Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Corinthians 5-8.

In yesterday’s passage Paul began his letter to the Corinthian Church by rebuking them for allowing disagreements to divide them.  Today’s passage begins with Paul rebuking the Corinthian Church for boasting about having a member who was sleeping with his stepmother.  He reminds them of a previous letter where he had told them not to associate with sexually immoral people.  Here he clarifies by saying that he meant those who claim to be believers.  Then he expands on that by saying that we should not associate with those who claim to be believers who are sexually immoral, greedy, an idolater, slanderer, drunkard, or swindler.  We should expel such people from among us.  He uses this incident to teach that while we should not pass judgement on those outside the church, we should judge between believers.  Specifically, if we have a disagreement with a fellow believer we should take that disagreement to the church for resolution rather than take it to the secular court system.  In fact, Paul tells us that rather than allow the secular court system to decide the resolution to a disagreement we have with a fellow believer we should allow ourselves to be cheated or otherwise wronged.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.