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The Last Enemy to be Destroyed is Death

Though both his parents were wizards, Harry Potter grew up in a Muggle family, and on his first journey to wizard school, it fell to Hagrid to explain to Harry the wizarding world in general, and to break the news of his own early history in particular, of the death of his parents and the existence of his mortal enemy. This is what Hagrid said: “It begins, I suppose, with – with a person called – but it’s incredible you don’t know his name, everyone in our world knows…I don’t like saying the name if I can help it. No one does…people are still scared…this is difficult…His name was…”.¹

Well, eventually, Harry discovered the name of the wizard who murdered his parents. He also discovered that almost everyone called this wizard ‘You-Know-Who’ or ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’ out of fear. Quite a lot of people had convinced themselves that this wizard had gone away for good. Harry sometimes went along with this and called him ‘You-Know-Who’ to spare the feelings of those around him. Yet Harry was never afraid to speak the proper name of his deadly enemy. Usually he just called him ‘Voldemort’.

Why was that the case? Because Harry was the Boy who lived. Voldemort had tried to kill him on the night he murdered his parents, but he wasn’t able to do it. “No one ever lived after he decided to kill them, no one except” Harry.² Harry had faced the worst his enemy could throw at him, and he had faced him down. He took Voldemort seriously, but instinctively he knew he had nothing to fear from him.

That, of course, is just a story, but all of us here and all people in society at large have a common enemy. It is hardly ever discussed, and sometimes people convince themselves that it is a long way away. It is, however, inescapable, and when it comes down to it, it is widely feared. People often go to great lengths not to name the enemy outright. ‘I lost my mother,’ they say. ‘She passed away, she passed on, she departed.’ That common enemy is, of course, death.

Society at large makes a considerable effort to keep death and talk of death at some remove. We could almost say that society sub-contracts out the business of dealing with death to professionals, and the rest of us do our best to keep away from it. These professionals include doctors, nurses, carers, emergency service personnel – and, as we especially want to acknowledge today, members of the armed forces. The duty to put oneself in harm’s way, not to mention the requirement to contemplate taking the lives of others in the service of the nation, is a heavy burden to place on anyone’s shoulders. Devoting two minutes on one day a year to pondering that sacrifice, a sacrifice which to most of us is unimaginable, seems to me the least we can do.

To help us with that, here is another story, a true story this time, about an American Vietnam veteran talking in a var about his experience of war, a story I have taken from a book by Sam Wells.³ “Beside the bar, an older woman began to attack him. ‘You[‘ve] got no right to snivel about your little half-baked war. World War Two was a real war. Were you even alive then? … I lost a brother in World War Two.’ .. Finally the veteran had had enough. He looked at her and calmly, coldly said, ‘Have you ever had to kill anyone?’ ‘Well, no!’ she answered belligerently. ‘Then what right have you got to tell me anything?’

“There was a long, painful silence throughout the [bar].” … Then a friend of the veteran who was sitting with him “asked quietly, ‘When you got pushed just now, you came back with the fact that you had to kill in Vietnam. Was that the worst of it for you?’ ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘that’s half of it’. The friend waited for a very long time, but the veteran didn’t go on. He only stared into his beer. Finally the friend had to ask, ‘What was the other half?’ ‘The other half was that when we got home, nobody understood’. That, writes, Sam Wells, is the sacrifice we expect of our soldiers: the sacrifice of the unwillingness to kill, and the sacrifice of being isolated from all the rest of us, who have sub-contracted out and distanced ourselves as much as possible from that terrible responsibility.

Of course, the effort to distance ourselves from death is ultimately unsuccessful, whether we consider the reality of twentieth and twenty-first century warfare, in which civilians were and are victims to a degree never previously seen, or whether we simply stop to consider that disease, disaster and mortality are ever-present realities in our world. We see these realities on the news, and we experience these realities in our own family and friendship networks, and within our church family. The apostle Paul sums it all up by saying that ‘the last enemy to be destroyed is death’ (1 Corinthians 15:26).

