What does the Bible say about church drama? | First Corinthians

Alright, my name's Glenn, and I work here at the church at Radiant a little bit.

I also work at CVC, and um it's been a few months since I've been up here.

It's been about five months actually.

So we've had a lot going on, and our family, mostly we had a baby back in May, and so Travis gave me a little bit of a break.

Well, actually, Travis made me preach seven days after we had our baby.

I forgive him.

But then I got a little bit of a break.

So, yeah, and our baby's doing great.

The rest of us in the family are on fire most of the time, but Lincoln's doing great.

He's a very happy baby.

So um, we are continuing with First Corinthians, so we're just gonna keep on going.

Uh, chapters five and six, Travis did chapters three and four last week.

We're gonna move through, and it gets a little bit crazy in these chapters.

So um it's about church drama.

So, I don't know if you guys have ever been in any church drama situations.

Thankfully, my childhood was mostly not full of church drama.

The the closest thing we had, we were going to a real small church here in Viselia.

It doesn't exist anymore.

But um my parents were at like a Bible study, like a little home fellowship, and they were talking about Jonah and how the book of Jonah, you know, Jonah in it was a fable and nobody could really survive in a whale for three days.

And I guess that was a really strong conviction that my mom had that that Jonah was real.

So she stood up in the middle of the Bible study and she said, If my God can raise somebody from the dead, then he could certainly keep somebody alive inside of a whale for three days.

And then they walked out of the Bible study, and then we left the church after that.

True story.

So I was like, wow, man, she's really passionate about her interpretation of the book of Jonah.

But we found a great church after that, and um, no more drama.

So um in chapters five and six, there is tons of drama, and so I titled this sermon Corinthians Gone Wild.

So um chapter five is episode number one, and chapter six is episode number two.

So two different stories here.

So let's get into it.

First Corinthians five, verse one, Paul says this.

He says, It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate, a man is sleeping with his father's wife.

Okay, so we don't get more information about what's going on here.

We just get this one sentence.

I mean, obviously the Corinthians knew exactly what was going on, and the Bible's not salacious, it just gives us what we need to know.

But what we can gather of the situation is that a man was, a grown man was sleeping with his stepmom.

So we don't know if his dad had passed away and he had married his stepmom, or if his dad was still alive and still married to a stepmom and they were both sleeping with her.

I know this is not what you expected to hear about when you were driving to church this morning, but it probably was the latter option.

Um so Paul is right when he says it's not just something that a church shouldn't tolerate.

It's actually even in the Roman society of that time, which was like, I mean, they're pretty bad, right?

Like pagan Roman society, pretty immoral.

And even that society of that day would have said ew when they heard about that.

So it's like a double you.

And Paul's embarrassed.

He's he's really embarrassed of the Corinthians.

So he goes on in verse two, and he says this, he says, and you are proud.

Shouldn't you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?

So I don't think the Corinthians were proud of what was happening with the guy, because again, it was like obviously in an embarrassing and immoral and sinful situation.

What a lot of scholars think was happening was the man who was involved with this was one of the wealthier members of the congregation.

And in that day, the Corinthians had a whole patron system.

So patrons were wealthy members of the society who would take other members of the society under their wing, lower class members, they would serve them, they would do them favors, and then the lower class members that were under the wing of the patron, they were expected to do favors in return and speak well of them.

And so if this man was a patron, one of the few wealthy members, you can see why no one was saying anything to him.

They were just kind of turning the other way.

Because money talks, and they weren't willing to sacrifice a paycheck.

But Paul was.

And actually, this is one of the reasons Paul would not take money from the Corinthians.

When you read through the letters, he takes money from some of them.

He takes money from the church, the Philippians, he takes money from the Thessalonians, but he would not take money from the Corinthians because he he didn't want the waters to get muddied.

He didn't want to compromise morals.

And so he said, you know what?

I don't need it.

I I want to keep my conscience clear and be able to speak to you guys without restraint.

And he does.

So the next few verses, this is what he says.

Uh verses 3 through 5.

Yeah, for my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit.

As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this.

So when you are assembled, and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

Okay, a lot there.

It's pretty intense, right?

Paul just told them to hand the guy over to Satan.

Okay?

What does that mean?

Was that like some kind of occultic type ceremony where they used goat's blood and like handed him over to Satan?

No.

Because Paul actually explained what he meant a few verses earlier when he said in verse 2, he said, Shouldn't you have put him out of your fellowship?

And so put him out of your fellowship is a synonym with hand the man over to Satan, which I know doesn't sound like it, but it actually is.

It means the same thing.

And so when Paul says, hand the man over to Satan, he's saying to remove him from the protective covering of the body of Christ.

You're being handed over to Satan.

And for a picture of it, most of you guys probably know the prodigal son story, and that's a picture of it.

Whereas the younger brother in that story, he did it by his own choice, but he left the protective covering of his own family, and he went out into the world, gave himself up, and God mercifully allowed him to experience the consequences of his sin.

In this life, when we experience the consequences of our sin, it is a mercy.

It's God trying to speak to us.

And that was Paul's point.

He says in verse 5, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

The most loving thing that Paul could do was remove the delusion from this man that he was a Christian and that he was also living in blatant and unrepentant immorality.

He was he was in that delusion.

He's like, Yeah, I'm a Christian.

I go to church.

And he was also sleeping with his stepmom.

And so Paul said, This is the love of God in your life to take that delusion away from you and remove you from fellowship.

Okay, I know you guys still have a lot of questions.

Um we're gonna double-click real briefly on this whole idea of removing somebody from the fellowship because I know some of you are thinking, do we still do that?

Wasn't that just like back in the Joan of Arc days, you know, like Joan of Arc was excommunicated, Martin Luther was excommunicated.

