Tolerating Sin Within The Fellowship - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him today and what came to my heart and mind in 1 Corinthians 5:6,

"Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast leavens
the whole batch of dough?"

Just as yeast works through a whole batch of dough, Paul here makes
the point that if a fellowship tolerates the sinful activity of a
believer within itself, sin would work its way throughout the
fellowship. Paul points to one of the members of the Corinthian
fellowship sleeping with his father's wife. He says to the whole
fellowship, "And you are proud! Shouldn't you rather have gone into
mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been
doing this?" Verse 2. He goes on to say, "Get rid of the old yeast, so
that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ,
our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the
Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." Verses 7-8.

Currently we have a number of fellowships and entire dominations that
have been infiltrated with sin. I suspect many of these should be
labeled as something other than "Christian". The perpetrators demand
all within their various ranks endorse and support their sin. Passing
off the murder of infants (abortion) as a "woman's right" is clearly a
depraved sin that has engulfed many Christian organizations, synods,
denominations and church fellowships. Many once wonderful evangelical
ministries on campuses, in the inner cities, etc. are now rife with
sin among the ranks. The acceptance for and the endorsement of
homosexuality and gender bending among many Christian groups manifest
that Paul's concerns were well placed. Many church groups, ignorant of
God's sense of justice have adopted the language of the left to
support various causes that misuse the term "justice" while following
the drumbeat of an influence that is not Jesus Christ.

Paul doesn't say the man in Corinth was outside the fellowship, but
was within. He was a Christian! His direction was to have the
fellowship remove him from among their midst. The church in Corinth
was to deal with it, to take a stand, oppose the sin, and cast out the
believer caught up in unrepentant sin. Paul says, "hand this man over
to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be
saved on the day of the Lord." Verse 5.

The threat to the church today is that there are many that hold key
leadership positions who have no business holding them. Board members,
church officials, pastors and other church leaders who are either
spineless or, who have in fact, allowed themselves to be swallowed up
in the yeast of sin within their fellowships, are guiding their flocks
in a direction they really don't want to take.

However, I'm not wringing my hands. The thing is, the church belongs
to the Lord and he will have his way. "There is no wisdom, no insight,
no plan that can succeed against the Lord." Proverbs 21:30. This is
not going to go well for those who think they are on the cutting edge
of society by tolerating sin within the fellowship. It will be in the
Lord's own timing, but be assured, it will not go unaddressed by him.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to
hear from you!

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