‘Passing on, passing away, losing someone’ – in common with those around them in society, sometimes Christians use terms like these to spare the feelings of others. Yet Christians do not fear to speak the proper name of their mortal enemy. They do not fear to speak of death. It is not that they fail to grieve when they are bereaved. They do not pretend that death is an illusion, that death is nothing to worry about, or a cause for celebration, or that it is nothing at all. Make no mistake, they mourn and cry. There is a time for weeping, just as there is a time for dancing. But Christians need not grieve as those who have no hope. And why is that the case?

It is because Christians know that Jesus died and rose again. They know that their Lord is the Man who lived. Jesus Christ has faced the worst the enemy could throw at him – he surrendered to death itself – and by his resurrection, he defeated death. Because Jesus died and rose again, those who are called by his name take death seriously, but they know they have nothing to fear from it. Sam Wells speaks of the sacrifice of the Son of God as “the sacrifice to end all sacrifices” and “a truth to die for, [rather than] to kill for”. “Sometimes,” he writes, “I think that if we asked our heavenly Father what the worst part of the cross was, he would pause for a long time and say, ‘the sacrifice of my Son… that was half of it’. And if we waited in a terrible silence and finally found courage to ask, ‘What was the other half?’, he would say, ‘The other half was that 2,000 years later, nobody understands’.⁴

Yet Paul wrote this morning’s passage from I Thessalonians precisely so we would understand what the death and resurrection of Jesus means for us. He says in verse 13, “We do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or grieve like the rest of humanity, who have no hope”. The first letter to the Thessalonians was one of the earliest letters Paul ever wrote to the churches, if not the earliest, when Christianity was hardly a generation old. What concerned the first readers of that letter was that some of the first generation of Christian believers were growing old and dying before the promised return of Jesus. What would become of them? Had they passed away into the ether? Were they no more? Were they lost? To these questions, in verse 14 of chapter 4, Paul answers ‘No’. “We believe that Jesus died and rose again” – the sacrifice to end all sacrifices – “and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him”.

On the surface, that phrase “falling asleep” may sound like yet another euphemism for death, just another way of trying to live in cloud-cuckoo land and avoiding giving the last enemy its proper name. But in Paul’s usage, this idea of “falling asleep” is linked to the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus died a death which was “the wages of sin; and because [and only because] he endured the full horror implied in that death, [we understand that] he has transformed death for his followers into sleep”.⁵ If we die with Christ, we will also live with him (cf. Romans 6:8), because he died, and then was raised to life.

“Going to heaven when we die” is an imprecise way of trying to express the future confidence of a Christian. Heaven will instead come to us. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 14: “We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him”. We will rest in peace, then rise in glory, and finally (says Paul in chapter 4 verse 17) “we will be with the Lord forever”. If we have ever found ourselves wondering what heaven will be like, all we need to know is that the Lord will be there, and his unveiled, unmediated presence will be heaven to us.

Paul’s words in verses 16 and 17 of chapter 4 have unfortunately sent some folk in the direction of cloud cuckoo-land when thinking about heaven. “The Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”

Paul is not here saying that those who have died in the Lord, together with those Christians still living, are going to be snatched from the earth in advance of its total destruction. The day of the Lord’s return will be about his arrival to reign upon the earth, rather than the final turning of his back upon it. It will be about the renewal, rather than the destruction, of the world. It will be about heaven and earth being united.

Two hundred years ago and more, Ramsgate Harbour was the main point of embarkation and disembarkation for travel to and from the European continent. At that time, harbours had not yet been built at Dover or at Folkestone. As a result, Ramsgate was a garrison town during the Napoleonic Wars of the early nineteenth century, and the memory of its close association with the armed forces survives in street names such as Wellington Crescent, Liverpool Lawn, Nelson Crescent and Military Road. After the Duke of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo, King George IV travelled through Ramsgate on his trips to Hanover, where he was also King. Famously, on his return from one of these trips in 1821, thousands of people went down to the harbour to welcome him back from his kingdom in Germany to his kingdom in Britain. At that time he designated Ramsgate a Royal Harbour, and an obelisk was constructed in memory of the event, which remains in place to this day.

This kind of welcome would have been very familiar to the citizens of Thessalonica, because in the classical world it was the custom for the leading citizens of a city to assemble outside the city walls and form a welcoming party when they were expecting visits from conquerors returning from battles and dignitaries on diplomatic missions. The honoured visitor would then be escorted back into the city in pomp and circumstance, just as in 1821 King George IV was accompanied by cheering crowds up from the harbour into Ramsgate Town and eventually all the way back to London.

