Paul had just written that the Corinthian church was rich, and they were like Kings, reigning, while he was mistreated, poor, they were honored, he was dishonored. They were seen as wise, while Paul and his partners were seen as foolish. He explained that when cursed, he blesses, when persecuted, he endures, when slandered, he treats kindly. He said that on this earth the apostles have been made a spectacle, at the end of a procession doomed to die in an arena. He said that they have become the scum or garbage of the world. Meanwhile in Corinth, they were arguing about which leader they followed, even though the leaders were all preaching the same message, serving the same God, and part of the same Kingdom. I ended there, which I said probably wasn’t the best place to end. I jokingly said it was bad to end in a spot where he said the apostles are treated like garbage or scum, but really it was a bad spot to end because in the next few verses, Paul explains why he is saying this.
14 I am writing this not to shame you but to warn you as my dear children. 15 Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. 16 Therefore I urge you to imitate me. 17 For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.
He says, look, you have it good. You are honored, but we are disgraced. Not everyone is treated well by outsiders. You are rich and honored, we are beaten, hungry, homeless. Paul is painting two contrasting pictures. It’s a teaching moment. And sometimes when parents scold their kids, they say something like, “you should be ashamed of yourself.” Paul is saying, I am not writing this to shame you. Don’t be ashamed that things are going well, but take a step back get out of your bubble, and get some perspective! Don’t be running around like a bunch of fools forming factions and teams and acting immature. You don’t need to be ashamed, but Be warned, be aware, be corrected and reproached. Paul refers to the church as his dear children. He is acting as a loving father. Vs 15, you have ten thousand guardians, but not many fathers. The Greek for Guardians are like household tuturs, nannys, teachers. They do their best to instruct, but at the end of the day, they go home and are done with their job. Paul is like a parent. The job never ends for fathers and mothers. And good fathers and mothers care much more than the guardian. They want what;s best for their sons and daughters, not just for today, but for the long term. Parents need to teach the difficult lessons and correct the path. Parents can’t just say, well things aren’t working out here, I am going to teach in a different household. The commitment level and relationship depth are different between parents and guardians. Paul is so committed to the church, he wants to be there with them so they can see him and imitate him. But until Paul can do this himself, he is sending Timothy, a beloved and faithful son to remind them his way of life, and instruct them in accordance with what is taught everywhere in every church.
18 Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. 20 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. 21 What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod of discipline, or shall I come in love and with a gentle spirit?
Paul reiterates he wants to see them and instruct them in person. There have been reports of this arrogance and pride that has been cropping up in the church, and that has reached Paul. And it obviously has hurt him. He wants to deal with the arrogant ones in person. It’s so much easier to talk trash, slander, or leave negative comments when you are not together. In the Internet age, we have become acutely aware of this negativity that is spread by people who feel protecteted by anonymity and distance. But it is much harder to do face to face, and if they have something against Paul, or they have a complaint, he wants to hear it directly from them. He wants to know not just what they are saying, but how they are talking and whether or not they are empowered by God and His spirit, or just acting arrogant and seeking power or status within the church. IN the book of Galatians, Paul recounts a time where him and Peter had to bridge a gap. They did this exchange face to face, and Paul had discussed Peters’ hypocricy with eating with Gentiles, but not when the Judaizers from James’ group were around. From the biblical accounts, Paul wasn’t afraid to see an issue and discuss it right there. As we read on, there is another issue that needed to be resolved swiftly, even before Paul returned to the church.
5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?
This sexual sin is incest. There are these reports that a man is sleeping with his Father’s wife. Most agree the language indicates that the relation is not biological, but his step mother. Now, I have to wonder, how do people know that this is going on. Obviously the man isn’t trying to keep this relationship a secret, he isn’t hiding this sin, or he isnt’ hiding it well, he isnt discreet, and he certainly isn’t denying it. Most sexual sin, and even non-sinful sexual activity in general is kept quiet, it isn’t openly discussed. It’s a topic that falls in the category of “None of your business”. If people gossip about it, the people who they are gossiping about would likely not tolerate that. But the corinthian church is acting differently. They are proud. I am not certain who exactly is proud here, but it is Some subset or combination of the man, the stepmother, the church who are fine with this going on. Not just fine, but kind of proud of either the activity, or the church’s tolerance of it. Nobody feels humbled, not saddened, not struggling with an activity that is clearly prohibited by Scripture, clearly contrary to God’s law. Paul says the people should be mourning and in sackcloth, instead of proud!
Christ’s blood does cover our sin, but as Christians, with the new identity in Christ, we are to die to our sins, we are to make war with our sin and our flesh, we shouldn’t make peace with it. People who make peace with sin are not people who have a living faith. You are either feeding your flesh or the spirit, you can’t feed both. Paul is saying there is a place for church discipline
3 For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. 4 So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, 5 hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,[a][b] so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.
