Written ~ 08-08-2024
Read 1 Corinthians Chapter Five
1 Corinthians 5
In today’s chapter Paul is calling out a particular sin being committed from someone who is calling themselves a believer and acting as though they were an integral part of the Corinthian church. Paul was aghast from hearing that sexual immorality was being tolerated within their church, so he had to step in and admonish the leaders for not taking care of it sooner or allowing it to take place at all.
In chapter four, Paul had to tell the Corinthian believers to beware of their arrogance and the judgements they were making about the apostles and other leaders.
***As a reminder… the Book of 1 Corinthians is a letter to the church at Corinth, so keep in mind that it was one continued thought, only much later, for easier reference was it divided into chapter and verse.***
Paul continues his reprimand from chapter four into chapter five….
For this chapter… I will be using The Message Version (MSG)…
1 Corinthians 5:1-2…
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?”
These believers are Paul’s spiritual children, he must have been absolutely heartbroken to find out they were allowing this kind of sexual sin to take place in their church. It doesn’t sound to me like it was even a secret! Everyone knew what was going on and allowed it to continue. It would be easy to stand in judgement, wouldn’t it? But we all sin, we all do foolish things that do not give glory to God. Every one of us has allowed sin, in one form or another, to abide in our midst, but for some reason we veil our eyes from existence. That’s what these believers were doing. By allowing such an abhorrent sin to take place in their church by someone who claimed to be a believer, showed the non-believers (the pagans) that the believers were no different than them, well, actually worse! Paul said in verse 5:1 that the type of sexual sin going in the church “wouldn’t be tolerated even outside the church.” Isn’t that one of Satan’s goals, to infiltrate the church with his lies so non-believers can discredit believers because of the sin they see them allowing in their churches?
Confrontation is always a difficult thing to do, we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. But let’s look and see how Paul handles this situation.
1 Corinthians 5:3-5…
3-5 “I’ll tell you what I would do. Even though I’m not there in person, consider me right there with you, because I can fully see what’s going on. I’m telling you that this is wrong. You must not simply look the other way and hope it goes away on its own. Bring it out in the open and deal with it in the authority of Jesus. Assemble the community—I’ll be present in spirit with you and Jesus will be present in power. Hold this man’s conduct up to public scrutiny. Let him defend it if he can! But if he can’t, then out with him! It will be totally devastating to him, of course, and embarrassing to you. But better devastation and embarrassment than damnation. You want him on his feet and forgiven before the Master on the Day of Judgment.”
When we allow sin to take a comfortable seat in our lives, when we tolerate it to a point that it no longer looks like sin, we are being deceived. Paul was confronting these believers; he was revealing their “blind eye” towards sin. Look what he says, “…you must not simply look the other way and hope it goes away on is own. Bring it out in the open and deal with it…” The man in our chapter today had to be brought forward and have his sin confronted, if he couldn’t defend what he was doing, or did not repent from it, then he would be asked to leave the church. It might seem cruel at first to throw someone out of the church, but if blatant sin is not taken care of right away it can lead to an increase of sinful activities, especially if a blind eye towards sin is condoned.
1 Corinthians 5:6-8…
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.”
Have you ever had a “flip and callous arrogance” towards sinful behavior? Do you watch as a good friend, or family member engages in sinful activities, but you won’t say a word out of fear that you’ll make them mad? Paul says that even the “smallest amount of sin” can spread and very quickly. Soon any number of sins can be covered up as “not that bad” when you allow the slightest bit of sin to rule your life. Paul said in verse 5:5 that it might be devasting or embarrassing to point out sin that is being allowed, but it is better to have that sin acknowledged, brought out into the open, then have it expelled… Completely.
1 Corinthians 5:9-13…
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 criminals, whether blue- or white-collar. Or with spiritual phonies, for that matter. You would have to leave the world entirely to do that! But I am saying that you SHOULD NOT act as if everything is just fine when a friend who claims to be a Christian is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God (worships idols) or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory (abusive). 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.”