F.F. Bruce, the biblical scholar, tells us that the Greek word used in classical literature for these meetings with returning conquerors is used by Paul in verse 17 of chapter 4 to describe our meeting with the Lord.⁶ We will be caught up in the clouds to meet him in the air.

But our heads won’t stay in the clouds on that day, any more than the crowds stayed at the harbour once George IV had arrived. Still less will the Lord depart the earth, having only just returned. Rather, on that day we will welcome our King to the earth which is rightfully his, and which will be renewed to be a fit dwelling-place for him, just as in 1821 the crowds escorted their returning King up into town. “And so we will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thessalonians 4:17), and that will be heaven.

So we understand that “resurrection is [not] an old-fashioned religious word for the survival of our souls after the inevitable death of our bodies…” Instead, resurrection is “the return of the whole person, body and soul together, not simply the continuing survival of his or her spiritual dimension.” It is not “a natural event, but rather a reversal of death brought about by” ⁷ the God who raised Jesus from the dead. Having done so once for his only-begotten Son, he will do so again for all who put their trust in him. His resurrection is the iron-clad guarantee of ours.

So when Christians speak of death, they know they are speaking about a mortal enemy, but an enemy who need not be feared, because it has been defeated by Christ. “Therefore,” says Paul in verse 18, who is always practical, even when, or especially when, he is at his most theological, “Therefore encourage one another with these words”.

Everyone knows that it’s hard to know what to say to a recently-bereaved person. There is a temptation to not say anything to them at all, for fear of saying the wrong thing. In this way, the loneliness and vulnerability experienced by people who have lost loved ones is often compounded. It is true that saying the wrong thing to a bereaved person is a real possibility. Saying that you know just how they feel isn’t normally very helpful. Nor is telling them that the death of their loved one was for the best, or that things aren’t so bad as they presently appear. A bereaved person is unlikely to be comforted by any of the mantras of positive thinking. However, the apostle Paul is telling us that there are words which can provide encouragement, and that there is a rock-bottom hope that gives a particular character even to their rock-bottom experience of grief. It is a hope, he has been saying, that is founded on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So we may encourage one another with these words. Let us make the rock-bottom faith we share in Christ, let us make that faith the bedrock of our fellowship, in good times and in bad.

The reason we are able to encourage one another is that we have a sure hope for the future. This hope is not a generalised sunny optimism without any observable foundation; it is not the practice of positive thinking; it is hope that has been established by the fact that Jesus died and rose again for us. The entire secondary school career of Harry Potter was taken up with battling and finally defeating Voldemort. But that is just a story. In human history there have been, and continue to be, many wars. Yet the war to end all wars is not against flesh and blood but against sin, death and the devil. The last enemy to be defeated is death. And over this enemy, Jesus Christ has already triumphed. We believe that Jesus died and rose again – the sacrifice to end all sacrifices – and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

1 J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, pages 44-45.

2 Ibid., page 45.

3 Sam Wells, Power and Passion (2007), pp. 78-79.

4 Ibid., pp. 79-80.

5 Leon Morris, The Epistles of Paul to the Thessalonians, p. 85.

6 F.F. Bruce, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, pages 102-103.

7 Madigan and Levenson, Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews, page xii.

Dealing with Disagreements

How are we to deal with disagreements in church?

How are we to deal with disagreements in church?

There can be all kinds of disagreements.

Sometimes people say things that upset others, often without even realising they have done so. There is hurt and upset. Is one side being oversensitive or the other side being insensitive? How do we deal with such situations?

Sometimes there can be arguments over church policy. What to spend money on or not. What kind of music we should sing or not. When to put the heating on. How do we resolve such disputes? The Bible does not pronounce on these issues, but people can be quite passionate about them and sometimes fall out if they don’t get their way.

Sometimes there can be disputes about roles. Who is responsible for what. Concerns that people are not doing what they said they would. Or that someone is taking over my role. How do we deal with such situations.

