4. From the particulars of this case, Paul changes the subject to teach the proper relationship of the believer with fornicators (and other sinners) of this world, as opposed to those found within the church (1 Cor 5.9-13).<\/span><\/p>\nHere Paul alludes to his previous letter (see comments on \u2018the rest of Ac 19\u2019, just prior to the introduction to 1 Cor in Study Guide 13), where he had instructed them not to have company with \u2018immoral people\u2019. This letter no longer exists, though the fact of its teaching makes the sin of the Corinthians more serious: they had previously been instructed on this subject (9). Paul clarifies that by this instruction he had not meant to forbid all contact with immoral people (or other kinds of sinners) \u2018of this world\u2019 for that would mean total removal from society (10). What Paul means by his prohibition is that when a professing Christian is guilty of one of these gross sins demanding expulsion, he was to be completely shunned in every way by the believers, going as far as refusing to partake a meal together (11). It is not the business of the church to judge outsiders, but to judge insiders when it comes to these matters (12). God is the judge of those on the outside (13a). You (the church) are to judge those guilty of these sins on the inside, therefore the command is \u2018Remove the wicked man from among yourselves\u2019 (13b, Dt 13.5, 17.7, 17.12, 21.21, 22.21).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The most pertinent part of the commentary to this discussion is the last bit of Point 2, where I compare 1 Cor 5 with Mt 18. I would also like to submit a notion with respect to Mt 18, although I won’t take the time to prove it here. (I do want to write more fully on Mt 18 in a later post.) I think Mt 18 is largely misunderstood and over-applied. The Lord isn’t giving us a law of the Medes and Persians that must be followed in every case of church discipline. He isn’t giving us a template for dealing with errant teaching and errant teachers far and wide. He is dealing with personal conflicts and jockeying for position and place (politicking) among members of the local assembly. He is laying out principles to follow, not a law to be maintained or exactly followed in every case. We should follow it and apply it with WISDOM by faith without making it a LAW of the church.<\/p>\n
To answer Larry’s last questions, then. First, I do see 1 Cor 5 as a church discipline passage. I just don’t think that Mt 18 and 1 Cor 5 are talking about the same thing. Church discipline in some cases requires Christians to employ wisdom in resolving disputes between themselves. They shouldn’t resort to the courts (Mt 18 and 1 Cor 6.1-8 are much more closely related than Mt 18 and 1 Cor 5.) They should try talking to each other, try to involve others, take it to the whole church if necessary. 1 Cor 5 has nothing to do with that. Paul is addressing a cancer in the body. You cut cancer out, you don’t keep it in. Certain egregious sins are a blight on the testimony of the church and simply cannot be tolerated.<\/p>\n
As to correlating Gal 1 with this issue, I see where you are going Larry, that appears to be a ‘slip of the keyboard’ and you probably mean Gal 6.1. Again, I would find that passage more closely related to the wisdom of Mt 18 rather than the commandment of 1 Cor 5.<\/p>\n
Finally, I made the comment that if you boot the fornicator out, you have an opportunity to see how genuine the repentance is. Larry wonders how so. Here is how: the fornicator who is coddled within the body may repent, but may only be doing so to protect self-interest. He can say the right things, change public perceptions, hide his sin deeper, and be even more deceptive than before. If you boot him out, he has nothing to gain by persisting in “repentance”. Now we can see if he really means it. Fence the table from him, put him under the church’s censure, insist on his expulsion from fellowship, and you will see whether he has been reformed. Many commentators suggest that this is indeed what happened in Corinth and Paul then instructed the Corinthians to reinstate the penitant. See 2 Cor 2.4-11.<\/p>\n
The whole issue is complicated by 1 Cor 5.11, where Paul lists additional sins that fall under the category for which he gives the commands in 1 Cor 5.3-5. It appears that when a professing believer commits an egregious sin, he should be expelled from the assembly. Use the rod, and don’t be moved by the tears, until a test of time has passed and genuine repentance is evident.<\/p>\n
The modern church is rather loose in its morality. I believe that one of the major areas where the church is lax is failing to obey 1 Cor 5. It makes me wonder if the Lord will find faith on the earth when he returns. Oh Lord Jesus, Come!<\/p>\n
As I said, I do invite the comments of Larry and Chris, or anyone else interested in this discussion. I would like to work through these passages in detail, and the questions or comments that arise, especially pointing to specific features of the texts involved are most welcome. I may deal with such questions in future posts rather than in the comments section, however.<\/p>\n
Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In recent discussions over at Sharper Iron, we got off topic on a particular thread by observations concerning 1 Corinthians 5 and its teaching with respect to church discipline. I will try to reconstruct some of the discussion here, then offer a bit more argumentation concerning the topic. Larry Rogier used this illustration in making […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-6j","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}