal with when he went the third time.

And that's what he talked about as he ended up that chapter. And the problem was that he was dealing with people. Now, people have a genuine ability to do the wrong thing. And usually, not usually, always, they don't need to take a class in the wrong thing 101.

It's natural. We're all depraved, utterly depraved. And so there were Corinthians that had trusted Christ and were apparently backpedaling some. And there were some in the church that were not believers.

And between those two, there were some serious problems. And that list we went through in chapter 12, he talked about jealousy, strife, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances, immorality, impurity, and sensuality.

That's a pretty comprehensive list. And it either generally or specifically covers just about everything that we as humans have figured out to do against God's will, against God's word. So he warned them, and the warning is going to become more severe as we dive into chapter 13, or more specific, I should say.

The severity of the warning was when he gets there, he doesn't want to find this. Because if he finds this, he says, you're not gonna like what I have to do. You're not gonna like me. That's basically what he was saying in chapter 12.

And the fact is is when someone comes to us and confronts us with something we've been doing that violates God's word, at first, generally speaking, we don't like it. But the cool, is that an acceptable word?

The cool thing about believers is, not the cool thing about believers. What it is is it's the Holy Spirit. And he's at work, and he has promised us that he will continue us, he will continue till the day of Jesus Christ.

He will continue to reprove, he will continue to rebuke, he will continue to encourage, and to comfort, and to bless, all of those things. And so that's some of what was gonna happen in Corinth. I can imagine when Paul went the third time.

I don't know that we'll get into that, but at any rate, if he went the third time, as he approached them, there would have been some that he encouraged, some that he comforted, some that he blessed, and some that he confronted.

And he was not afraid to confront them, as the false apostles were saying. Well, you're brave when you write, but you're not a very brave person when you're actually here. Apparently, he was a brave person when he was actually there, and they were just trying to spread more false information about him.

So this chapter 12 spanned the entire difficult situation about him not wanting to boast, but being forced to, to present his credentials to the Corinthians that they should have remembered, they should have remembered, and remind them that he was a genuine apostle of the living God, and that he had shown them that with signs and wonders when it was necessary.

But life is not all about signs and wonders. It's about living every day, and the Corinthians needed to be subject to the Holy Spirit, to the Word of God every day. And so that's kind of some of what we're gonna see in chapter 13.

What I wanna do this morning is read the whole chapter to start with. It's only 14 verses, which we should be able to get through in less than a year. Actually, we might, no, we won't finish it before the end of the year, but we'll come close.

Anyway, let's start with chapter 13 of 2 Corinthians. This is the third time I am coming to you. Every fact, look how he starts. Every fact is to be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

I have previously said when present the second time, and though now absent, I say in advance to those who have sinned in the past, and to all the rest as well, that if I come again, I will not spare anyone.

Since you are seeking for proof of the Christ who speaks in me, and who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you. For indeed, he was crucified because of weakness, yet he lives because of the power of God.

For we also are weak in him, yet we shall live with him because of the power of God directed toward you. Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. Or do you not recognize this about yourself?

That Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail the test. But I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test. Now we pray to God that you do no wrong. Not that we ourselves may appear approved, but that you may do what is right.

Even though we should appear unapproved. For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth. For we rejoice when we ourselves are weak, but you are strong. This we also pray for, that you be made strong.

For this reason I am writing these things while absent in order that when present, I may not use severity in accordance with the authority which the Lord gave me. For the building up and not for tearing down.

Finally, brethren, rejoice. Be made complete. Be comforted. Be like-minded. Live in peace, and the God of love and peace shall be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. So, Paul is preparing for a trip wherein nobody who loves, let me start again. No one who loves the brethren, loves one another as the Holy Spirit has put in our hearts to love one another, likes to confront a sinner.

If they do, then they're not the person that should be doing the confronting. It's that simple. But they don't like it, but they know when it has to be done and it's best if it be done in a manner that things not be allowed to develop and develop a momentum of their own.

Say that three times fast. And Paul had, you know, being in those days, far removed from Corinth and it's difficult, he made the trips around the Mediterranean area, the Roman Empire. It's not like today where you can quickly respond to somebody, although I still allege or I still believe that face-to-face dealings is much better.

Phone calls are next, don't put things in writing you don't want memorialized against you. But, so in chapter 13, now comes the final chapter and in it, Paul brings things around to their conclusion. Now, we've noticed at times that chapter divisions are, we wouldn't think it was the right spot, but, you know, may, yes or no.

This is actually pretty well divided here, I think, the way this worked out. He will start out with a serious admonition. There will be a showdown in Corinth, essentially, when he comes the third time.