Sadly, such disputes can lead to people leaving the church, upset that they haven’t been treated well or got their own way. They may then complain to others outside the church, through gossip or on social media with the hope of ‘winning’ the approval of the court of public opinion for their case, rather than trying to deal with the issue within the church.

What are we meant to do?

What’s going wrong in Corinth?

The church in Corinth give us a good case study of how not to do it!

In this letter, Paul is writing to the church and is challenging them about what is going wrong. In the reading we had this morning, he is especially upset with them:

‘Do you dare to…’ (vs. 1)

‘I say this to shame you…’  (vs. 5)

‘You have been completely defeated already…’ (vs. 7)

What is going on? There are disputes within the church, probably of a more serious nature than the ones I have listed, but still relatively small issues, that would be dealt with in what we might call a ‘small claims’ court, that rather than dealing with sensibly or in  a low key way within the church, they were taking each other to the public courts.

Now Paul is not talking here about more serious cases, properly criminal cases. The church in recent years has been rightly criticised for not taking issues of child sex abuse to the police, but trying to deal with them as an internal matter. Paul is clear in his letter to the Romans, that God has put in place the rulers of this world to deal with such criminal behaviour.

No, Paul is dealing with smaller issues, perhaps people who have failed to pay a bill in full or to complete work that was promised. Those kind of small claims issues – not murder of abuse. Paul is saying, that their failure to deal with such issues within the church was an utter disaster. They seemed to be more concerned with their personal gain, getting their own way, winning their dispute, than they were with building up and maintaining the church community.

What matters more to you: Church Community or Personal Gain?

And that is a challenge to us. What matters more to us, the Church Community or our Personal Gain?

In challenging the Corinthians in their disastrous behaviour, he touches on and hints at why the church community really matters and should be more important to us than our personal gain.

1. Church as holy

Firstly, he reminds them that they are the ‘holy ones’. This is the word translated, ‘saints.’ It does not refer to especially good Christians, but to all true Christians.

Paul has already reminded us in the letter, that the community of believers is God’s temple. In other words, his holy house. As such, if your actions damage the community, they are sacrilegious. Just as we might feel that if someone vandalised the church building it was in some way worse than other vandalism, because it is God’s house, so the New Testament would say that to damage the church community is an act of vandalism on God’s building. Paul puts this very bluntly in 3:16-17:

“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)

But also, to be holy is to be called to be set apart from the world, as an example of what it means to live for God. A lot of people love the fact that St. George’s lantern tower is lit up at night – a beacon of light, especially in the dark evenings of this time of year.

But the community of God’s people is meant to be a beacon of good. That is why in the previous chapter, that we looked at last week, Paul was so keen that people who persist in serious sin are put out of the church, so as not to corrupt it from its calling.

More positively, in a passage that also talks of the church as God’s temple, Peter says that the church community is called to:

“Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1 Peter 2:12)

In this passage, Paul says something even more radical about what the holiness of the church means. He says that we are to judge the world and to judge even angels in verses 2 and 3.

What does this mean? It could mean that by living the good life of faith, we show up the unbelief and corruption of the world. That certainly fits with what I have said about being a church community as holy.

It could also refer to the fact that at the end of time, we will sit with Christ, when he comes to judge the world. This fits with some of the imagery in Revelation:

“To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.” (Revelation 3:21)

Whatever Paul means by this statement, the point Paul is making is something like this:

‘How can you go to those outside the church to judge your cases, when they will be judged by you?’

‘How can you rely on the judgement of those whose values are not in line with the values of Christ, who will one day judge them?’

‘How can you rely on the judgement of those outside the church, when you are called to live by a totally different set of values in order to show up the unbelief and corruption of the world?’

‘Don’t you realise the church is set apart, holy and distinct from the world? How can you allow the unholy to judge the holy?’

Do you value the church community above your personal gain, because you have come to see it as God’s holy temple, which is to be built up and not vandalised?

2. Church as family

But secondly, we also need to remember that the church is our spiritual family. Sadly, this point is a bit lost in translation. The Greek uses the word, ‘brothers’ in verses 5,6 and 8, but for some reason the NRSV mostly translated it ‘believers.’ The NIV does a better job at using the word, ‘brother.’

