842 1 Cor.5.6-13 Protecting the Church
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BUBONIC PLAGUE video
Protecting the Church
Protecting the Church
Date: 11-08-19 842 Echuca
BUBONIC PLAGUE video
- I cannot imagine the suffering & heartache that those times brought
- But I want you to note the key issue here – the spread of that disease
- At the start of that video, he says that if you sneezed on your daughter, you just killed her
- Here is an illustration of the Black Death from the Toggenburg Bible
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- Medical authorities recognise that there are virus’ & diseases that are highly infectious & thus deadly killers
- Small pox, Tuberculosis, Hepatitis are just some that have taken lives
TB Image
- The way to deal with these diseases is to isolate the population from infection – some need to be quarantined
- In the law of Moses, it was required that anyone with a skin disease, like Leprosy, be separated from the community of God’s’ people
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- Yet, there are other reasons for isolation that are also encouraged
—33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.”
33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.”
- This is hard for us to understand in today’s age because we have reversed the social emphasis
- Now, the individual is all important
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- Just look at the emphasis on transgenderism
- The risks to young girls in bathrooms are real
- Women are suppose to compete with biological males in women only events
- Thus, the individual trumps the community (or, the minority trumps, the majority)
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- We find, however, that the body of Christ trumps the individual
- The reason is because Christ dies for all, not just an individual
- The emphasis in this passage is on the protection of the body of Christ, the church
- You may have concerns for the individual & I would say, so has the apostle Paul – he says in v.5 about the immoral man... “that his spirit would be saved”
- He is looking for his repentance, but more so, this is addressed to the church &, in such a way, as to instruct the church to take action against this immorality because it is infectious
1. The Highly Infectious Nature of Immorality
1. The Highly Infectious Nature of Immorality
- This passage starts out with an emphasis on the nature of permeation
- Meaning that some things are contagious & spreads like a virus
- To understand what Paul is saying here, we must look at what happened at the original Israelite Passover feast
- This is when God brought Israel out of Egypt with great judgements against the Egyptians – it was a great deliverance or salvation from their bondage to slavery
- The Passover meal represented the last great judgement which was the death of every firstborn in a home where they did not place the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts & lintels of the entrance to their homes
- The procedure in preparation of this yearly celebratory meal was as follows
15 ‘Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses; for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.
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Ex.12:
19 ‘Seven days there shall be no leaven found in your houses; for whoever eats what is leavened, that person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is an alien or a native of the land.
- For any young people here, using leaven in bread is the old way when there was no yeast available
- For any young people here, using leaven in bread is the old way when there was no yeast available
- To bake bread now, you put yeast into the mix of dough & then it sits & actually causes a fermenting process that works its way through the dough creating tiny bubbles
- When it is baked the bubbles cause the bread to expand & rise
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- When you had no yeast, you use a piece of old unbaked dough that had been mixed days ago (this is called leaven) – it’s old dough that is now mouldy & gone off & you’d mix that piece of leaven in with the fresh new batch
– This piece of leaven – this mouldy dough – had started to ferment
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- The bakers would work that bit of fermenting leaven into a new batch of dough & it would cause the dough to rise just like our modern day yeast would do – then it would be baked into a loaf of leavened bread
- The mouldy dough (the leaven) works in the same way as the yeast
- It spreads it’s fermentation process throughout the whole lump of dough
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- I remember, as a boy, watching my uncle make bread in his bakery
- The smell of freshly baked bread was awesome
- He did it the old way – chopped the wood for the brick-kiln everyday
- He would add yeast to the mix & leave it time to rise before he would then put it in the oven for baking
My uncle always hoped to be able to get into the dough so he could go on the loaf. He thought that baking was a good way to make a crust!
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- The reason behind the instructions in Exodus concerning “unleavened bread” is because when salvation was at hand, you had no time to wait; you had to leave Egypt then & there
- Israel had no time to wait – when Pharaoh told them to go, you don’t hang around for him to change his mind
- So the Passover was celebrated in haste
- You dare not wait for the dough to rise – to be leavened
- When salvation from slavery comes, you move
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- The Israelites had to perpetually celebrate the Passover by removing leaven from their homes & leaven came to represent the old life of bondage & slavery in Egypt
- Paul contrasts the old Israelite Passover with our new Passover in Christ
- The unleavened bread of Christ, our Passover, does not represent for us, the break from bondage & slavery, but the break from the bondage to sin – specifically, malice & evil
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Q. If the Israelites removed leaven from their homes in celebration & remembrance of their break with Egypt, then how much more, ought the leaven of malice & evil be removed from out of the church
- For this is what Jesus, our Passover, has made us to be
- He has removed our bondage to sin & freed us from malice & evil
- Therefore, such things should not be in the body of Christ
—7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are, in fact, unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.
