Take a moment to read 1 Corinthians 5 before reading the devotional below.
Today’s passage is the entire chapter because the entire idea is important to consider all at once. Recall from yesterday’s devotional that the Corinthians have become spiritually prideful and think that they are growing more than they actually are. Here we see a specific example of something going wrong: a man in their congregation is sleeping with his stepmother. This could be translated as “his father’s wife,” but either way it is clear it is not his biological mother. Although this is not a case of direct incest, it is not how followers of Jesus behave.
This chapter is the only time in the Bible that we are told to judge. Paul acknowledges that the rest of Scripture tells us not to judge, and this remains true about unbelievers. We are specifically told over and over again not to judge anyone who does not claim to be a Christian. However, when a person claims to follow Jesus, there is a role in other believers using discernment and judgment to determine whether or not that person can remain in the church. He offers a list of offenses that are so unlike Jesus they are evidence that a person is not a genuine believer: sexual sin, greed, idol worship, abuse, alcoholism, and cheating. You cannot claim to know Jesus and do these things.
Here’s your freedom for today:
You can live a free life when you follow Jesus.
Being a Christian is not about church attendance or being a nice person. It is about living a free life. When sex, greed, idols, abusive behavior, substances, or cheating are defining your life, you are not free. We turn our will and our lives over to Jesus when we begin to follow him. We receive forgiveness and turn away from our old ways of living. One of the biggest problems in the American church is that we are selective in the attention we pay to sin. Certain types of sexual sin are considered “worse” than others. Abusive husbands and fathers are not being driven out of the church in droves (and instead, sometimes are the elders of the church…). We need to be careful to follow the whole of Scripture in how we address these issues, and we need to keep the freedom of the Gospel in mind. There are some claiming to be believers and heralded as “Christian leaders” who are greedy, cheaters, and hungry for political power. They abuse others to get ahead. And often they are the loudest voices shouting about those committing sexual sins (while they secretly have their own). These false teachers are harming the Gospel and need to be publicly challenged and removed by other Christians. Unfortunately, we tend to do the opposite of this passage: judge unbelievers and give those who claim to be Christians the benefit of the doubt. How can we get back to the heart of this passage?