By putting their behaviour as one brother taking another to court in verse 6 and the idea of defrauding your brothers in verse 8 brings home the seriousness of what is going wrong.

It is wrong to exploit strangers and to fall into disputes with strangers, but it becomes even more wrong to do that to family. But when you do it to other members of the church community you are doing it to family.

Do you value the church community above your personal gain, because you have come to see it as family?

3. Church founded on the cross

Thirdly, we need to see the church and our behaviour as shaped by the cross.

In the first few chapters, as Paul wrote to encourage unity in the church, he focussed on the wisdom of the cross. Their church was founded on the message of the cross, that Paul brought to them:

“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2)

The message of the cross does not fit with the thinking of the world, especially a world focussed on personal gain:

“For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:25)

The point is this. On the cross Jesus utterly gave up all personal gain for the sake of others. He gave up all his rights, in order to win a place in God’s eternal home for all who believed in him. He paid the price, that we sinners may gain the reward.

If that is the basis of our faith, the cornerstone of the church, then surely as Paul says in verse 7, we should be willing to be wronged and cheated rather than allow disputes that threaten to destroy or undermine the work of Christ.

And how can we preach Christ crucified to those outside the church, if we come before them arguing for our personal gain at the expense of our brothers and sisters in Christ?

Do you value the church community above your personal gain, because you have truly understood the church as founded on the cross of Christ?

Dealing with disputes:

So, with a clearer understanding of the church as holy, as family and as founded on the cross, we can come to the question of how to deal with disputes. Remember we are talking about disputes not crimes. Actual crimes need to be reported to the police and safeguarding concerns to the safeguarding officer or me or straight to the Diocesan safeguarding officers.

When it comes to other disputes, however, I want to suggest as Christians that there are four levels to dealing with disputes. We should consider the lowest levels first and only move to the next level if it is really necessary.

1. Let it go? – vs. 7

The first level is to ask ourselves: Should I just let it go?

Yes, I may have been hurt, I may have lost out, but as Paul suggests in verse 7, in the interests of harmony and peace and following the example of Christ, is it best not to worry about this dispute and let the other person win, without even complaining?

This is probably the best way to act in many occasions, especially for smaller issues and one off problems. Let grace abound!

However, for more serious issues, or a recurring problem, which may suggest that there is a sin in the other that needs addressing or in order to protect the wider church, there are cases where you need to deal with the dispute.

2. Resolve one to one – vs. 7;  Mt. 18:15-17

So, the second level is to seek to resolve the dispute privately on a one to one basis. If you can do this, then you will avoid the defeat of having lawsuits that need to be judged, as Paul puts it in verse 7.

Jesus makes this point in Matthew 18:15-17:

“If your brother sins against you,  go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.” (Matthew 18:15)

Of course it may be that as you talk to them with an open mind, you discover that you also are at fault or you have misunderstood the situation and things can be happily resolved. It may be that they accept what has gone wrong, apologise appropriately and commit to doing better in the future. These are the kind of resolutions you long for!!

To tackle someone in this way and to reach a positive resolution really helps to build the church up – it encourages holy behaviour and deepens relationships.

If, however, they do not listen to you and you still feel you are in the right and that is serious enough to justify involving  others then you may need to go to the next level.

3. Resolve a few to one – vs. 7

This is still just about avoiding the kind of situation Paul calls a defeat in verse 7, but now others are being involved as Jesus suggests for the next step:

“But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that `every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.'” (Matthew 18:16)

Again in taking others along, you may find that they make you realise that you are partly or wholly in the wrong and not the other person! But that could be a good thing!!

Assuming you are right and the other person is wrong, however, then in bringing more people to testify to them, the hope is that they will see the error of their ways and change without having to make the issue any more public.

If, however, they refuse to accept there is a problem, and the issue is serious enough, then you may need to take it to the fourth level.

4. Submit to church’s judgement – vs. 4; Mt. 18:15-17

The fourth level is the kind of tribunal Paul is talking about. For things to come to this is a kind of defeat, a failure of the earlier stages to resolve the situation, but on occasions it will be necessary.