He has several admonitions and encouragements, but he will close with several pleas to the Corinthians. He will encourage them to test themselves. We should be testing ourselves. When we get to that verse, we'll talk about it.

To do no wrong, to be strong and complete in the Lord. He will encourage them to rejoice, to be in unity, to live in peace, and to spend time with one another. He does not want his third visit to be a difficult one, but if it must be, then so be it, he says.

Church Discipline and the Witnesses Required for Admonition

So the first verse, it says in chapter 13, this is the third time I am coming to you. Every fact is to be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses. There are many guesses as to what Paul meant by this.

Some of them seem to be flights of fancy that people have guessed over the centuries. The first is that when Paul came, church discipline will be practiced, and it would be practiced properly on the basis of the testimony of two or three witnesses.

Calvin thought Paul's three visits to Corinth would serve as the three witnesses. The third idea is that Paul gave three warnings, counting this one, the first in 1 Corinthians 4, and then a warning likely given during the painful visit spoken of in 2 Corinthians 2, verse one.

Then a third warning, which we will see in verse two of this chapter. The fourth suggestion is that the fellow workers of Paul who had spent time in Corinth were the other witnesses, Titus and the others.

The most plausible, I believe, is the first. Paul had already practiced church discipline in Corinth when he put an unrepentant sinner who was living with his father's wife out of the church, and he called the Corinthians to ratify that act by doing so.

Church discipline today is thought of as unloving and alienating, and it's actually the most loving and unifying thing that can be done to unrepentant sinners in the church when it is done properly. The Bible has plenty of teaching on church discipline, both directly and indirectly.

All of us are familiar with the section of Matthew chapter 18, so let's go to slide 261. Matthew chapter 18 that outlines the procedure. I'll start reading it. Matthew 18, 15 through 17. If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private.

What does private mean?

Say it again.

Don't take a bunch of people.

One-on-one, quietly.

How about what your attitude should be? And gentle and loving, what else? Confidential, compassionate. Oh my, those kinds of attitudes and character qualities would go a long ways today in dealing with unrepentant sinners in the church.

It's when we go, you know, you're a jerk. You know, we already know we're jerks. We just don't like other people to know it. And so, if you have the right attitude, you've gotta, it says in Galatians chapter six, verse one, looking to yourself, go with a spirit of humility, of lowliness, of recognizing your own frailties, but for the grace of God, there go I.

So, go in private, that's verse 15. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. Verse 16, but if he does not listen to you, but if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you so that, and then this is all in caps in my version here, which means they are shouting.

No, that's today. By the, it's a quotation of the Old Testament. By the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, then tell it to the church, and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

You excommunicate him. Paul says so that you excommunicate them so that maybe the body will be lost, but the spirit will be saved. Now, kind of as an aside, I haven't been watching the impeachment trials because I don't like kabuki theater, but if we just followed biblical principles in our most important settings, well, all of them are most, hey, going to a single and repentant sinner in the church is a most important setting, but if we just followed this, that out of the mouth, that two or three witnesses have to confirm something, and confirm doesn't mean, well, you know, my cousin knows a person whose stepson heard his nephew's aunt talk about a phone call that her cousin had with Joe, who was actually a mechanic on the car of the guy who we're talking about, and he found in his glove box some receipts.

Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, if every fact will be confirmed is what 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians says. The word fact is from the Greek word rhema, and it means it's specific, a specific word.

It has to be something specific and confirmable. So that's what we do with one another when there is a situation with church discipline. It is not something that can be done quickly and without deep and careful attention to the people involved.

It needs to be necessarily done properly, slowly, and with great attention, and with deep humility. So regarding that situation in 1 Corinthians, Paul's teaching is authoritative and clear in 1 Corinthians chapter five.

This is where he exercised this in 1 Corinthians, or by letter encouraged the Corinthian church to exercise this. He said, it is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife.

You have become arrogant and have not mourned. There's two things we need to do. Not be arrogant, and we need to mourn. If you're not saddened, almost devastated over the fact that you have to practice church discipline, then something's not all right, something's awry.

So that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. For I on my part, though absent in body, but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present.

In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Your boasting is not good. Apparently they were bragging about tolerating this. It's the wrong kind of toleration. I lost my place. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?

Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover has also been sanctified. Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people. I did not at all mean the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.

But actually I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother, if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler, not to even eat with such a one.

For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church, but those who are outside?

God judges.

Remove the wicked man from among yourselves. Now Paul would have advocated a complete following of scripture. One person goes to him, two or three more, then the church, then a decision to remove him from the church.

