Our Bible reading today is about church discipline. It is not an easy topic, because if immediately brings to mind incidences of where church discipline goes wrong or fails.
The Minefield of Church Discipline
Our Bible reading today is about church discipline. It is not an easy topic, because if immediately brings to mind incidences of where church discipline goes wrong or fails.
I think broadly speaking there are three ways that church discipline goes wrong.
- Abuse of power
Firstly, it can be used an abuse of power. Rather than disciplining, demoting or even expelling people in the church because they are acting clearly against the teachings of the Bible, there are many cases when it is used by people in power to assert their position, get rid of people who disagree with them or is just aimed at people they do not like.
I’ve recently been listening to a podcast about the rise and fall of one of the Mega Churches in the USA. The pastor of the church led a church that grew rapidly and amazingly. In the end, though, the whole church fell apart when allegations of bullying behaviour emerged and were upheld.
There was one incident, where two members of the leadership group were forced out of their positions because they disagreed with the main pastor. The next day the pastor described them as being thrown under the bus for the sake of the growth of the church. But the reality was it was for the sake of getting rid of people who disagreed with him. Such church discipline is an abuse of power and sadly it happens all too often. Church discipline can be an excuse for an abuse of power.
You might be tempted to think that we should not have church discipline at all.
- Failure to protect
At the same time there are plenty of examples of church discipline not being exercised and that leading to disastrous results. In recent times, this has been most clear when wider church denominations have failed to act on allegations of their clergy being involved in child sex abuse.
Because those clergy were not investigated and not forced to leave their roles more children were tragically abused.
Lack of church discipline, merely leaves the people of God open to exploitation and harm. You cannot abandon church discipline just because it is sometimes misused!
- Grace forgotten
A third danger is I think more subtle. An over focus on church discipline can lead to the impression that you can only become part of the people of God, if you first make yourself good enough to meet the standards that are being enforced by church discipline.
This of course is completely false. Jesus welcomed tax-collectors and sinners. Paul who wrote our present passage said, ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst!’ He also emphasises elsewhere that we are saved by grace not works.
Church discipline may be necessary at times, but it should never be allowed to obscure the great truth that we are saved by grace.
What was going wrong in Corinth?
So, what is going on in 1 Corinthians 5 and what does it teach us about church discipline today?
1 Corinthians was a letter written by the apostle Paul to the Christians in Corinth. He has already challenged them about their lack of unity, to remind them about the centrality of Christ’s death on the cross and the role he has played in founding and encouraging them into the faith.
Now, however, he wants to challenge them about a specific issue.
Sexual Immorality of an Individual
The presenting problem is that a member of the church is involved in sexual immorality. The Greek word translated ‘sexual immorality’ is porneia. It is a broad word that covers all kinds of sexual wrong doing and it is where we get our word, ‘porn’ from.
In Corinth, sexual immorality of all kinds was rife and Paul will have more to say on that issue, but this case he says is one that would be condemned even by the generally sexual immoral of Corinth, a man is sleeping with his father’s wife.
Such behaviour was indeed condemned not just in the Old Testament law, but also Roman law. It is also illegal to marry your father’s wife in this country, whether your father is still alive or not – although since 1986, an exception was introduced so that you can do so if you are both over twenty-one and if before the age of 18 your father’s wife did not act as mum or step-mum to you.
We don’t know, what the situation was in this case and certainly the Old Testament laws that Paul would have based his understanding on does not allow such an exception. Whatever the details of the situation, Paul is clear that such behaviour should not be tolerated in the church.
Arrogance of the Church
In a way, though, that was not the big issue. The problem was the attitude of the rest of the church to the situation.
Paul says, they were ‘arrogant’ about it or ‘proud.’ At the least this means they did not think anything should be done about it, despite Paul’s past teaching against things, at worst it may mean they saw such behaviour as something to be commended.
But why was the church so unconcerned by such sin. Why were they not mourning the fact that there was such serious sin amongst them.
We cannot be sure and people have offered various suggestions.
Some have suggested that the man in question was a key figure in the church, perhaps a talented and popular teacher. Because of his talents and popularity, people did not want to challenge him or risk losing him from the church. In our world too, we are often too easily taken in by talent, charm or success. Bishop Peter Ball, who was Bishop of Gloucester in the 1990s got away with terrible sex abuse, because no-one in power could believe that accusations against such a charming, talented and successful man could be true. Both Jesus and Paul warn of so called christian teachers or leaders who are really wolves in sheep’s clothing. They look like the real deal, but at heart they are wicked.
A more likely possibility is that the church in Corinth, took the idea that we are no longer under the Law to an extreme, so that this man’s behaviour was a breaking free of the rules and regulations of the past and should be celebrated as the new liberation they had in Christ. In the next chapter, Paul quotes a phrase that they used, “I have the right to do anything.” But for Paul such an attitude is way off. Not everything you can do is beneficial for your or others and wrong behaviour often enslaves you again to the power of sin.
Distortion of the gospel
What has gone wrong both with the individual and the church as a whole is that the gospel has been distorted. It has become: “Jesus died for my sins, so I can carry on sinning!” “I am saved by grace not works, so I don’t have to worry about doing good works.”
It may be that Paul was writing around the time of Passover and so he introduces an illustration from that festival. Passover was a celebration of God’s rescue of Israel from Egypt, of freedom from tyranny and enslavement. They were rescued, though, not to return to Egypt, but to live a new life as God’s people. And God gave them the Ten Commandments to show them that this new life involved a new ethical way of living.
When the Jews celebrated the Passover festival they removed all the bread that was leavened, in other words contained yeast, from their houses. Because the rescue meant fleeing quickly from Egypt, and so there was no time to allow the yeast to raise the bread. For the Jews this annual clearing out of the old leavened bread to have unleavened bread instead became symbolic of purifying themselves from wrong ways of living.
