Why should discipline occur in Church?

Most arguments around sinful behaviours are because of specific use of certain texts.

Yesterday we saw how Paul was directly challenging the Church to put out of fellowship the man who was in an affair with his step-mother. Perhaps like me you would be thinking of backing up the decision of excommunication with a Scriptural verse. For example, Leviticus 18:8 says, “Do not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; that would dishonour your father.” But Paul doesn’t do this. Not that it would be wrong to do so but he shows us another way.

“Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? ⁷ 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. ⁸ 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.” (1 Corinthians 5 v 6-8)

He doesn’t use the Leviticus text but focuses on Christ and Him being the Passover lamb. On the night of the Passover the people of God ate bread free of yeast (which usually spreads in the bread like a fungus in cheese).

The lesson was this: be separated/different from the world you live in.

That’s why this man should be put out of the Church. “You are Christ’s people, you are Passover people, don’t tolerate the yeast.”

Keeping the festival was to partake in the Passover celebration or maybe the Lord’s Supper and they must make sure the Church is pure, undefiled, otherwise the sin will spread. This is the cultural story that we must pass on to each generation. It is not only about Biblical texts but the story of the Bible itself being lived out in our lives today.

Be separated/different from the world you live in.

So discipline this man because his lifestyle is not the standard set by the Passover lamb, that is Christ. Discipline this man because his actions are not compatible with who he actually was, Paul says “as you really are” v7. Discipline this man because this is not about external behaviour. That would be easy to rule. This is about authenticity. It is what is in the heart. Is it ‘malice and wickedness’, v8? For that is what was being shown when our hearts should be revealing ‘sincerity and truth’.

1. What needs to be addressed in your life and in your Church?
2. Don’t turn a blind eye to sin.
3. Our identity is not found anywhere but in Christ.
4. The heart of the Church/Christian is more important than the externals but the heart will reveal all things eventually so we need to fill our lives with sincerity and truth.