Take Two: 1 Corinthians 5, Proverbs 20

Chapter 5 is one of the more difficult to process in the New Testament. Not because the language or the theology is difficult...but because it deals with sin, holiness, and how those intersect with our lives.

Paul told the church in 1 Cor 4:18-21 that he was coming to them to correct some issues. The issues related to the church's response to immorality. 1 Cor 5:1-2 explains that Paul's great concern is how the church has failed to act on the sin in their midst. Someone in the church (probably with some prominence) was having sexual relations with his stepmother (1 Cor 5:1). The issue was not the sin which had a clearly prescribed response. (Repent or be judged). The issue was the tolerance of ongoing sin in the life of a believer and the church's arrogance (1 Cor 5:2) in not dealing with the sin as God had prescribed.

It is not the severity of the sin. You and I deal with scales of sin that include "little white lies" and "conspiracies." God sees lying as lying. It is no different to lie against your neighbor or lie about your charitable contributions on your income taxes. Both are lying. The man in this church was committing sexual sin...no different than lust (Matt 5:28), or extramarital sex, or beastiality, or polygamy (frowned upon in the first century as a whole and prohibited in Jewish thought). We cannot look back on the sin (which is over-the-top wrong from our perspective) and say "of course they should have disciplined him" when we tolerate ongoing, unrepentent sin in our presence by people who claim to be followers of Christ.

The arrogance displayed was the church (probably the leadership) making allowances for people based on personalities and relationships that superceded God's clear direction. Paul said that he had already made a decision on how to proceed because the matter was that clear. Stop sinning or the chruch will discipline you.

Some today (myself included at times) think this seems really harsh. I think this is mostly because we recognize our own sin and propensity to sin. This is why we reject small group accountability and personal accountability. We don't want to be discovered. HEAR ME...God knows we are not perfect. He just will not allow us to tolerate sin in our lives anymore that He tolerates sin in our lives.

Paul had written previously to the church and admonished them to not associate with immoral people (1 Cor 5:9). They took that as the need to be separate from the world. Paul said this is crazy...because to do that meant to seclude the church from the world (1 Cor 5:10). [Really shoots the whole monastery idea in the foot, huh?] He said that the command was to not associate with people who claimed to follow Christ (members of the church) who would not repent of their sins (1 Cor 5:11). Obviously we have no business trying to judge the outside world. If someone does not become part of our community (the church) we have no right to judge their lifestyle. If they are outside of the church...they are God's business...because to be with Jesus means that you are in the church. Catch this...it is about to get deeper.

We are responsible for helping one another by holding one another accountable for holiness. We are doing no one any favors by overlooking their ongoing sins or by choosing to huddle and pray for them...when what they need is someone to call them to repentence (Matthew 18:15). Does this take courage? Absolutely. Can it be ignored? Absolutely not. Perhaps if the church (including the church I serve) cared more about its own holiness than how the world acted on any given sin subject...we would experience a real demonstration of God's power in our midst and our witness would be light years ahead of where it is.

Proverbs 20:19 is the takeaway today. It stuck out because of the admonition in 1 Cor 5. Gossip is a destructive sin that we are told to avoid...and we are told to avoid people who engage in it. As we meditate on that today: ask, "do I do this?"

Grace,