Whether you are a follower of Jesus or you consider yourself skeptical or even far from God, when you hear the words "church discipline" a picture comes to mind, doesn’t it. But have you ever wondered why the phrase church discipline conjures up such images? Why do the words “church discipline” carry such baggage?
In another section of a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a group of Christians who were acting unchristian we see a timeless truth as to why the issue of church discipline is such an important issue. We see this truth exposed in a passage that begins in 1 Corinthians 5:1:
"It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife. You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst."
Paul begins this section of his letter by explaining to the church at Corinth that he has heard that there was a couple who were members of the church that were involved in sinful activity that was so grossly offensive that it would not even be considered by nonchristians. When Paul uses the word immorality here, he is referring a family in the church was involved in an incestuous relationship where a father and a son were having sex with the same woman. Paul here is stating to the church at Corinth that the sin that was being committed by this couple in the church was so grossly offensive that even that people who were as far from God or had rejected God would not even consider acting in such a way.
In verse 2, however, Paul continues by revealing the true nature of the problem. Paul explains to the church at Corinth that the problem is not just the incredibly offensive nature of the sinful sexual relationship; for Paul the issue is that the church was actually approving of this sin and viewed themselves as being very spiritually mature and tolerant. And it is this situation at the church at Corinth that reveals a timeless truth that Christians act unchristian when we fail to deal with sin in the church.
In these verses we see that failing to deal with sin in the church reveals an arrogant acceptance. Instead of grieving over the impact that this sin would cause in the life of the individual and the church; instead of confronting and dealing with the sin by exercising church discipline, the church instead had an exaggerated concept of how healthy and mature they were as a church.
Paul’s point to the church at Corinth was that their failure to deal with the gross sin in their church by their tolerance and their acceptance was actually hurting how the world around them viewed the church. Paul is saying to the church “this gross sin does not exist among the unbelieving world around you, so how are you going to be able to influence and impact those around you with the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel with this arrogant and tolerant attitude about such grossly sinful behavior”.
And today, when we act arrogantly and accept behavior within the membership of the church that clearly contradicts the message and teachings of Jesus and the Bible, we lose our ability to influence and impact those around us with those teachings.
So, does your church arrogantly accept behavior among it's members? How does that arrogant acceptance of sin impact your view of the church? How does that arrogant acceptance of sin impact how those who are far from God or who are skeptical about God impact how they view the church?
This week, we will look at how a church's failure to deal with sin among its members reveals three other things about that church...
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