I am impressed by Paul's love for the church at Corinth. Even though they were a difficult bunch who consistently gave him trouble, he remained patient with them; dealing with them in ways intending to restore and reconcile them to Christ and to the church. Churches are made up of people, and we are most decidedly imperfect. Pastors and lay people often make the mistake of allowing a disagreement or imperfection to cause them to break fellowship with their faith community when they should be staying and allowing others to be as imperfect as they are. In Paul's final warnings in chapter 13, he exhorts them to do what is right, even if others may seem to have failed. There is too much jumping around from place to place by people looking for exactly what they want. The role of a faith community is not to give you what you want, but to give you a place where you can build relationships with other believers, be strengthened in your faith, and work with the others to spread the gospel. If any church ever gets to the place where it's main mission is to provide a comfortable place for the members to hang out with each other and agree on every point, it will not survive.
Paul's commitment to the Corinthian church is for restoration; being restored to Christ and to one another. We need one another to fulfill our Christian mandate to go into all the world.
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