What Paul is saying is that we can’t go through life without meeting up with non-believers, that would be impossible, we would have to leave the world for that to happen. But if we do happen to associate with non-believers on a regular basis it needs to our primary responsibility to pray for their Salvation, pray that the Holy Spirit will pierce their hearts and encourage them to seek the Lord. It is not our place to condemn them for the sin they indulge in, they don’t know any better, but we are to point them to Jesus because it’s Jesus who can save them from that sin, which hopefully will lead to repentance. That’s why our witness, our testimony needs to stand firm on the Word of God so it will hold up to the scrutiny a non-believer will place on us.
There’s a lot of us who do not like confrontation, whether we have to do the confronting or if the confrontation is directed at us. But Paul is saying that in most cases it is vital to confront sin in a believer’s life. Paul says in verse 5:11, “…I am saying that you should not act as if everything is fine when a friend who claims to be a Christian is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God (worships idols) or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory (abusive). You can’t just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior.”
If someone you know, who claims to be a believer in Christ, is involved in obvious sinful behavior, it becomes your responsibility to point it out. If that person is not willing to refrain from that activity and repent, it says in God’s Word that “You must remove the evil person from among you.” (verse 5:13b NLT) That’s an extremely difficult thing to do, especially if it is someone you love. But that person needs to see and understand that the sin they are carrying on in is not acceptable and must be eradicated from their lives. If we entertain a sinful atmosphere, even if we are not participating, but we allow it to go on all around us, not only does that increase the risk of temptation, but it dulls our senses, it desensitizes us from knowing right from wrong. As Paul put in, “it might be time to clean house.” Rid yourself of sinful behavior by removing the source of that sin from every area of your life. For example, think about when you clean your home, you clean it from top to bottom, dusting, vacuuming, scrubbing floors, the works! Doesn’t that feel great! Not only is it a sense of accomplishment but you look around your home, everything is neat and tidy, everything is put in its place. As you admire your surroundings you vow never to let your home get piled with clutter ever again. But what eventually happens? The mop and vacuum get put back in the closet and forgot about, dust begins to settle again, papers, clothes and dishes seem to pile up again. It’s a never-ending battle. Do you see where I am going here? Same goes with sin in our lives. When we are saved, we are washed clean, everything is bright and new. But if we aren’t mindful, we begin to accept sin’s subtlety to creep back in, sinful corners of our hearts begin to darken, piles of sinful attitudes get covered up, so we don’t see what’s really going on. Sinful behaviors we thought we had gotten rid of start to stain our thoughts. Then it happens… we become arrogant and believe we have everything under control, we see what’s going on, but we decide just to let it go, we don’t want to tackle the sin in our lives. We don’t care to point out to fellow believers that they are living with blatant sin. What happens to the church then? What happens to your home? What happens in your own life? What happens when sin is allowed to “run-a -muck?” Disaster will strike eventually.
Paul is warning us not to allow sin to permeate our lives, he is telling us to confront sin. He is encouraging us to become something new, to be sincere and truthful. We may not like to deal with sin, especially when we see a brother or sister in Christ involving themselves in sinful behaviors. But we need to stand firm on the foundation that is built on the Word of God. We must uphold the commands of the Lord. If we, as believers, don’t do it, then who will?
These topics are difficult to contemplate, that’s why I am so grateful to have a teacher like Paul who has the straightforward ability to tell it like it is! He doesn’t go at it with a wishy-washy attitude. No, he stands firm. He knows he is going to “step on people’s toes,” but he knows he must be truthful. It is his responsibility as a servant of the Lord to tell the church what God expects from His children!
When you and I profess to be children of the Living God and we do not stand up to sinful behavior, boy, do we ever run the risk of being disciplined just as much as those committing the blatant sin!
My prayer is that we would have courage like Paul. I pray that we can be honest with ourselves and expose the sin in our lives that needs to be taken care of immediately. I pray that each of us can have the sort of boldness Paul expresses when confronting sin. But remember…Full examination of our own heart is required, before we bring the offenses of other people to the Father. I pray that we would repent and live our lives with full honor and glory before our Father in Heaven.
~AMEN~