Not To Shame You
"I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I remind you. For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers" (1 Corinthians 4:14, 15).
Quite often Paul had to write somewhat boldly to the various churches (Romans 15:15). Since people are quite used to being reproved - put in their proper place - and shamed, he considered it necessary to remind them that he did not write to shame them. An impatient teacher can make fools of his pupils and put them to shame. But a father would never treat his children like that. Paul was such a father. In 2 Corinthians 2, he bares his father-heart more fully and writes, "For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you, with many tears, not that you should be grieved....". Not to shame them. Not to grieve them. Not to push them into a corner. Only to help and to bless them.
The Lord wrote a letter to the messenger of the church at Laodicea (who was in such a pitiful state), and counselled him to clothe himself in white garments so that the "shame of his nakedness be not revealed" (Revelations 3:18). Jesus was not interested in revealing the shame of that leader's nakedness to others. Instead, the leader received loving words of advice and exhortation and a promise of blessed fellowship with the Lord if he repented. Not to put him to shame. Not to grieve him. Only to help him to life.
Putting others to shame, "triumphing" over them, is a nasty and evil human tendency. This tendency, to a greater or even smaller and "finer" degree, is so common, that Paul thought it necessary to mention to the Corinthians that he did not write to them in order to shame them, even though he had to point out several things to them that were shameful (1 Corinthians 6:5, 15:34). His purpose was that they "might know the love which he had so abundantly for them".
- Arild Tombre
"I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I remind you. For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers" (1 Corinthians 4:14, 15).
Quite often Paul had to write somewhat boldly to the various churches (Romans 15:15). Since people are quite used to being reproved - put in their proper place - and shamed, he considered it necessary to remind them that he did not write to shame them. An impatient teacher can make fools of his pupils and put them to shame. But a father would never treat his children like that. Paul was such a father. In 2 Corinthians 2, he bares his father-heart more fully and writes, "For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you, with many tears, not that you should be grieved....". Not to shame them. Not to grieve them. Not to push them into a corner. Only to help and to bless them.
The Lord wrote a letter to the messenger of the church at Laodicea (who was in such a pitiful state), and counselled him to clothe himself in white garments so that the "shame of his nakedness be not revealed" (Revelations 3:18). Jesus was not interested in revealing the shame of that leader's nakedness to others. Instead, the leader received loving words of advice and exhortation and a promise of blessed fellowship with the Lord if he repented. Not to put him to shame. Not to grieve him. Only to help him to life.
Putting others to shame, "triumphing" over them, is a nasty and evil human tendency. This tendency, to a greater or even smaller and "finer" degree, is so common, that Paul thought it necessary to mention to the Corinthians that he did not write to them in order to shame them, even though he had to point out several things to them that were shameful (1 Corinthians 6:5, 15:34). His purpose was that they "might know the love which he had so abundantly for them".
- Arild Tombre