Keep Focused and Pure

Creation: A Divine Cycle
The Birthing of a New Community

Freedom in Christ

1 Corinthians 5:1-2,6-13 The Message 

5 1-2 I also received a report of scandalous sex within your church family, a kind that wouldn’t be tolerated even outside the church: One of your men is sleeping with his stepmother. And you’re so above it all that it doesn’t even faze you! Shouldn’t this break your hearts? Shouldn’t it bring you to your knees in tears? Shouldn’t this person and his conduct be confronted and dealt with?
6-8 Your flip and callous arrogance in these things bothers me. You pass it off as a small thing, but it’s anything but that. Yeast, too, is a “small thing,” but it works its way through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast. So get rid of this “yeast.” Our true identity is flat and plain, not puffed up with the wrong kind of ingredient. The Messiah, our Passover Lamb, has already been sacrificed for the Passover meal, and we are the Unraised Bread part of the Feast. So let’s live out our part in the Feast, not as raised bread swollen with the yeast of evil, but as flat bread—simple, genuine, unpretentious.
9-13 I wrote you in my earlier letter that you shouldn’t make yourselves at home among the sexually promiscuous. I didn’t mean that you should have nothing at all to do with outsiders of that sort. Or with crooks, whether blue- or white-collar. Or with spiritual phonies, for that matter. You’d have to leave the world entirely to do that! But I am saying that you shouldn’t act as if everything is just fine when a friend who claims to be a Christian is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can’t just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior. I’m not responsible for what the outsiders do, but don’t we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers? God decides on the outsiders, but we need to decide when our brothers and sisters are out of line and, if necessary, clean house.

For Reflection

The Church has always had to deal with embarrassing situations. While repentance and forgiveness are paramount to resolving issues, there are times when some issues are not resolvable. Under these circumstances, there is a danger that the church will appear to condone the deviant behavior and the congregation faces a dilemma. Excommunication fixes the congregational problem.  But for the deviant individual, who by his action chooses to be an outsider, it seems that it does not help.

We remember, however that judgment is the Lord's to deliver, not ours.  In the excommunication, we recognize that God will take care of the lost souls.  Furthermore, God understands our shortcomings.  As humans, we can never resolve all issues.  So we do the best we can to serve God and the common good and rely on God's mercy.

Pray

Pray for the souls who have lost their pathway to righteous living. Pray for the church as it struggles with the temporal issues of our time. Pray that you will continue to live a righteous life humble service to God.