Jesus says:

“If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” (Matthew 18:17)

Here, Jesus encourages the dispute to be resolved within the church, as Paul argues for in 1 Corinthians 6. The vision in 1 Corinthians 6 is that the church would appoint someone they consider wise enough to make a judgement in such matters to decide disputes. It could be that as Jesus implies, there may be more than one person involved in making the decision.

But the point is that whatever decision is made, needs to be respected by all parties. It could be in bringing a dispute to this level, even if you have found others to agree with you that the final conclusion goes against you or doesn’t completely give you what you want. The important thing, however, as Jesus and Paul suggest is to submit to the ruling and accept the result.

Ultimately, as Jesus warns and as Paul has also hinted at at the end of chapter 5, those who continue to sin, despite the warnings of the church need to be put out of the church for the sake of the wider community. That is never the aim of this process, but it may sadly become the ultimate result.

Dealing with Disputes

The church community is special. Founded on the cross of Christ, it is holy, it is family. We need to value it above our own personal gain.

There will be disputes that arise within church communities. Some of these will be unimportant and others more important. We need to deal with them wisely, always seeking the right resolution, being willing to humbly accept we might be in the wrong and not rushing to escalate the dispute, but dealing with necessary issues, in the hope of real reconciliation and spiritual growth for all involved.

Our Bible reading today is about church discipline. It is not an easy topic, because if immediately brings to mind incidences of where church discipline goes wrong or fails.

The Minefield of Church Discipline

Our Bible reading today is about church discipline. It is not an easy topic, because if immediately brings to mind incidences of where church discipline goes wrong or fails.

I think broadly speaking there are three ways that church discipline goes wrong.

1. Abuse of power

Firstly, it can be used an abuse of power. Rather than disciplining, demoting or even expelling people in the church because they are acting clearly against the teachings of the Bible, there are many cases when it is used by people in power to assert their position, get rid of people who disagree with them or is just aimed at people they do not like.

I’ve recently been listening to a podcast about the rise and fall of one of the Mega Churches in the USA. The pastor of the church led a church that grew rapidly and amazingly. In the end, though, the whole church fell apart when allegations of bullying behaviour emerged and were upheld.

There was one incident, where two members of the leadership group were forced out of their positions because they disagreed with the main pastor. The next day the pastor described them as being thrown under the bus for the sake of the growth of the church. But the reality was it was for the sake of getting rid of people who disagreed with him. Such church discipline is an abuse of power and sadly it happens all too often. Church discipline can be an excuse for an abuse of power.

You might be tempted to think that we should not have church discipline at all.

2. Failure to protect

At the same time there are plenty of examples of church discipline not being exercised and that leading to disastrous results. In recent times, this has been most clear when wider church denominations have failed to act on allegations of their clergy being involved in child sex abuse.

Because those clergy were not investigated and not forced to leave their roles more children were tragically abused.

Lack of church discipline, merely leaves the people of God open to exploitation and harm. You cannot abandon church discipline just because it is sometimes misused!

3. Grace forgotten

A third danger is I think more subtle. An over focus on church discipline can lead to the impression that you can only become part of the people of God, if you first make yourself good enough to meet the standards that are being enforced by church discipline.

This of course is completely false. Jesus welcomed tax-collectors and sinners. Paul who wrote our present passage said, ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst!’  He also emphasises elsewhere that we are saved by grace not works.

Church discipline may be necessary at times, but it should never be allowed to obscure the great truth that we are saved by grace.

What was going wrong in Corinth?

So, what is going on in 1 Corinthians 5 and what does it teach us about church discipline today?

1 Corinthians was a letter written by the apostle Paul to the Christians in Corinth. He has already challenged them about their lack of unity, to remind them about the centrality of Christ’s death on the cross and the role he has played in founding and encouraging them into the faith.

Now, however, he wants to challenge them about a specific issue.

Sexual Immorality of an Individual

The presenting problem is that a member of the church is involved in sexual immorality. The Greek word translated ‘sexual immorality’ is porneia. It is a broad word that covers all kinds of sexual wrong doing and it is where we get our word, ‘porn’ from.

In Corinth, sexual immorality of all kinds was rife and Paul will have more to say on that issue, but this case he says is one that would be condemned even by the generally sexual immoral of Corinth, a man is sleeping with his father’s wife.

