Stop being complacent about sin in the church

I Corinthians 5:11-13 (NIV)

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. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. Expel the wicked person from among you.

Have you ever been part of a church where a member needed to be thrown out of church membership because of some grievous sin?  I have one time and it was a terrible experience by all, but something that had to be done.  It is absolutely wrong, as Paul writes in I Cor 5, to allow a church member to continue being a member if he/she is known to be committing a grievous sin.  Chapter 5 of I Corinthians describes a shocking immorality being conducted by a man with his stepmother and the Corinthian church demonstrating indifference to this situation.  Paul is mortified that the Corinthian church leaders are not doing anything to deal with this immorality.  He writes some very strong words in Chapter 5—the Message Bible uses such phrases as “shouldn’t this bring you to your knees in tears?”, “hold this man’s conduct up to public scrutiny”, “your flip and callous arrogance in this things bothers me”, and “we need to decide when our brothers and sisters are out of line and, if necessary, clean house”.    

I Cor 5 involves Paul’s efforts to convince the Corinthian church to stop being complacent and doing nothing about rampant immorality going on there.   He then concludes this chapter with some very strong words---let’s say commandments---about what the church must do to survive.  Rampant, overt sin cannot be tolerated in the church.  Yes, church members are not to be judges of others, but if the sin is obvious, it cannot be ignored.     

What Paul writes that the church must do then applies to the church today.  However, how does a church leadership team or anyone active in a church really know if another Christian is behaving in one or more of the sinful ways mentioned in this passage.  How do you determine that a brother or sister in Christ is sexually immoral, greedy, an idolator, a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler?  You cannot unless the sin is overt/very public as it was in the Corinthian church.  Are these the only six sinful actions condemned by Paul?  Likely not, but perhaps he is listing the sins that potentially can do the greatest damage to the church.  Is not every Christian person at one time or another sexually immoral (after all, Jesus said that if you look upon another woman with lust in your heart, you have committed adultery)?  Haven’t you at one time or another shown greed?  Idolatry is putting something or someone before God, haven’t you done that before?  Well, I have to believe that Paul is referring to someone who is consistently showing immorality, consistently being greedy, and so forth. 

A church’s reputation is totally dependent on the attitudes and actions of her members.  By allowing a church member to keep on committing sexual immorality or any of these other public sins jeopardizes, in fact, damages, the health and reputation of the entire church and threatens her survival. That’s why if someone is publicly known to be behaving in one of these sinful ways, the church must “expel” that person from her membership to regain health and assure survival.  You are not only to expel this person but don’t have anything to do with him/her, not even eat with them. 

Paul’s firm instructions apply only to Christian believers.  Unbelievers are considered outside the church and it is not the church’s responsibility to judge unbelievers.  God judges them.    

Scrutinizing your own life and what you do when no one is looking, are you living in some kind of willful, deliberate and consistent sin that you need to repent of?  You can experience forgiveness and reconciliation to your Father right now.  Otherwise what you continue to do might eventually be revealed within your church family and you will suffer the consequences.  Your church will suffer also.  Never allow wickedness to control your life.