1 Corinthians 5:12-13 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.”
How sad that we often condone sin in our own family and judge people outside. The Corinthian church did that. There was incest in their midst. Read vv. 1-2. A man was sleeping with his father’s wife e.g. his mother. And they were proud of it. Paul criticized them for not rebuking the sinner. Paul further explained that they misunderstood his teaching about not associating with immoral people.
9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 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.
Paul taught practical evangelism. It is not realistic to be away from bad people because it would mean living alone to not be with the immoral, greedy, liars, cheaters and lovers of the world. Jesus was friend of tax collectors, prostitutes and kind to ‘sinners’ of society. Yet he rebuked Peter (Matt 16:23), criticized the Pharisees for their hypocrisy (Matt 23).
Church discipline is a hard thing to do. It is sad when a member of God’s family sins and nothing is done about it. Paul taught them to not even eat with the sinner. The person who committed an offence should be rebuked and disciplined. This applies not only as a church – a community of believers but in personal relationships as well. It is easy to just stay away from people not close to us when they did wrong. It is difficult to correct the wrong of a friend or family, is it not? We do not like to play ‘bad’ guy – to criticize a person to his face. We would rather passively let him be or worse we talk behind his back about what he did wrong – we gossip about it. 🙁
This brings to mind another verse: We are to speak the truth in love. (Eph. 4:15) A mature person speaks the truth in love. His motivation is love – not for self but for others. Love builds up – love does not rejoice in evil but rejoices in the truth. (1 Cor. 13)
Lord, today is another day to be wise. Please enable me to discern when to be kind and speak the truth in love. Grant me courage and integrity to stand for truth and speak out when a person does wrong.
