5:9 ¶ 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.
Until you leave this earthly
existence you are going to have to be around those who sin and who don’t regard
their sin as a sin or as any big deal at all. It is a world where people seem
to love the drama that follows after
worshipping Self. But, in the church assembly you should not be associating
with someone who engages in open sin. Paul tells the Corinthians to expel the
man who is having sex with his father’s wife from the congregation.
This matter of church discipline,
which is somewhat lost on modern consumer Christianity, is a subject that the
modern church would do well to regard more seriously. Christ addressed it in
the following way.
Matthew 18:15 ¶ Moreover if thy brother shall trespass
against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall
hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. 16
But if he will not hear thee,
then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three
witnesses every word may be established. 17
And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let
him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. 18 Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I
say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing
that they shall ask, it shall be done
for them of my Father which is in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together
in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
The man who committed this sin had
defrauded his brother in Christ, who in this case was his father. Notice the
context in which defraud is used in
the following passages.
First, as defined as robbing
someone of something.
Leviticus 19:13
Thou shalt not defraud
thy neighbour, neither rob him:
the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the
morning.
Then, here implying that such
behavior is robbing someone of something that is rightfully theirs.
1Thessalonians 4:1 ¶
Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye
have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.
2 For ye know what commandments we gave
you by the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the
will of God, even your
sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: 4 That every one of you should know how to
possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; 5 Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the
Gentiles which know not God: 6 That no man go beyond and defraud his brother
in any matter: because that the
Lord is the avenger of all
such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. 7 For God hath not called us unto uncleanness,
but unto holiness. 8 He therefore that
despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy
Spirit.
For the bodies of the husband and
wife belong to each other, not to others.
1Corinthians 7:1 ¶ Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote
unto me: It is good for a man
not to touch a woman. 2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man
have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. 3 Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence:
and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 4
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise
also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. 5 Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that
ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that
Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. 6
But I speak this by permission, and
not of commandment. 7 For I would
that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath
his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. 8 I say therefore to the unmarried and widows,
It is good for them if they abide even as I. 9
But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry
than to burn.
Paul reminds the Corinthians that
God will judge those who are of the world and not followers of Christ but it is
their responsibility to judge those in the church. The church must be able to
make a fair and Biblical judgment regarding open sin in the congregation. This
is not about prying into other people’s personal business but about what is
staring you right in the face. We are not to be busybodies in other people’s
business, not searching for something to criticize, as the self-righteous do,
but we have no excuse not to address adultery and fornication that rears its
ugly head. This is commanded. Paul then requires that the Corinthians expel the
man who is committing fornication with his father’s wife, whether she be
step-mother or mother, from the congregation.
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