Be Careful What You Tolerate

1 Corinthians 5:9-13 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

Finger pointing, judgementalism, is endemic in society today. And, sad to say, it seems to be a favourite pastime for many a Christian too.

Before I became a Christian I was a brute of a man, almost completely ignorant of the things of God. So the way I lived, how I treated people, made perfect sense to me. Judging me would have made absolutely no difference to my behaviour.

And yet while we’re busy judging those sinners out there, we can find ourselves ignoring the bad behaviour much closer to home. So, here’s the Apostle Paul to help us get this duplicity sorted:

1 Corinthians 5:9-13 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.” (NIV)

As John Wesley put it, “What one generation tolerates, the next generation will embrace.” Don’t tolerate bad behaviour amongst the family of believers … otherwise it becomes the norm. And we’ve seen too much of that lately.

That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.