Verse three says he has passed judgment, but in Greek, he is saying he has made a determination and processed the situation. He has come to a conclusion in his mind, that the reports are true and this sin has been occuring. Paul here discusses a place for church discipline. There is a place and a time for everything. Most of our church services fortunately, involve singing songs of praise, worshiping God, and studying Scripture through the preaching of the word. There could be a time for church discipline if that is necessary; the Bible certainly supports that idea. Paul is talking about purging or sending out somebody who is clearly not Christian, who is clearly not displaying that they love Christ more than things of the world. In our day in age, we are trying to get more people to come out to church. We rarely see the need to send anyone away. People who are far from Christ need to hear about their sin, they need to hear about their need for salvation, they need to learn about the Supremacy of Christ. When we preach these things, most worldly people just leave on their own. Paul isn’t saying that there’s a temple of Satan down the road. The phrase hand this man to Satan, just means, send him back out into the world. Let him reap what he is sowing, do not support him in any way, don’t give him a pedestal or platform to talk, or let him interact with the church. Don’t show outsiders that his behavior is complementary to true repentance and faith in Christ. Perhaps without any brotherly love and affection from the church, he may see the error of his way, perhaps without the church’s tolerance he will see that the relationship he thinks he has with God is imaginary. He may just repent!
And that discipline may lead to salvation. But there is also another reason to excommunicate him. He could infect or influence the culture of the other church members. Read on.
6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Boasting, tolerance of sin, arrogance, and their factions that they are starting. These things are all bad, and like a small amount of yeast, they could ruin a whole batch of dough. I remember Franky referencing this passage when he was doing the Bible study in Genesis. It is amazing to read the story of the Passover, and see Christ. The lamb’s blood covered the people, who were saved from the Angel of Death. We are saved from the eternal death of our sin, because of the Blood of Christ. Christ is our Lamb! Even thinking about the doorpost covered with the blood of the lamb, in order to have God’s Angel pass over the people inside that door. The door served as people’s protection from God’s Righteous Judgement and the Holy Presence of God. Now, Christ comes and says he is the door. Instead of needing that old door frame to keep us away from God, in Christ, we have the door open, and we have access to God. And Paul mentions that we need not sacrifice lambs anymore, because our Passover Lamb, HAS BEEN sacrificed. No longer needs to be sacrificed. And we were taught to keep the passover continually, forever. But look at how we keep the passover in Christ. Our unleavened bread is sincerity and truth. We aren’t avoiding yeast, we are avoiding malice and wickedness. And it isn’t just a few days of eating no leaven in bread. We keep the festival Continually! Removing the leaven or yeast of malice and wickedness is something we do every day!
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[c] but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
Paul says we shouldn’t associate with certain types of people. And he makes a BIG distinction. We are still living in this world, and there are people in the world who are immoral, greedy, idolators. We should associate with them, we NEED to associate with them because we can’t leave the world. We have a place in the world to teach and instruct those who are living that way. We have instruction that we should be the salt and light of the world. We live in the world, but we are not of the world. We should demonstrate God’s love and the work of God’s Holy Spirit and do that to a fallen world, to the lost, so that we can exemplify what power the Gospel and the Cross of Christ have.
However, when someone says they are Christian, they belong to God, they claim to be part of the church, they say they love God, and Love Jesus, but they have made peace with their sin. These people do not know the God they say they love, they do not love Jesus who is the Law fulfilled. Their hypocrisy and bad fruits testify against their words. They are on a path of destruction like the rest of the world, but by associating with believers, and pretending to be Christian, identifying with God or Christ, they present a huge danger. 1) to the world They teach other unbelievers that it’s ok to sin, they teach the world that Christianity is really a powerless and phony faith. 2) to the elect, They have the potential to pollute the doctrine of the church, and interfere with the communion of the saints, the body of believers. They have the opportunity to infiltrate the church and cause great havoc and confusion. This was especially true in Paul’s time, when the institution of the church was still being established, and Christians needed to demonstrate who they were, how they were different from other faiths, Judiasm, Gnosticism, polytheism, etc. But it is still important today, since there have been so many examples of bad doctrine polluting supposedly Christian churches.
12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”[d]
Paul ends here, and it’s a place where he actually uses the Greek word Krinete. Or to pronounce Judgment. We have no business judging those outside the church. We are not to pronounce any final judgment, because that’s God’s role. And it’s interesting because even though Christ says Judge not, we have an important calling when we are in a church family. We should not judge those outside the church. If someone is in the church, we need to seriously watch over each other and be on the lookout for false believers. We are Christians, and we have a church to protect. Christ told Peter to feed his sheep. Paul tells Timothy to watch his doctrine. If there is someone in the congregation who is dangerous, who has made peace with their sin, who has trampled on the grace of God and the freedom that Christ has given, it is our job to expel them from our midst.
Once we’ve expelled them, they are on the outside, those people are no longer ours to Judge anymore. But at least they aren’t pretending to be inside any longer. They aren’t giving a false witness to the world, they aren’t causing true believers to stray, and they aren’t allowed to have that cognitive dissonance where they think they are free Christians safe from God’s wrath, but they are actually in a place where they are in danger of eternal peril. This chapter is a hard pill to swallow. It is kind of tough to unpack, but if you think about it, and you understand the glory of God’s design for the function of a church and this family, it begins to make sense. I haven’t come across someone who I thought should be expelled from the church, and usually those types of people just don’t bother coming back, because every week, we teach the Gospel, and the word of God, and things that make a “false believer” uncomfortable. Sure there are believers who seem immature at times, or in some areas of their life, but if they keep coming back and attending, and worshiping, and listening to the preaching and teaching, I am confident that the Word of God and God’s Holy Spirit of discernment begin to change things.