7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.
- He goes from a literal meaning of removing leaven from Israelite homes to a metaphorical meaning of removing the leaven of evil & malice from the body of Christ
- Remember, that Exodus passage says, “for whoever eats what is leavened, that person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel”
- This is what he is also urging here in the church
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Q. What is malice & evil? Why is it contrasted with “sincerity & truth”?
- Malice speaks of someone with malicious intent to cause harm; to inflict injury; it is the hostile impulse; a spiteful motivation
- Gossiping often borders on malice especially when envy & jealousy exist
- Evil takes on a similar meaning as it’s goal is to cause harm
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- We celebrate Christ & our Passover, however, with the unleavened bread of sincerity & truth
- Sincerity speaks here of motives – pure motives – in contrast to malice - the hostile & spiteful motivation
- Truth is that which is in keeping with the character of God
- It speaks of uprightness & integrity
- This person truly represents the character of Christ & whose motives are true & not feigned or bent on malice & harm
- Interestingly, in the passage on love, you have truth there opposing unrighteousness
—6 (love) does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
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- But Jesus also uses the metaphor of leaven to warn His disciples against the infectious nature of the Pharisees evil motives & hypocrisy
—15 And He was giving orders to them, saying, “Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”
15 And He was giving orders to them, saying, “Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”
- What the apostle is saying to the church is this: That Jesus has become, for us, a model of moral virtue
- He has sacrificed Himself to make us holy
- In this sense, having a man in such an immoral relationship with his step mother is way out of sync with what Jesus has done & what we have become in Him
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- The apostle refers to the Christian life as a feast honouring our redemption & our thanksgiving to God is expressed in changed speech & living
2. Expelling the World from the Church
2. Expelling the World from the Church
- If you think that Paul is too harsh here & that he hasn’t given this guy a chance before he wants him expelled from the church, then you’d be wrong
- Notice that he has already written a letter about certain issues that were existing in the church at Corinth
—9 I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; 10 I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.
9 I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; 10 I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.
- We do not have this letter, unfortunately, but we seem to have some hints about what it was about
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- In particular, it must have addressed the issue of immorality & that Paul did not want them to associate with those who are immoral
Q. Well, did they innocently misunderstand him or had they deliberately chosen to read into it something different?
- If you have ever listened to what some news outlets report about Donald Trump, then you would think that this man is only evil all the time, that he cannot do any good & that whatever he says, even on their economy, happens to be racist
- When you have an issue with a person, it is easy to misconstrue what the person says just so you can keep the negative narrative of that person alive
- I have to agree with Trump that when the media do that, it’s fake news
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Q. What is the characterisation that Paul has made of the Corinthians?
- Look back here at
—18 Now some have become arrogant, as though I were not coming to you.
18 Now some have become arrogant, as though I were not coming to you.
—2 You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.