He would never have skipped a step, not a step that the Lord Jesus gave. Then, next slide, there was also a situation in Thessalonica that Paul had to deal with. Second Thessalonians 3 .6. Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you receive from us.

And then in Second Thessalonians 3 .14 and 15. If anyone does not obey our instructions in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him so that he will be put to shame. Yet, do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

Titus had to deal with it in Crete. Paul encouraged him. He says, in Titus 3, verses 10 and 11, he said, reject a factious man, a dissembler, someone who likes controversy, who brings all kinds of weird stuff into the church.

Reject a factious man after the first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned. I think the King James uses the word heretic there, if I remember right.

He is a heretic, is perverted, and is sinning, being self-condemned. His own false, anti-scriptural words condemn him. Properly applied, church discipline is both needful and loving. It is not loving to allow or to let someone continue to live in sin without being confronted.

Love seeks to protect those from harm, and continued, unrepentant sin is unbelievably harmful. The potential for restoration exists when discipline is properly practiced. The church's purity is maintained in the world, and the world sees that the church takes serious scriptural admonitions about sin.

If we won't practice it in our own body, why should the world care about what we do? If we can't even bring our own sinning members to account in our own individual bodies, the world's gonna look on that as, they're no different than us, and it would be true.

In many ways, it would be true. Not every way, but in many ways. Paul would have no part of a willy-nilly witch hunt in Corinth. The process would be biblical and proper. Every utterance that was issued as a fact would be confirmed in a biblical manner.

Now, how do you do that?

What do you think? How would you confirm these facts?

CNN?

Facebook, yeah. How would you confirm these facts? Would it be something you could do in 20 minutes?

No.

And sometimes, I think we don't get involved in doing some of the right things that Scripture admonishes us to do, is because it's time-consuming and difficult, and it can even be embarrassing. What about if some of the facts that are confirmed implicate you?

Or maybe they don't implicate you, but you have to go to the people that are involved in the situation in a quiet, careful, proper manner, and find out if the things that are being alleged are true or not.

And that takes time. It takes commitment, and it takes dedication, and it takes prayer. You need to mourn over it. So the first step would be, if a person knows of a sinning Christian, he is to reprove him in private, Matthew chapter five.

You go to him in private. That's after prayer. It's after much soul-searching on your own to make sure you're not part of the problem, that you might have to repent of something yourself. But you go to the person, and you bring to their, and it's so easy to editorialize.

We hear something, and then when we retell it to somebody else, it changes a little bit, and it's a little more exciting, and it would make a better story. Now, that's not always. I don't mean to implicate, to imply that we're all storytellers, but it's something that we all have to watch out for.

The telephone game, yeah, I like the telephone game. You go to the person, and the facts, ma 'am, please, just the facts. Tell them what you know about it. I don't know how many times I've gone to somebody with some alleged facts, and it turned out they weren't true at all, and there wasn't a need for church discipline or anything else.

It was just a story got told about someone that wasn't true, and those are some of the worst kind. Those are some of the hardest to verify sometimes, but often, that's what happens. So, if a person knows of a sinning person, the first thing you do is you go to them, and you reprove them in private.

If they refuse, if it becomes clear that there is guilt, and they refuse to repent, then the original person must confront them again while having one or two other trusted Christian companions come with him or her.

So, that means you need to be able to select someone who will be equally mournful over this, will be equally humble about this, or even more humble, who will be equally not wanting to do this, but will do it because it's the right thing to do, if you understand what I'm getting at.

You don't want to say, oh yeah, let's go, let's get them. Nevermind, thank you very much, have a nice day.

Go get some pizza.

So, you need two or three people who are willing to go with you. So, then you go to them again, and if they still, everybody understands the situation, and they still refuse to repent, then the matter is brought before the church where that sinning person attends.

If they still refuse in the church, the church is then to put them out and treat them as an unbeliever. Now, I had a situation like this where I became aware of something that someone had done that was very improper, a Christian, a known Christian that I knew.

And I went to them, and it was clear to me that they kind of knew what they did was wrong, but they weren't gonna come clean about it. So, I basically said, well then, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna come to you again, but I'm gonna bring one of the people that, I just told them, I said one of the people that's gonna come with me is gonna be your pastor.

And so, I went to a couple of guys, and I talked to the pastor, told him what happened, and we went to him, and he repented. And it was a wonderful thing. I was terrified, because this guy's older than me, and I respect him, still respect him.

And it wasn't, I mean, I'm not gonna tell you what it was, but it wasn't a terrible thing, like he didn't kill somebody or rob a bank, but it was just something a Christian ought not to have done. And when we went to him together, the two of us, we prayed together, and we are good friends to this day.

