1 Corinthians 5:2 - Truth in Love

 

1 Corinthians 5:2

NKJV

And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.

 

NLT

You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame. And you should remove this man from your fellowship.

 

The Enduring Word commentary mentions a few reasons as to maybe why the Corinth Church allowed the man mentioned in verse one to continue to be in fellowship with them. But I think this one probably sums up what they felt, and what is happening in churches today:

 

” More than anything, the Corinthian Christians probably allowed this in the name of “tolerance.” They probably said to themselves, “Look how loving we are. We accept this brother just as he is. Look how open-minded we are!” We should never underestimate what people will allow in the name of “open-mindedness.”

 

We as believers in Christ; as the Church (big C), should only be tolerant of those things that line up with what God’s word says. This verse talks about the unrepentant man in verse one, how they should remove him from the fellowship. I think it is really easy to look at the spec in someone else’s eye and not see the four-by-four in our own.  The key that I see here is that we should be in mourning and broken hearted over this sin of a fellow believer. What did we do to encourage that believer to come out of their sin? Did we talk with them? Did we develop a relationship with them, so that we were able to have that hard conversation about their lifestyle? What did we do in love, before we got to the place where someone was removed from the fellowship?

 

I’ve recently learned some lessons about this subject, it wasn’t a fun time for sure. I fully supported what happened, but it left me with some thoughts on what I could have done differently and what I will do differently going forward. There is never anything wrong with speaking truth to someone. But I’d say that our truth should never be a club; truth should be spoke with the same love that Jesus showed in His truth. Rest assured that truth is a whole lot easier to speak if you have a relationship with someone.

 

And if that truth is rejected, on any level; then it should break our hearts and we should mourn the loss of someone in fellowship. We should also, always, try to minister to them where they are to pull them back into relationship with us.

 

Seems kinda rambly today….

 

Love you all,

cej

1 Corinthians 5:1 - Not Self Medicated

 

1 Corinthians 5:1

NKJV

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife!

 

NLT

I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you—something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother.

 

This is really salacious! There are some commentaries that speculate that this man was a teacher in the church. Regardless, if he was a teacher or not…it was something that even the pagans found repugnant. I think if you look past the salaciousness of the actual sin itself, which don’t get me wrong…it’s wrong. But if you really dig down into this, really try to get to the root, you can see this is about doing what you want…regardless of right or wrong. This man, teacher or not, chose to do something because if felt good, it didn’t matter to him if it was right or wrong.

 

I wonder if we all dug down into why we commit the sins that we do, if we wouldn’t find the very same thing? Sure, at times there are psychological reasons, but maybe dig a little deeper. It felt good and, in that moment, we didn’t care about the consequences. As I write that, I am speaking to myself here!

 

I can look at times that I have sinned and the root of it, if I’m honest with myself, is that if felt good and I didn’t care about God or anyone else in that moment. I chose that particular sin to change how I felt, because in that moment life was too hard to deal with.

 

We need to learn how to deal with ourselves in a positive manner! I wonder if we don’t “self-medicate” with our sins? A wise person told me once that “sins are fun, otherwise no one would do them”  Sometimes, sins are funner than the life situation we are in at the moment. But it is so fleeting! It’s not there very long and will leave us feeling worse than we did before. We feel sad; and angry; and ashamed. All of these are not from God. But that’s the lie, isn’t it? It’s time to quit living on how we feel and start living in the spirit; so that we know who our loving, living God wants us to be.

 

Not self-medicated today,

cej