Paul turns the page . . . loudly.

“I can hardly believe the report about sexual immorality going on among you—something that even pagans don’t do.  I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother.  You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame.  And you should remove this man from your fellowship. 

  Even though I am not with you in person, I am with you in Spirit.  And as though I were there, I have already passed judgment on this man in the name of the Lord Jesus.  You must call a meeting of the church.  I will be present with you in spirit, and so will the power of our Lord Jesus.  Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved on the day the Lord returns.

  Your boasting about this is terrible.  Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough?” 1 Cor. 5.1-6

The next is a hard saying; who can abide it?

“Get rid of the old “yeast” by removing this wicked person from among you.”

 Good Day~

Wow!  Paul boldly addresses the sexual sin poisoning the young Christian community.  Not that it was any surprise . . . sexual sin was rampant among the Gentiles, and epidemic in the pagan culture of Corinth.  Man’s ‘wisdom’ allowed for promiscuity and debauchery even, while God’s ‘wisdom’ was pure and did not.  In 2010, He is still holy.  God’s wisdom is yet righteous; it is pure and holy and will not tolerate the sexual sin that so easily envelops and often entangles. 

Because I am a middle-aged American woman, I am keenly aware of women and men alike who are in midlife crises.  It doesn’t matter if they are ‘in the church’ or not.  I have recently observed what seems to be a growing trend of ‘hey, my kids are in school now, it is time to do something for me.’  That ‘something’ could be positive, and drive one toward finding his destiny—his God-given individual purpose….right?  After all, WOMEN AND MEN ALIKE ARE LOOKING FOR PURPOSE.  One could seek God for that ‘something’ or that ‘something’ could take on a narcissistic twist—the individual just wanting to ‘finally do something for myself’, to find fulfillment.  Because our culture has led people to believe they are entitled to feeling good about themselves—whatever that means—some don’t stop short in indulging their whims, even up to getting involved in dalliances with people besides their spouses.  What is going on?!  Obviously, women and men alike are risking everything, yet they are sometimes willing to walk away from everything, to feel good . . . for a while.  The “now” supersedes the morrow. 

The married mother might say, ‘finally, it is my turn....’  She looks around and decides she is missing something—her husband can’t be the end of the road for her love life!  And so she seeks the charms of another, still thinking herself the Christian woman, and apparently seeing nothing wrong with her conduct.   What??  I am not talking in vague generalities I read in a magazine; I am intimately acquainted with four couples where the aforementioned is the case.  E-mail accounts and secret cellphones removed to supposed safety in automobile trunks allow for inappropriate messages and texts, where intimate communication careens out of control.  I would like to tell you these typify the conduct of non-believing, non-Christian people; unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any difference in those who profess Christ and those who don’t.

So I see the parallels to the church Paul addressed and modern-day believers, contaminated by the world’s values.   But somehow because moral relativism has crept in, people (including churches) are more reticent to call out sinful behavior.   When Paul told the Romans not to be conformed to the world, but instead to be transformed by renewed thinking—that word was for us.  Oh Christian, stand strong—not just when trials press in around you, but also when there is temptation to be more like the world than Jesus Christ.  He was our example.  Clear back in Leviticus, God said, ‘Be holy, even as I am holy.’  He didn’t say, ‘if you can manage it’.  There was no loophole.  Holiness is the standard; otherwise, contamination happens.  Purposeful sin hurts the Christian community, and must be addressed.  God’s laws are for our protection, and if we say we love him, then we will keep his commandments.  For those who choose outright sin, there is an obvious conclusion—their ‘love’ for God must not be.

Christians, let’s raise the standard.

Christine