Now, I don't know how often that happens, but you can't do it for that reason. You can't do it because you'll still be good friends, and you have to do it because it's the right thing to do. And it was a, that person came to me later and said it was a blessing in his life.

It was quite a few years later, but this guy came to me and said it was a blessing. And I'll tell you what, I'm kinda getting nervous right now. Now, it was awful to do this, because I knew better than anybody that but for the grace of God, there would go I.

And, but the Lord had mercy on both of us, and it turned out really well. Now, they don't always turn out well, but this one did. And it was, we followed biblical principles. And after it was all done, and we all went our ways, and the restoration was beginning.

Restoration doesn't happen right away, but the restoration was beginning because the person repented and acknowledged he needed help in this area. And he was under, in a church that would give him that help and did give him that help.

It was such a relief to know that, I mean, you know scripture's true, but when you see it just, you go, yeah, that's cool. It was wonderful to see God work in both, and it worked in my life, too, because it made me realize, you know, this is an area that I could walk in if I'm not careful.

So, okay, that was all for free. In his commentary on the New Testament of 2 Corinthians, John MacArthur puts it this way about church discipline. An undisciplined church is as shameful and tragic as an unruly child.

Proverbs 10, I think I probably, did I not, let me look at this here for just a second. Yeah, I didn't put that as a slide. An undisciplined church is as shameful and tragic as an unruly child. Proverbs 10, one, five, 17, 21, and 25, and 29, 15.

It brings reproach on the name of Jesus Christ and grief to the great shepherd and his undershepherds. If the church doesn't take sin seriously enough to take action against it, how can expect the world to take the gospel of deliverance from sin seriously?

If the church is to honor Jesus Christ and have a powerful testimony in the world, it must engage in confronting its sinning members. Only then can they be called back to holiness and progress towards spiritual maturity, end quote.

And very much so, very much so, when people are properly confronted and the Spirit works in their lives, you will see change and progress again, and it's just, it is heartening and delightful and a blessing all around, even though the difficulty in getting there was, could have been very serious.

So that's the end of verse 31. Any comments? I mean, excuse me, verse one. There was a three in front of it, 13, one. I saw the three and the one, you know. That's my excuse. Any comments on verse one?

Calling people back to holiness? Verse two, I have previously said when present the second time, and though now absent, I say in advance to those who have sinned in the past and to all the rest as well, that if I come again, I will not spare anyone.

No, no, he's basically saying, kids, if I come down and look in your room and it isn't the way it's supposed to be, there will be problems. I remember, no, I'm not gonna embarrass my daughters. So, during Paul's second visit, which puts to rest the false apostle's allegations that he was not courageous when present and facing someone, he warned the Corinthians about unrepentant sin.

Here, he warns them again that if he comes and there remain unrepentant individuals in the church that have not been dealt with, he will not spare them. Next slide. The word spare, this word is only used 10 times in the New Testament, and in classical Greek, in classical Greek, it referred to a conqueror sparing someone's life on the battlefield.

It was a victor having mercy on an enemy. It's a pretty specific word. This was no idle threat. Should Paul find systemic unrepentant sin in the church when he returned, he would deal with it quickly.

When I say quickly, I don't mean not taking the proper steps, but I mean he wouldn't wait. He wouldn't wait. He would go and find out, because all of this stuff was coming back to him that the false apostles were doing, so he knew things were going on that just were not true, not proper.

He would deal with it as scripture provides. If the Corinthians knew anything about Paul's history and his other writings, they would know he meant business. When dealing with the Judaizers in Galatia, he called down a curse on those who were teaching such wicked lies.

Next slide. In Galatians chapter six, excuse me, chapter one, verses six through nine, he says, I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel.

You're deserting him for a different gospel, which is really not another gospel, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed.

As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed. And then in chapter two, verse 11 through 14, he even confronted the apostle Peter when it was necessary.

Paul says, but when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles, but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision.

The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by the hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, if you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?

How important it is to bring someone who is in a position of leadership around from unrepentant sin. Because people follow them, they'll follow them without checking into it. We should be checking into what our responsible leadership says.

We should be Bereans. But how many aren't? Look at the churches full of people today. What did I just read? Paula White said, if you send me $269, it was something really weird. I mean, I should have written it down.

Now it's gossip. See if I can remember. Anybody else see that? You'll have a miracle of some sort. It was a miracle of some sort.

Really?

