November 18 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading:

1 Corinthians 5:1-13

¹It 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.
²And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
³For 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,
⁴In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
⁵To 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.
⁶Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
⁷Purge 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:
⁸Therefore 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.
⁹I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
¹⁰Yet 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.
¹¹But 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 idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
¹²For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
¹³But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

Devotional:

How many churches today actually deal with sin in their membership? We in the church are soft, softer than God! A little leaven leavens the whole lump. God wants the sin out of His church just as He wanted the leaven taken from the bread of the Passover. This chapter should be studied by the governing bodies of our churches and applied — to the glory of God — that the family of God may be purified.

Within the church at Corinth there was a case of incest. Paul tells the church to remove the guilty party from the body, to cut him off from the fellowship in order that he might realize the precariousness of his spiritual condition and hopefully seek God's forgiveness and be restored.

The failure to administer discipline in the church today is without doubt one of the reasons that the church is weak. The church should be teaching the law of God. This teaching is not just via sermons! Part of the teaching requires dealing with infringements of God's law! Where this is neglected offenders will not be brought face to face with their sin and the rest of the body will not be able to profit by the failures of their brothers and take warning concerning the seriousness of sinning against God's law.

In our families we have seen how important discipline is. Christians should be stressing this as no others do. How, then, can we suppose that God the Father is indifferent to discipline in His family the church?