Happy New Year! I trust that your 2017 has begun just they way you wanted it. We began studying 1 Corinthians 5 this morning, where Paul begins dealing with his spiritual children about a difficult issue. It is never an easy task to confront anyone about open sin, let alone in the public forum of the church family. Yet, Paul has to confront the leadership of Corinth about allowing a member to come into the fellowship and worship while living in an immoral relationship with his stepmother, who was still married to his father.
In this Laodicean age, our culture / society is pressuring churches to accept into membership and even leadership, people who are living a lifestyle that is contrary to the Word of God. We will continue to study through this chapter next Sunday starting in v.3. We will be comparing scripture with scripture to build the case for holiness and humility and loving errant brothers and sisters to repentance and growth into Christlikeness. We must always be careful to judge ourselves, so that we do not become preoccupied with judging everyone else. I look forward to studying the Word with you each week, even when the scriptures are painful to examine. God promises blessing from our obedience.