1 CORINTHIANS 5:1-8 - WEEK 2 - MOTIVATION FOR SEXUAL INTEGRITY

WEEK 2 - MOTIVATION FOR SEXUAL INTEGRITY

Monday

1 CORINTHIANS 5:1–8 (NASB95)

1 It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. 2 You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. 3 For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. 4 In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. 6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? 7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

A CALL TO COMMUNITY INTEGRITY

Paul challenges the Corinthians for allowing immorality to continue without being confronted.  The Corinthians have taken an arrogant and boastful approach towards this behavior that Paul exposes as short-sighted and not taking seriously the effect on the community this immorality will have.  

Paul displays a passion for the well-being of the community that demands that sinful behavior be confronted and discipline be enacted.  

QUESTIONS:

Paul uses an analogy to help the Corinthians understand how individual behavior affects the whole community.  What was that analogy?

How does individual behavior work like leaven?

What were they supposed to do with that old leaven?

What do you think the difference between lack of moral courage and tolerance is?