Dwell in the Word 1 Corinthians 5:1-13

Think on these questions as you dwell in 1 Corinthians 5:1-13:

1. How does Paul address the issue of sexual immorality in the Corinthian church, and what is his primary concern regarding their response to it? How does he emphasize the importance of church discipline in this context?

2. Paul mentions the metaphor of leaven permeating through dough. What is the significance of this metaphor in the context of addressing sin within the church? How does it highlight the potential impact of allowing sin to persist among the congregation?

3. Paul distinguishes between judging those inside the church and those outside. What is the distinction he makes, and why is it important for believers to understand this difference? How does this perspective influence the way believers approach issues of sin and holiness within the church community?

Transcript:

 Well, this is a little bit of a difficult passage to do for a devotional thoughts. Um, really to understand it, you have to do the whole chapter, uh, could really break it down. And plus, this is for devotional thoughts, not breaking it down verse by verse and really understanding it. So I'm going to do my best here to explain a few of the things, but then to actually try to apply it a little bit and to get the whole thing done.

in less than 10 minutes. So, here we go. Well, it starts out, and Paul is addressing some sexual immorality in the church in Corinth and notice what it says here. And of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife. Now, here he's obviously speaking of incest. Now, as we, as we look at this, one thing that comes to mind for us, and the reason I highlighted this second half of the first verse, is because for us, we don't really think about that there would be codes among pagans.

We just think that they would maybe have freewheeling, whatever goes type of Attitude. But if you look back at the at the codes in these ancient civilizations in the ancient Near East and then as we move towards, you know, Rome and other parts of the world as we get closer to the time that Paul is talking about here, there were codes of things you did and things you didn't do.

Now, obviously, the Judeo-Christian ethic was much more narrow than the pagan one. But as Paul says here, there's things that are happening that even pagans Wouldn't allow what, what are you doing? That's, that's the big idea here. They're set. He's saying you should be making a big deal out of this, but, but you're not.

And so, he's Paul says, you know, you're boasting. Is that good? They're, they're acting like this is no big deal. They're acting like they can handle this or whatever without, uh, without removing the person from among them. Cause the standard was, is that this required church discipline and, and ultimately the goal of church discipline.

When we see this, later on here when it talks about, you know, removing them, um, the goal of church discipline is not that they be banished from the church. The goal is that you set them aside and the purpose of church discipline is to get them to come back. It’s restoration, it's forgiveness, it's repentance.

And so, Paul is saying, you know, do you not know the little leaven leavens the whole lump? Basically saying, do you not know  that a little bit of yeast, this tiny little bit of yeast works its way through all the dough.  So, you need to get rid of this so that it doesn't infiltrate the church here. Now, what Paul is saying here is that you have to make sure that you take care of these issues among you, because a little deal can become a big deal.

And so, Paul continues, I highlighted verse 9 here and verse 10, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. Now, you might be saying, when you read that without seeing what Paul says in the next verse, what's your thinking? Boy, is Paul talking about isolationism here? Is, you're completely removing yourself from the world?

Do you need to, you know, cloister yourself away from everybody? Not work with the world? And Paul makes it clear, um, I'm not meeting the sexual immoral of this world. Um. If you did that, you'd have to, you'd have to go out of the world. It isn't possible. But Paul's point here is within the church, you can't have those things.

Because as he said, a little leaven leavens a whole lump. A little bit of yeast works all the way through the dough. And so, this can cause a problem. So the church, if we're going to strive after holiness, we need to understand that we need to get rid of sin from among us.  And then we see in verse 12, For what have I to do with judging outsiders?

Paul's saying, you know, I'm not judging the world, I'm not judging your neighbors by the standard that I would judge the church. Um, it's within the church that those that you're supposed to judge. And now he's not saying that you judge, and you talk about people behind their back. His point is you look at what is going on and you try to bring them to repentance.

You try to make sure that they are pursuing holiness. Because, as Paul says here, God judges those outside, but you need to purge the evil person from among you. If they are not, um, not going, coming to repentance, they're not confessing their sin, not acknowledging their sin, and continuing in sin, then you have to do something about it.

Now, as we think about what this means for us, you know, it is important that we think about these things, that we think about whether or not we are pursuing holiness. And this has great implications for the church. This is, this is why elders meet. This is why we try to pray for people and, and try and, um, talk with those who maybe have issues and, and do those kind of things.

But for us, as we think about this, as I said, devotionally, what does it mean for you and I?  And the question I would like to ask myself and to ask you, are we purging the sin from within ourselves? Because we have sin that only we know.  Are we allowing ourselves to continue this way? Or are we trying to eliminate it from our lives?

Before we judge others, are we, are we trying to say, am I pursuing holiness? Am I seeking out the things of God so that I might be holy before him? That's a hard question. But this passage, while it feels like, you know, we would read it on the surface, and we would say, yeah, those people over there, we never want to come to Scripture and always be thinking about the people over there, right?

Thinking about someone else. We should be convicted ourselves because that's the proof that the Spirit is at work in us. If our sin is being convicted within us, clearly the Spirit is using the Word in our lives. And so may we be convicted of our sin before we look at the sin of others. May we be convicted of that and may we purge that evil from within us.

That we might be seeking God, that we might be seeking holiness, that we might be a part of the people of God together, coming together and pursuing holiness together. And while that is difficult, may God's spirit be at work in us today. Causing us to repent of our sin and move towards him in holiness.