But I am saying that you shouldn’t act as if everything is just fine when a friend who claims to be a Christian is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can’t just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior. (1 Corinthians 5: 11, The Message)
1 Corinthians 5 picks up Paul’s next point of clarification is he is writing to the fellowship of believers in Corinth about. He first confronted them about their lack of unity in chapters 1-4, reminding them that they were all workers in the God’s garden but it is God who gives the growth. They are all bricks in God’s Temple that is built on a common foundation, faith in Jesus. They are all part of a Temple that God guards and inhabits and that functions to praise God. Having laid that foundation of unity of purpose, he now confronts his next issue with the Corinthians. Evidently there is sexual immorality not only existing is the church, not only tolerated, but condoned. For sure our churches today argue about sexual immorality, what it is and to what extent it should be tolerated. The Message translation of this chapter seems to flow smoother with Paul’s explanation.
Paul makes clear that he is talking to a group of believers and not just to people in general. We expect sin in the world and should not be surprised. What he is addressing is our lack of transparency and honesty with fellow believers. We know they “are pushing the envelope” with their behavior and rather than confronting them, we tolerate the behavior possibly in the name of unity. The reasoning is that we cannot point a finger when we ourselves are sinners. At the beginning of the chapter, Paul specifically names sexual immorality but by the end of the chapter he broadens his comments to include all areas of our lives where we lack self control and cause disunity in the church. That can be greed with refinances, gossip, sexual immorality and probably anything that can be divisive. We look the other way thinking we are building unity but in reality our silence is wrong and God will judge. Ignoring bad behavior does not resolve the problem.
Most of us would probably like to think our own behavior is ok, perhaps forgiven, and that confronting another is a really scary thought. The question facing us today is whether we are avoiding a conflict and presenting a false face of unity or are we willing to be confronted and confront others about areas in our life where we need to grow. We all need to grow. Let us pray today that we will be people who can speak the truth in love and who can hear the advise we need to receive to live more abundantly. Lord, help us care for our friends honestly.
On the Way to Wonder 