SCRIPTURE: 1 CORINTHIANS 5
BIBLE VERSES;
“Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8)
“But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.” (1 Corinthians 5:11)
“What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”(1 Corinthians 5:12-13)
EXPEL THE IMMORAL BROTHER! ( vs. 1-13)
Paul was rebuking a believer in Corinth who was sexually immoral by marrying his father’s wife. He also reprimanded their boasting. He wrote this letter ordering them not to associate with sexually immoral people, the greedy, swindlers, idolaters, drunkard, and slanderer. But for the unbelievers, God is their judge.
THOUGHTS:
- The discipline was to be handled by the church collectively. If the man refuses to repent, he is to be dismissed from fellowship. The purpose of the discipline is not to lost a member but rather to bring the sinner back through repentance so that he may be saved from loss of reward on the judgment day. Wandering believers must be warned and disciplined for their own good. The church’s rule should be to help, not hurt, to notify them to repent and return to the fellowship of the church so that the reputation of the church will not be tarnished.
- Paul warned about one member living in open sin can defile the entire church (v. 6). Christian must not allow the yeast of sin to grow quickly in church and produce trouble and shame. If the sin becomes known, the leaders must take steps to protect the spiritual welfare of the church. To condone sin is to deny the cross of Christ. God expects His church to be different from the world.
- Paul gave a distinction between the sin in the lives of Christians and the sin in the lives of the unbelievers. Sin in the lives of believers are worse. Paul commanded believers not to fellowship with Christians who had sinful reputation but he did not tell them to stay away from all sinners of unbelievers. The unsaved man is expected to live in sin but the world expect Christians to be upright.
- God expects us to exercise spiritual judgment in church. But we are not to judge the outsiders because God will be the one to judge them.