This is one of the hardest texts.  How does this look like?

 ^“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—  not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.  But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

This one is so very controversial.  The Scripture is plain enough.  It is not a problem to associate with those outside of the church who are immoral.  They are not Christians and you cannot expect non-Christians to act like Christians.  But it tells us contextually to have the sexually immoral person who seems to persist in their immorality removed from the fellowship of believers.

When this has been brought up. the answers are the same:

• You are judging people
• If we have them removed from the church, who will love them?
• If you have the sexually immoral removed, what about those who are greedy, swindlers, and idolators, isn’t that about everyone?

The truth is no one likes this verse.  We live in the tension of we are all sinners.  The tension that we do not want to remove from the fellowship very nice, wonderful people even if they are in sexual immorality, greedy, swindlers, etc…

People who are nice are often given passes for sin.

But Scripture does not make the exception of niceness or attractive people or smart ones to have their sin overlooked.

Paul has said it plainly.  Yeast works through the dough and contaminates it all.

I do not believe this is about sin where someone made a foolish decision one night.  Nor do I think this is about sin where someone is working to grow in Christ and is having issues with discipleship.  This appears to be the sin of the persistent and unrepentant, and even boastful.  If they continue in their sin, Paul says they should be removed from the fellowship.

But what does this look like?

• Do we associate and dine with unrepentant believers who are not part of our particular church fellowship?
• Do we continue to love them well in the community and just not have them participate in our church?
• What does loving and gentle correction look like, and what does respectful removal look like?

Paul was absolutely right.  Not doing anything has made it so that the yeast has spread throughout the dough.  The church is not looking much different from the world these days.  In fact, there are whole churches, not just individuals, that boast in their immorality.  Some recoil at even calling wicked for what it is–wickedness.

Then there are the churches that have handled church discipline so awful it is shameful.  They have cared little about the person and more about the law.

We have to find a way that, like Jesus, is both truthful and loving, both loving and truthful.  We live in a time where these concepts are polarized and have been cast as incompatible.  On the contrary, they are mutually dependent.

For those who do not like conflict, we must act anyway, love with truth.

For those who lean too much on rules and truth, we must find the way of truth with kindness.

“What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?  God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

The goal is redemption.  The goal is restoration.  The goal is that there will be repentance and salvation.  It isn’t about removing people we don’t like.  It’s about a wake up call.  It’s about protecting the others.