Restore your Christian Brother with Tough Love

We see the clearest (but by no means the only) application of this principle to the church in I Corinthians 5.  Now, the Corinthians were experiencing the presence of God in their midst.  They had been “enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge . . . com[ing] short in no gift” (1:5, 7), and Paul says that they “are gathered together . . . with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.” 

They’ve got it going, but Paul knows, first, that sin + God is dangerous (see sickness and death in I Cor. 11), and, second, that Christians in sin, unrepentant, will eventually destroy the church.  “A little yeast,” Paul tells them, “contaminates the whole lump of dough.”  A few people in unrepentant sin, continually grieving the Holy Spirit, hurts the whole congregation not only by example but also by creating a noxious atmosphere that God won’t live in. 

Paul, knowing this, insists on church discipline in some harsh-sounding terms like “deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh” and “do we not judge those who are inside?” and “put away from yourselves the evil person.” 

Again, I know that, for some of you, calling a sinning Christian an “evil person” who is to be delivered over to Satan for “the destruction of his flesh” sounds completely contrary to how you think we should deal with people in sin, but this strong medicine is not out of hatred or “holier-than-thou-ness.”  Paul’s purpose for the church is that it not be contaminated, so that God’s presence may remain there, so that the church itself will not be lost. 

Not only that, but Paul’s purpose for disciplining the sinning individual is “the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”  As Jesus taught in Matthew 18:15-20, turning someone out of the fellowship and refusing to even eat with him or her is the last, most extreme step, but Paul sees it as a step to bring them back to righteousness, “chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world” (I Cor. 11:32). 

Coming soon...Chapter 2.17:  Deal with Sin in Yourself First