Such behaviour was indeed condemned not just in the Old Testament law, but also Roman law. It is also illegal to marry your father’s wife in this country, whether your father is still alive or not – although since 1986, an exception was introduced so that you can do so if you are both over twenty-one and if before the age of 18 your father’s wife did not act as mum or step-mum to you.

We don’t know, what the situation was in this case and certainly the Old Testament laws that Paul would have based his understanding on does not allow such an exception. Whatever the details of the situation, Paul is clear that such behaviour should not be tolerated in the church.

Arrogance of the Church

In a way, though, that was not the big issue. The problem was the attitude of the rest of the church to the situation.

Paul says, they were ‘arrogant’ about it or ‘proud.’ At the least this means they did not think anything should be done about it, despite Paul’s past teaching against things, at worst it may mean they saw such behaviour as something to be commended.

But why was the church so unconcerned by such sin. Why were they not mourning the fact that there was such serious sin amongst them.

We cannot be sure and people have offered  various suggestions.

Some have suggested that the man in question was a key figure in the church, perhaps a talented and popular teacher. Because of his talents and popularity, people did not want to challenge him or risk losing him from the church. In our world too, we are often too easily taken in by talent, charm or success. Bishop Peter Ball, who was Bishop of Gloucester in the 1990s got away with terrible sex abuse, because no-one in power could believe that accusations against such a charming, talented and successful man could be true. Both Jesus and Paul warn of so called christian teachers or leaders who are really wolves in sheep’s clothing. They look like the real deal, but at heart they are wicked.

A more likely possibility is that the church in Corinth, took the idea that we are no longer under the Law to an extreme, so that this man’s behaviour was a breaking free of the rules and regulations of the past and should be celebrated as the new liberation they had in Christ. In the next chapter, Paul quotes a phrase that they used, “I have the right to do anything.” But for Paul such an attitude is way off. Not everything you can do is beneficial for your or others and wrong behaviour often enslaves you again to the power of sin.

Distortion of the gospel

What has gone wrong both with the individual and the church as a whole is that the gospel has been distorted. It has become: “Jesus died for my sins, so I can carry on sinning!” “I am saved by grace not works, so I don’t have to worry about doing good works.”

It may be that Paul was writing around the time of Passover and so he introduces an illustration from that festival. Passover was a celebration of God’s rescue of Israel from Egypt, of freedom from tyranny and enslavement. They were rescued, though, not to return to Egypt, but to live a new life as God’s people. And God gave them the Ten Commandments to show them that this new life involved a new ethical way of living.

When the Jews celebrated the Passover festival they removed all the bread that was leavened, in other words contained yeast, from their houses. Because the rescue meant fleeing quickly from Egypt, and so there was no time to allow the yeast to raise the bread. For the Jews this annual clearing out of the old leavened bread to have unleavened bread instead became symbolic of purifying themselves from wrong ways of living.

Paul is saying that as Christians, Jesus has become our Passover. He died to rescue us not from slavery to Egypt, but slavery to sin, to bring us into a new life not just forgiven for our sins, free from the guilt of our sin and the condemnation of our sin, but free to live a new life of sincerity and truth. The gospel announces that we can be forgiven free of charge, but it also calls us into a new better life. It is not true that anything goes. The true celebration of the gospel means moving into the living of a transformed life. That is what the Corinthians seem to have failed to grasp and that is what the church discipline needed to address.

Fundamentally the gospel is not about toleration, but transformation.

The aims of Church Discipline:

So, Paul says that the offender needs to be disciplined.

But, what is Paul aiming for in this disciplining? What makes it appropriate church discipline and not an abuse of power or a failure to understand grace.

Salvation of the Offender – vs. 4-5

Firstly, Paul wants the salvation of the offender. At the end of verse 5, he says,

‘so that his spirit may be saved on the last day.’

The sexual sin that this man was caught up in, put him outside the Kingdom of God – at least until it was repented of and stopped. Paul will later say that serious unrepented ongoing sins show that we are not saved.

Paul hopes that the act of church discipline will ultimately encourage the man to repent and turn back to Jesus for true salvation.

