1 Corinthians 5
1 Corinthians 5:1-13
1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife!
2 And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.
3 For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed.
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6 Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people.
10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
11 But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.
12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside?
13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “PUT AWAY FROM YOURSELVES THE EVIL PERSON.”
There is a great need for those who are bound in sin to be reconciled to God, but allowing them to join in fellowship while pridefully embracing their wickedness is to compromise the security of the body as a whole. So much more than just what we say – our conduct is either communicating the reality of a transformed life or the perception that a little bit of the world’s evil is justified and even acceptable. What we are doing is either taking others with us as we follow Christ or leading them to our devastation with us. Paul adamantly squelches any notion that we’ve been freed to live however we choose and be accepted as a part of Christ’s body. He gives an extreme case of a man with his father’s wife, but then includes anyone that is living a perverted and evil lifestyle as if it’s ok. The preservation and growth of the body is dependent on removal of such activity that clearly indicates service to a different lord. The slightest acceptance of ungodliness is much like leaven in bread. It will spread throughout the whole. Judgment of those that are infusing their evil ways is not insensitive and unloving but is actually a demonstration of a greater love. If it is not made clear just how severely this conduct will be judged, there can be no repentance and restoration.
When there is a loss of those who have become dear to our hearts, there is often a bit of mourning as we miss their supply and our opportunity to love them. However, when their separation is due to a cleansing of some leaven, there can be hope in where God is taking us to in greater purity and holiness for His glory as His own special people.
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