1 But I determined this with myself, that I would not
come again to you in heaviness.
2 For if I make you sorry,
who is he then that maketh me glad, but the same which is made sorry by me?
3 And I wrote this same
unto you, lest, when I came, I should have sorrow from them of whom I ought to
rejoice; having confidence in you all, that
my joy is the joy of you all.
4 For out of much
affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears; not that ye
should be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly
unto you.
5 But if any have caused
grief, he hath not grieved me, but in part: that I may not overcharge you all.
(2 Cor. 2:1-5)
These verses gave
me problems understanding what was going on, so I want to discuss it a bit.
The impression I
got as I was looking at it as a whole was there was lots of emotion going on,
but that it was very complex. (And of
course translation doesn’t make it any easier.)
Breaking it down
verse-by-verse:
V1 – Paul doesn’t
want to visit the Corinthians while he’s depressed and sad. He doesn’t want to
inflict that emotion on them.
V2 – He points out
that the same person who he made sorry can also make him glad (by repenting) He’s pointing out there can be mutual
emotional effects between people, and they can go in good directions as well as
bad.
V3 – Paul wrote to
the Corinthians instead of coming personally so that he wouldn’t be negatively
affected or made sad by the spiritual difficulties among the Corinthians. He
wanted to rejoice with them all because of them all.
V4 – Paul felt
very strong emotions of affliction and anguish as he was writing (probably a
previous letter), but he didn’t want them to know that in order to make them
sad, but to let them know how much he loved them. (He’s being open about his
emotions, but he’s also trying to make sure that he’s not being emotionally
manipulative. Some people express their emotions to guilt people into doing
what they want, and Paul knew he didn’t want to do that.)
V5 – Paul expresses
that the grief he’d felt had only partially been caused by the particular
Corinthian church member who had done wrong. (Paul takes responsibility for his
emotions here.)
Really, when you
think about it, this is quite extraordinary stuff. Here you have an apostle talking
about his emotions and about five different emotional interplays going on. It’s
VERY complex.
We can see that he
is aware of his emotions. We see that he has VERY STRONG emotions—affliction,
anguish, tears. He’s also very open about them.
But at the same time, he’s also aware of the effect his emotions can
have on others, and so he works hard to make sure that his expression of his
emotions doesn’t create spiritual problems for the people he’s ministering
to. He doesn’t want to emotionally
manipulate them.
I’m going to sound
a little female-centric sexist here, but how often do we see a man do something like this? Men usually avoid being emotional. That’s why this is pretty neat to see what
Paul does here.
I think we can draw
a number of principles about emotional health here.
1)
Recognize when
you’re having emotions
2)
Name your
emotions
3)
Take
responsibility for your emotions—people may do things that provoke emotion in
you, but you get to choose what to do with your emotions. You choose whether to
say something or not, whether to do something or not. You get to choose your
words and the way you say them. You get
to choose your actions and the way you do them.
4)
Express your emotions,
but in a way that doesn’t harm others or yourself.
Emotions are powerful, and I
think Paul demonstrates that. He also demonstrates that they have to be carefully
managed to maintain good relationships.
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