The discipline he imposes is ‘to hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.’ Such a phrase, especially in the lead up to Halloween, might suggest all kind of weird and wonderful images. But I think it basically means what Paul calls for in verse 13, quoting the Old Testament, ‘expel the wicked person from among you.’

To kick someone out of the church, means to return them to the world without Christ, the world that Jesus says is ultimately controlled by the ‘Prince of this world’ i.e. Satan. The aim for the man is that in seeing that his sexual behaviour has led to him losing his place within the church, he will give up his sin and seek forgiveness once more and so ultimately be restored.

Church discipline always needs to aim for the repentance and ultimate salvation of the offender.

Protection of the Church’s Culture – vs. 6-7

Secondly, it is about the protection of the church community’s ethics. We are not called to be a people where anything goes. Sin is ultimately corrupting of individuals, relationships and communities. God knows best and calls us out of our old sinful lives into a better life.

If, however, persistent sin within the church, particularly amongst prominent members, is not disciplined, then it influences the wider church to think that anything goes. Just as a small amount of yeast works in a lump of dough to change the whole lump and make it rise, so one or two people engaged in consistent unrepented sin has a disproportionately bad effect on the whole community.

This is not just about sexual sin, although, that is what is highlighted here. Paul also goes on to list six different kinds of sin that show the kind of people whose negative influence needs to be removed from the church.

Why does Paul choose these particular examples? Partly, they expand on some of the 10 commandments. We have been doing a series on the 10 commandments and we looked at the first five. Actually, some of the remaining five are implied by the kinds of people Paul mentions here.

But, Paul also chooses examples that probably reflect the particular culture of Corinth at that time. The kinds of behaviour that members of the church in Corinth would be most likely to fall into.

So quickly, let’s look at the list of 6:

• Sexual immorality. This arguably links to the 7th commandment, as adultery is a specific example of sexual immorality. Corinth, however, was a city renowned for its sexual licence.
• Greedy. The Greek word literally means the ‘more havers.’ This links with the 10th commandment about coveting. Corinth was a city where there was a particularly grasping culture. People wanted more power, more status, more money.
• Swindlers. This links to the 8th commandment: do not steal. Perhaps this is a more subtle example. The word probably means those who seek to gain wealth at the expense of others, either by theft or trickery. Again in Corinth, people were on the make constantly trying to find ways to get more out of others by overcharging, underpaying or whatever means possible.
• Idolaters. This links to the 2nd commandment. Corinth was full of pagan temples and idolatry would have been the norm. Paul tackles this issue in detail in chapters 8 to 10.
• Slanderers. This links to the 9th commandment, to give false testimony against your neighbour. Perhaps in an attempt to increase their own status, people were keen to put others down whenever they could.
• Drunkards. This does not link with one of the commandments, although the New Testament condemns alcohol abuse for the lack of self-control that it produces – a lack of self-control that can lead to breaking any of the commandments, even murder!

All six of these may have been particular issues in Corinth. They are certainly issues in our world today. Paul says, that such behaviour cannot be tolerated in the church. If someone is consistently behaving in these ways they need to be challenged and if they refuse to change, then they need to be disciplined by in some sense being removed from the church community. Otherwise, the community as a whole will be drawn into similar behaviour.

The aim of church discipline is about the salvation of the offender, but also the protection of a church culture that promotes transformed Christian living.

Church Discipline: Inside not Out

Paul is clear at the end, that this all applies to those inside the church. It is discipline for a purpose – the salvation of the offender and the protection of a church culture that promotes transformed Christian living.

We are not to shun those outside the church caught up in such behaviours, as though we are too righteous to be tainted by them. Far from it, Jesus welcomed tax-collectors and sinners, they were the lost sheep that needed to be welcomed back into the fold. But, once in the fold the expectation needs to be of lives transformed.

Our past sin in no way bars us from becoming part of God’s family, from moving from outside to inside. But once inside we need to seek God’s help to live by God’s family values. Values that do not tolerate sexual immorality, greed, swindling, idolatry, slander or drunkenness. In that movement, there needs to be patience, people take time to change and transform. Church discipline should not be quick to condemn new members who are in the process of kicking old habits.

Where church discipline is most necessary is with those inside the family who blatantly disregard those values that need to be put outside the church family. Especially if they have prominent roles within the church.