You can buy miracles now? I think Simon the sorcerer thought he could. How did Peter deal with him? You are caught in the gall of bitterness, he said to Simon. So, in Ephesus, he put Hymenaeus and Alexander out of the church.

1 Timothy 1, verse 20. Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander whom I have handed over to Satan so that they will be taught not to blaspheme. We know that the Lord disciplines those whom he loves. And the Corinthians needed to be mindful of this.

This lack of church discipline in the modern church is the predominant reason that the church has little or no influence in the world today. We won't deal with our own unrepentant sinners. Now, that's not to say that a lot of these people that are on national television are even believers.

I don't know. Some of them I don't think are. They can't believe some of the stuff that they're peddling and actually be reading the same book I'm reading. But still, when possible, as you're talking to people, you can say, you know, actually, the scripture says nothing like that.

Here's what it actually says. So that you can put to rest false teaching that is coming into the world today. And there's plenty of it. There's far more false teaching than good teaching. Far more. I don't know what the percentage is.

I could make something up on the spot if you'd like, but I don't really know what it is. So, any questions about verse two? He's gonna deal with unrepentant sin when he gets to Corinth. And I think sometimes, in the same way we're trying to make our kids clean their rooms up, we put out the warning so that those who are believers will begin some circumspections, some soul searching, and actually come to the conclusion that they need to obey the scripture and stop doing what they're doing.

Because it'd be far more. Can you imagine if he got to Corinth and he found half the church had repented, fallen on their knees, and the word came to him from the leadership in the church, you need to talk to so-and-so and so-and-so.

We got your letter, and it spoke to them. And I'll bet some of that happened. I'll bet some of that happened. And that would have been a blessing to Paul. But there's still gonna be those who will be unrepentant.

And so in verse three, he says, since you are seeking for proof of the Christ who speaks in me and who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you, it was not wrong, by the way, to seek for proof that one is speaking for Christ.

The error comes when one looks for signs and wonders rather than the faithful exposition of the word of God and obedience of that same person to what they exposit. In Paul's time, the warlike Corinthians who came from a culture of war, under the goading of the false apostles, were looking for something like what Paul did when Simon the sorcerer confronted him in Acts 13.

Next slide. Acts chapter 13, eight through 12. But Elymas, magician, for so his name is translated, was opposing them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. But Saul, who was also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze on him, and said, you who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord?

Now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and not see the sun for a time. And immediately, a mist and a darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking those who would lead him by the hand.

Then the proconsul believed when he saw what happened, but it happened, being amazed at the teaching of the Lord. So Paul did do some signs and wonders that authenticated his message. But as time went on, those authentications became less and less necessary, and began to be replaced by simple faithful exposition of the Old Testament and New Scripture, as Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write letters, and Peter, and James, and John, and the guy who wrote Hebrews.

The Corinthians were typically looking for signs and wonders rather than the proper exposition and understanding of the teachings of the Word of God. A steady, careful expositor of Scripture who evidences it in his own life is far superior, indeed, is to be eminently preferred to one who blusters and pretends to have some sort of power, some sort of ability to give you something that you think you need in order to be a better Christian.

I can't give you anything, but Lord Jesus Christ can. And what has he given you? He's given you his Word and his Holy Spirit, and that is far superior to anything I can do. I can sell you a good pair of boots, that's about it.

He can change your heart. He can change your mind. He can make the unrepentant holy. It's unbelievable, it's a miracle. The new birth is a miracle. The same Christ that spoke through Paul was not weak toward the Corinthians, but performed the miracle of redemption in many of their lives, and they knew this.

You know what you were like. I know what I was like, and still struggle with even some today. I don't wanna go back to that. And they knew, they knew just as we know. That hasn't changed. This was a mighty thing, something that could be done by no other.

Their questioning of Paul's representation of Christ was to question their own salvation. Paul had performed the signs, the quote, the signs of a true apostle, unquote. He had demonstrated, quote, signs, wonders, and miracles, unquote.

This was not to be the normal fare of everyday Christianity, though. Those things were done to authenticate his apostolic authority, at the beginning especially of his work for Christ. Once established, Paul began establishing and planting churches and teaching.

This is the normal procedure of life. This requirement of further proof of his apostolic authority would be fulfilled in Paul's third visit if the wayward, sinning Corinthians did not repent. And the authority he would show them would be the authority of an apostle to call a church to put someone out of it.

Do you really want that, Corinthians, he's saying? I don't want to do that when I come, I really don't. But if I have to, I will. He would practice church discipline and with his apostolic authority, but he would follow the procedure outlined in the Old Testament and reaffirmed by the Lord Jesus Christ.