2 You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.
Q. Did you pick up on the characterisation?
- They have become arrogant against their spiritual father in the faith
- They don’t consider him worth listening to – they now think they know better – they are puffed up & unwilling to obey the apostle
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Q. Did they really misunderstand his earlier letter? Or did they deliberately misconstrue what he said to make him sound ridiculous? I’ll leave that for you to determine
- Whether innocent or not, he makes clear that, of course, he didn’t mean to have no association with the immoral out there in the world
- However, he meant it to refer to someone who bears the name brother and is living an unrepentant immoral life
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- But he also seems to have addressed other issues in this previous letter - issues that were going on in the Corinthian Church
- Greed/Covetous (those who want what is not theirs), idolater (chps 8-10 they wanted to continue to attend idolatrous feasts), reviler (verbally abusive person), drunkard (chp.11 some we know were becoming this at the Lord’s table), swindler (someone who, as a result of their greed, wants to take by force what is not theirs – the next chp 6 speaks of them taking each other to court)
- So this previous letter seems to have dealt with a number of these issues over which they refused to accept the apostle’s teaching
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- “Of course, I didn’t mean the immoral of this world”, he says
- If that were the case, you would be forced to live on the moon (leave the world, he says)
- Of course, some have tried to isolate themselves from the world & locked themselves away in monasteries – that, of course, is a misunderstanding of what it means to be separate from the world
- But for a long time, that was happening
A monk joined a monastery and took a vow of silence. After the first 10 years his superior called him in and asked, “Do you have anything to say?” The monk replied, “Food bad.” After another 10 years the monk again had opportunity to voice his thoughts. He said, “Bed hard.” Another 10 years went by and again he was called in before his superior. When asked if he had anything to say, he responded, “I quit.” “It doesn’t surprise me a bit,” said the superior, “You’ve done nothing but complain ever since you got here.”
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- We come now to the nuts & bolts of this section where Paul says to “purge the evil person from among you”
- If you recall, Israel was to keep leaven excluded from the Passover meal, but if a person, didn’t, then the law said that the person is to be cut off from the congregation of Israel
- This is what the apostle is reflecting on here
- This immoral man who refused to end his relationship with his step mother is infecting the whole church with the leaven of this malice & evil
- That leaven must be removed - & they are to do that by excluding the man from the church
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- But this is not done lightly – it requires the whole congregation to act in unison
- This is such an important issue for this behaviour will set the tone & anger of God, not only against the man, but against the congregation that failed to obey Him
- “Purging the evil person from among you” comes from the OT text on discipline & judgement in Israel
—6 “On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. 7 “The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
6 “On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. 7 “The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
- That is what Paul is quoting from &, in a sense, this man’s infectious sin is being put to death out there in the world
—5 I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan (out in the world) for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
5 I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
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- Paul is not a snowflake & perhaps the problem with Christendom is that we have been indoctrinated into “snowflake theology” by our good is evil & evil is good, culture
- By the over-reaching anti-discrimination policies of a thoroughly Christ-less society
- What Paul is asking the church to do will earn the scorn of the world, but this should not surprise us, for the world hates God
- Through the age of enlightenment, man has set himself up to oppose God
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- He invents a theory called evolution to dismiss God as creator of the world
- He invents psychological theories of “mental illness” to dismiss the notion of sin & God as healer & restorer of the person
(Mental illness here is a psychological condition - it does not speak of any medical condition of the brain itself)
- He invents his own standards of what he considers life, by substituting good for evil & evil for good, when Jesus says that it is the narrow way that leads to life & only a few find it
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- Do not expect the world to agree & glory in the decisions of the church
- We have standards – God’s standards - & we must promote & uphold them
- This does not mean doom for the man – in fact, it means salvation - for in his current state, he is lost
—9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
- There is forgiveness for sin, but the trap with sin is that if you find yourself in it, there is a very great risk of no return
- Sin can be forgiven, but often, it cannot be escaped from
No one is so empty as the man who has stopped walking with God and doesn’t know it.—Jerry White
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- We are to make judgements within the church – judgements to do with the well being & good of the church
- Not railing judgements over which ministers are the best & to reject the rest
- You could say, then, that there are just & true judgements to be made (good discernment) & there are selfish judgements made – judgements based on personal preference – those judgements are sinful
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- But the world is not the church & is not be subject to our judgement
- They will be subject to God who will call them to account at the last judgement
- We can avert that by sharing the Gospel & bringing them to Christ
- This letter was not written to the Elders of the church, but to the whole church & so when it comes to action like this, the whole church is involved
- Unchecked immorality will permeate the whole church with malice & evil spreading like an infection throughout the congregation
- If we care for one another & God’s word, we will take to heart what He says
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- This has been a very challenging teaching, but nothing more challenging than to realign our thoughts with God’s thoughts
- Unless we are sure that Paul gives the very message of the Holy Spirit, then we will not be prepared to take the action such discipline requires
- We have this teaching in our constitution, we have it in our Scriptures, we need to have it in our mind & our hearts too
- Not because of a vengeful spirit or because we want to feel self-righteous, but because Christ calls us to obey Him & to TRUST that He knows best