March 14, 2022
It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.
2 And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
3 For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
Ours is not to judge but to discern or ‘rightly divide’ what and who we know. If we know people who live contrary to how we have been taught to live through Christ Jesus, we must step away. We don’t judge, per se, we balance what we know of Jesus and what we know of a person and if the scale weighs in favor of Jesus, that person is acceptable for us to socialize with; conversely, if the scale weighs toward the person, step away. We are not judging – because when we judge we are judged as well by same measure – but we can see practices or leanings or understandings that don’t fit with being a Christian following in the feet of Jesus, and disassociate ourselves from them. Don’t condemn, don’t judge, don’t criticize – simply absent yourself from their society. Pray for the person that the Holy Spirit visit that person and crack the hardened heart and create within that person a desire and a need to learn Jesus.
Be jealous in being a Christian; jealous in that it’s our work to protect that name, that we who call ourselves Christians don’t sully it with the company we keep. Jesus could be with sinners because He was perfect and without sin and could not be ‘besmirched’, as we used to say. But we are definitely not Him and can bring ugliness to the name Christian if we’re not careful. Love your neighbor as yourself – of course – but that doesn’t mean we buddy up with those who walk a road that would bring shame on Christ’s name.
Words on the Word 