User talk:Kkhaidle

1 Corinthians 5

This passage emphasizes the importance of refraining from sexual immorality and can even be taken a step further to be applied to any type of sin. This chapter specifically expresses that sexual immorality is a sin that God despises, and He advises the Christian to refrain from associating with any immoral persons.

verses 1-5: these verses offer a warning that there is sexual immorality among the people. It talks of a sin that so terrible even non-Christians or non-believers would not attempt it. A man sleeps with his father's wife and shows no regret or guilt for doing so. God reminds us of the Holy Spirit constantly being a shadow; even though He may not be present in being, it as if He is present as He judges those who are immoral. It is the instruction of the Lord to hand the immoral man to Satan to remove the man's sinful nature and bring him salvation. (This may be a very literal interpretation of this portion of the passage, but why wouldn't God be the one to remove the sinful nature as He is the forgiver of our sins; what does He mean by saying hand the man over to Satan, and then he has the opportunity to be saved on the day of the Lord?)

verses 6-8: For this portion, there is the use of an illustration of yeast having an effect on an entire batch of dough. A sin such as sexual immorality should not be taken lightly and must be forgiven and discarded. The yeast represents sinful nature, and once the old yeast is removed the batch of dough is new and without yeast. The dough without yeast is to represent sincerity and truth, while the dough with yeast produces malice and wickedness.

verses 9-11: The author warns the Christian to avoid association with those who call themselves a Christian yet are sexually immoral, drunkards, greedy, idolaters, swindlers, or slanderers. This instruction calls for strict avoidance of these specific Christians, advising the reader to refrain from even eating with such people. Further clarification of this instruction is offered in verse 10, which says that it is not necessary to avoid all immoral people just those who claim to be Christians or believers but continue to live a life of immorality. If we were instructed to avoid all people who are guilty of such sins, we would not be able to live in the world.

verses 12-13: The author concludes this chapter with beliefs about judgment of the wicked. We as Christians should not feel entitled to judge those who are non-Christians or outside the church. However, it is the Christians task to remove those from inside the church who are immoral. It states the wicked man should be expelled by true Christians, and it is up to God to seek judgment for those not part of the church.

In other passages of the Bible such as Revelation 3:16, it implies that God despises those who are lukewarm or grey. These terms mean a person may claim to be a Christian, but their life is non-reflective of what they claim to believe. A discussion of a lukewarm life correlates to the topic of 1 Corinthians 5 because this chapter implies several times that a person inside the church who is immoral is despisable in God's eyes and should be shunned from the lives of real Christians. It is better to be outside the church living immorally than to pretend to be a Christian yet sway to things such as sexual immorality. In both cases, there would be a person committing immoral acts. The difference is that one is fully committed to one side being, while one claims to be fully committed to one side but actually partakes in or uses both; hence the analogies of hot, cold, lukewarm and black, white, grey.