Paul is saying that as Christians, Jesus has become our Passover. He died to rescue us not from slavery to Egypt, but slavery to sin, to bring us into a new life not just forgiven for our sins, free from the guilt of our sin and the condemnation of our sin, but free to live a new life of sincerity and truth. The gospel announces that we can be forgiven free of charge, but it also calls us into a new better life. It is not true that anything goes. The true celebration of the gospel means moving into the living of a transformed life. That is what the Corinthians seem to have failed to grasp and that is what the church discipline needed to address.
Fundamentally the gospel is not about toleration, but transformation.
The aims of Church Discipline:
So, Paul says that the offender needs to be disciplined.
But, what is Paul aiming for in this disciplining? What makes it appropriate church discipline and not an abuse of power or a failure to understand grace.
Salvation of the Offender – vs. 4-5
Firstly, Paul wants the salvation of the offender. At the end of verse 5, he says,
‘so that his spirit may be saved on the last day.’
The sexual sin that this man was caught up in, put him outside the Kingdom of God – at least until it was repented of and stopped. Paul will later say that serious unrepented ongoing sins show that we are not saved.
Paul hopes that the act of church discipline will ultimately encourage the man to repent and turn back to Jesus for true salvation.
The discipline he imposes is ‘to hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.’ Such a phrase, especially in the lead up to Halloween, might suggest all kind of weird and wonderful images. But I think it basically means what Paul calls for in verse 13, quoting the Old Testament, ‘expel the wicked person from among you.’
To kick someone out of the church, means to return them to the world without Christ, the world that Jesus says is ultimately controlled by the ‘Prince of this world’ i.e. Satan. The aim for the man is that in seeing that his sexual behaviour has led to him losing his place within the church, he will give up his sin and seek forgiveness once more and so ultimately be restored.
Church discipline always needs to aim for the repentance and ultimate salvation of the offender.
Protection of the Church’s Culture – vs. 6-7
Secondly, it is about the protection of the church community’s ethics. We are not called to be a people where anything goes. Sin is ultimately corrupting of individuals, relationships and communities. God knows best and calls us out of our old sinful lives into a better life.
If, however, persistent sin within the church, particularly amongst prominent members, is not disciplined, then it influences the wider church to think that anything goes. Just as a small amount of yeast works in a lump of dough to change the whole lump and make it rise, so one or two people engaged in consistent unrepented sin has a disproportionately bad effect on the whole community.
This is not just about sexual sin, although, that is what is highlighted here. Paul also goes on to list six different kinds of sin that show the kind of people whose negative influence needs to be removed from the church.
Why does Paul choose these particular examples? Partly, they expand on some of the 10 commandments. We have been doing a series on the 10 commandments and we looked at the first five. Actually, some of the remaining five are implied by the kinds of people Paul mentions here.
But, Paul also chooses examples that probably reflect the particular culture of Corinth at that time. The kinds of behaviour that members of the church in Corinth would be most likely to fall into.
So quickly, let’s look at the list of 6:
- Sexual immorality. This arguably links to the 7th commandment, as adultery is a specific example of sexual immorality. Corinth, however, was a city renowned for its sexual licence.
- Greedy. The Greek word literally means the ‘more havers.’ This links with the 10th commandment about coveting. Corinth was a city where there was a particularly grasping culture. People wanted more power, more status, more money.
- Swindlers. This links to the 8th commandment: do not steal. Perhaps this is a more subtle example. The word probably means those who seek to gain wealth at the expense of others, either by theft or trickery. Again in Corinth, people were on the make constantly trying to find ways to get more out of others by overcharging, underpaying or whatever means possible.
- Idolaters. This links to the 2nd commandment. Corinth was full of pagan temples and idolatry would have been the norm. Paul tackles this issue in detail in chapters 8 to 10.
- Slanderers. This links to the 9th commandment, to give false testimony against your neighbour. Perhaps in an attempt to increase their own status, people were keen to put others down whenever they could.
- Drunkards. This does not link with one of the commandments, although the New Testament condemns alcohol abuse for the lack of self-control that it produces – a lack of self-control that can lead to breaking any of the commandments, even murder!
All six of these may have been particular issues in Corinth. They are certainly issues in our world today. Paul says, that such behaviour cannot be tolerated in the church. If someone is consistently behaving in these ways they need to be challenged and if they refuse to change, then they need to be disciplined by in some sense being removed from the church community. Otherwise, the community as a whole will be drawn into similar behaviour.
The aim of church discipline is about the salvation of the offender, but also the protection of a church culture that promotes transformed Christian living.
Church Discipline: Inside not Out
Paul is clear at the end, that this all applies to those inside the church. It is discipline for a purpose – the salvation of the offender and the protection of a church culture that promotes transformed Christian living.
We are not to shun those outside the church caught up in such behaviours, as though we are too righteous to be tainted by them. Far from it, Jesus welcomed tax-collectors and sinners, they were the lost sheep that needed to be welcomed back into the fold. But, once in the fold the expectation needs to be of lives transformed.
Our past sin in no way bars us from becoming part of God’s family, from moving from outside to inside. But once inside we need to seek God’s help to live by God’s family values. Values that do not tolerate sexual immorality, greed, swindling, idolatry, slander or drunkenness. In that movement, there needs to be patience, people take time to change and transform. Church discipline should not be quick to condemn new members who are in the process of kicking old habits.
Where church discipline is most necessary is with those inside the family who blatantly disregard those values that need to be put outside the church family. Especially if they have prominent roles within the church.
St. Luke's Church Ramsgate 