1 Corinthians 5:1-8 “The Problem of Tolerance”

1 Corinthians 5:1-8 “The Problem of Tolerance”

Jesus taught that a person needs to repent, be baptized, be forgiven, then be transformed. In Matthew 28:19&20 Jesus commanded the disciples to make more disciples by baptizing them and teaching them to obey.  To leave part of the process out is fail in the whole thing. Imagine a cake recipe where the person who wrote it down left something out. Anyone following the written recipe will have a cake that is ruined. All the ingredients must be there.

The Corinthians emphasized that Jesus forgives and that Jesus calls even the worst of sinners to be forgiven. They were even bragging about how Jesus can forgive this guy who the world would not accept. The trouble is they left out the rest of the Gospel. It is not what the man has done past tense that is at issue, it is his failure to repent and change his present actions. The churches failure to call this person to repent and change his actions is what Paul is addressing here.

It appears that the man is sleeping with his step-mother or his actual mother, we only know that she is married to his father. What the actual sin is, is irrelevant. The sin could be greed, immorality, incest, lying, theft, or any other sinful action. The issue is the failure of the church to call people to stop doing what is wrong and do what is right. The message of Jesus is to forgiveness and transformation.

Isaiah 1:15-17 Transformation has always been God desire.

Paul tells them to put the man out of the church, ask him to leave until he changes his actions.

Repentant vs unrepentant sin.
in the batter’s box. Called to hit the ball, but only do 30% of the time.

Forgiveness vs license.

When the church fails to confront sin, fails to call people to repent, fails to transform the way people act, it fails to complete the mission Jesus assigned to it. Not only do the people committing the sinful action fail to become disciples, the people in the church stop being disciples of Jesus.

This whole issue is important to the church today. We live in a time that stresses tolerance of sinful behavior. The church fails to confront heterosexual immorality; how can it confront homosexual immorality. If the church fails to confront immoral behavior how can it confront greed, theft, lying, idolatry, or any other sin. When the church stops calling people to transform how they live and act it stops being the church.

The descending or ascending church.

The Corinthians not only failed to confront sinful actions they were bragging about their failure. This starts with yourself. Today is there a sin in your life you have been tolerating. Is there a sin where you keep claiming forgiveness, yet never challenge yourself to leave it behind, to be transformed by Jesus as well as being forgiven? Stop doing what is wrong, start doing what is right.

When we take a swing at transformation we may not hit the goal most of the time, but God calls us to swing the bat, to make our best effort, then add forgiveness and grace.