People of this world

I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. - 1 Corinthians 5v9-10

The Corinthian believers were a mess. Not only had they divided into parties and groups, but they had allowed others kinds of carnality to reach into their church. They were so proud of their liberty that they excused a man who was having sex with his step-mother! Paul of course addresses that by reminding them that he had instructed them not to have fellowship with sexually immoral people.

Somehow they had corrupted this teaching so that even though they kept company this man they had no company with the sinners of the world. They were boastful of the fact they liberal enough to accept this Christian, but kept themselves away from the defilement of hanging around lost people.

You can almost sense Paul’s frustration when he says, “.I certainly did not mean to not fellowship with the sinful people of the world, since if I said that you could not even live in this world.”

The people of the world are going to act like the people of the world. The people in the church are to act like God’s people. Doesn’t it seem sometimes that we can hold the world to a higher standard than the church?