Judging in the church
Day 586, Friday, Mar. 20
1 Corinthians 5:1-13
Chapter 5 is difficult. It clearly has implications for the modern church, but exactly what those implication are is less easy to see.
Paul has learned of a case of sexual immorality in the Corinthian church. A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. (The phrasing suggests that the woman is the man’s stepmother rather than his mother, but that would still be a forbidden relationship under the law.) The church, rather than addressing the sin, is proud. Pride in tolerance of sexual misconduct is still an issue that weakens the church.
Paul’s suggested course of action is pretty foreign to most of us. Our trouble understanding it begins with our having a very different concept of “church” than Paul and his contemporaries had.
We usually consider church to a rather loose association of people who come together to worship and learn about the faith. In this understanding, the sin of a person sitting in the next row has little apparent impact on our ability to worship or learn. In our evangelical tradition we consider the church to be a place where people can be exposed to God. In this understanding, the presence of active sinners is not just tolerable, it is desirable, as church is a place for them to hear the gospel.
For Paul, what we would consider evangelistic preaching is more likely to be done out in public, not within the gathered Christian community. The church in this view is much more intense and intimate than what we usually think of. Being part of the church is more what we would think of as being part of a discipleship or accountability group. It would mean being part of a deeply committed community of people—probably few enough to comfortably meet in a house—who challenge and support each other at a deeply personal level.
In that model of church there is a clear distinction between who is part of the community and who is not, and restricting participation to those who take the commitment seriously is not just reasonable, it is necessary.
It is up to the members of the community to judge whose participation is beneficial and whose is not, but that is not the same thing as judging the state of a person’s relationship with God. “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside.”

Friday meditation

Psalms 100:1-5
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Prayer focus
Praise his name. The Lord is good and his love endures forever.

-Rev. Mark Fleming