Cheryl Schatz

My internet connection was down and then I was away for most of today.  Wow a lot of comments have come in since I was last on line.  Great questions and comments.

Ryan wrote:

There are are few more instances where there seems to be authority given to a leader to act, even forcefully:  2 Cor 13:10, 2 Cor 10:6,10.  2 Cor 10:6 is particularly intriguing.  At any rate, we know that the authority given to Paul was for building up the church and not tearing it down, but nevertheless, it seems that he has been given authority to “punish” those who continue to refuse to listen.
How would you understand this in light of the discussion of this and your previous posts?

What authority is Paul talking about in 2 Cor. 13:10?

2 Cor. 13:10   For this reason I am writing these things while absent, so that when present I need not use severity, in accordance with the authority which the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down.

The authority for building up, as Paul claimed, is found in the gift from God.  Ephesians 4:11-13

Eph 4:11  And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,
Eph 4:12  for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;
Eph 4:13  until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

Each person who has a gift has the authority to use that gift for the service of the body of Christ:

1Pe 4:10  As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
1Pe 4:11  Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

An apostle of Jesus Christ is a gift given to set up the foundation of the church.  Paul said that his authority was to build the church.  The church was to judge Christians who are practicing sin and those who are unrepentant they are to send out of the church.  Yet the church was not following the call to judge other believers living in sin.

1Co 5:1  It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife.
1Co 5:2  You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.

While Paul taught the church how to judge those who were unrepentant sinners,  and the church did follow the example set by Paul by sending a man out of the church who was living with his Father’s wife, others were not being disciplined and the practiced sin was allowed to remain in the church:

2Co 12:21  I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality and sensuality which they have practiced.

Paul’s authority was to build up the church but in doing so the sin must be purged for the church to remain pure and free from defilement.  As a foundational apostle Paul needed to discipline a church that failed to discipline its own sinning members.  Even with Paul’s authority to discipline given to him by Jesus himself, Paul appealed to the church to make righteous judgments and to deal with unrepentant sinners in their midst.  The discipline was to be done by the church and not by one leader inside that church.

Even Jesus in Matthew 18 said that if a person who has offended you will not listen to you or listen to you and another witness, you are to take it to the church to have the person disciplined.  Jesus did not say to take it to the pastor or to one of the elders.  It is the church who has been set up as the method of authority to purge the sinner from our midst.  The fact that Paul fought so hard not to have to exercise his apostolic authority to get rid of sin in the midst of the congregation shows that the pattern is set that the church does the discipline.

Paul’s place as an apostle of Jesus Christ set up to build the pure foundation of the church is an example of a spiritual father disciplining his spiritual children.  It is not an example of an office of authority over the believer and no such position of foundational apostle or spiritual father was continued after the apostles died.

No “authority” in the body of Christ can take away a person’s gift given by Jesus himself and no rule is set up to have an “authority” to make decisions for the believers.  We are to grow together in wisdom and in truth with each part ministering as they are gifted.  None of us is allowed to say that another part of the body is not needed, nor has any of the body been given authority over another part of the body.  This is foreign to the text.