Do we do that anymore?

Well, the the Bible talks about it.

Paul is actually basing what he's talking about here off of the words of Jesus in Matthew 18.

Matthew 18 talks about this process.

In Matthew 18, uh, the gist of it, I have this on a slide, Jesus gives us four steps to follow in Matthew 18, for when a believer is living in persistent sin without repentance or confession.

So this definition is super important when a believer is living in persistent sin without repentance or confession.

Okay?

Now, do we, do I, do you, do we struggle with sin?

Yes, we do.

1 John 1.10 actually says that if we deny that we struggle with sin, we call God a liar.

And so, yeah, yeah, we're all on the struggle bus, okay, in one way or another.

The Matthew 18 process of confronting another person, or to say it a little more gently, having an honest conversation with another person, you you begin that when somebody is living in sin without acknowledging it as sin.

They're embracing their own sin, they're defending it.

And that was the case here in Corinth.

Um if you are struggling with something like we all are, but you're calling it a sin and you're confessing it to other brothers and sisters, you're walking in the light, then that's what growth looks like.

That's what discipleship looks like.

That's what that's what we're all doing, hopefully.

But the process of growth and forward motion in the spirit stalls out when we look at our sin and we go, no, I'm gonna keep that.

I like that.

I'm not gonna tell anyone, and I'm just gonna keep on doing it as much as I want.

And that's when we have to be a good friend to another friend in the church.

Okay, so um, let's read Jesus' words on the subject.

He says this in Matthew 18.

He says, If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault just between the two of you.

If they listen to you, you have won them over.

Okay, this is what we would call step one, and just pause commercial break here.

I I can't take us through Matthew 18 in a real slow, methodical way like it deserves.

I wish I could because there's so much here.

But I did, I wrote a paper a few years ago on Matthew 18, and it's in the back in the foyer.

It's about 18 pages.

It's way more fun than it sounds.

Um if you want to read 18 pages on church discipline of Matthew 18, it is out there.

It would actually probably answer a lot of questions if this is the first time you're hearing something like this.

So I would I would recommend that.

But back to the words of Jesus here.

This is the first step.

So somebody struggling, but they're not repenting, confessing, they're embracing it.

Now it's up to us as a church to have a conversation with that person.

Really, it's up to that person's closest friends and family.

That's it's really up to them.

I think of the story of Cain and Abel, where Cain just killed his brother Abel in the book of Genesis, and God comes to him after the murder and he goes, What are you doing?

And Cain goes, kind of like a rebellious teenager.

He's like, What?

Am I my brother's keeper?

Come on.

Like, what do I care what Abel's doing?

And that question just kind of hangs.

But the rest of the Bible answers that, yeah, we kind of are our brother's keeper.

Like we're in a when we're in a community together, it's not just live and let live, which is the American way, right?

Just like you're in your house, we don't talk to our neighbors, just like your life is private.

But that's not the Bible way.

We're actually involved in each other's lives.

Like, how are you doing?

No, how are you really doing?

I mean, we have packs, small groups for these kind of conversations so we can get real.

That's what we're called to do.

And if somebody is going the wrong direction, then it's up to one of us to go, hey, can I talk to you for a little bit?

Can I have a conversation with you?

Can we get coffee?

And you you you bring up the subject.

You you go there.

So some of you might be thinking at this point, that is so judgy.

Like, I can't judge my brother or sister in Christ.

Like, how do I know if they're sinning?

You know, like what?

How is that up to me at all?

And Jesus does say to judge not, lest you will be judged.

It's true.

Jesus is talking about having a critical fault-finding spirit where your whole goal is to find the faults in somebody else without ever pointing the light on your own heart and soul.

That's what Jesus is talking about.

But in that same passage in Matthew 7, Jesus goes on to say, in Matthew 7, 5, he says, uh, first take the plank out of your own eye.

So that's how we keep from being a hypocrite.

We we we constantly start with ourselves.

Am I right with God?

What do I need to confess?

But then Jesus doesn't stop there.

He doesn't say, take the plank out of your own eye, and then go your merry way because your brother is none of your business.

He doesn't say that.

He says, take the plank out, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

He commissions us to remove the speck from our brother's eye with the right heart, with the right spirit, but he commissions us.

So I want to ask, are we doing that?

Are we are we willing to go that first step of Matthew 18?

Are we willing to have the hard conversation?

If we're willing to have the hard conversation, but we never have a hard conversation with ourselves about our own sin, then we're a hypocrite.

If we never are willing to have the hard conversation, even if it's right in front of us, and our brother or sister is going the wrong direction, then we're a coward.

And Jesus calls out both.

He calls us higher.

Um Matthew 18 goes on, we'll put that back up here again.

I'm I won't go through it in depth, but after the first step, he says, but if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

So that would be the second step.

The person doesn't respond, he says, get out of my face, you guys are full of it.

I love sin, you know, whatever, however the conversation goes.

And your job is to bring other people.

It's not to stack the jury, you know, it's not to like bring a bunch of people who agree with me so we can gang up on him.

It's bring some more of his friends who love him so he can hear from more people than just you that he's going the wrong way.

And he can look at his closest family and friends and go, oh shoot, like three people are saying this now.

It escalates it.

And then if he still doesn't respond, verse 17, if they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church.

That would be stage four.

And again, the the paper in the back will explain that more, but I just want to say for our purposes, for the 90% of you who won't read the paper, uh it I do not believe it means announcing it on a Sunday morning.

I don't think that's what Jesus is talking about.

Um our Sunday mornings here at Radiant and in most churches in America are open to anyone.

They're open to unbelievers, they're open to visiting people, and why would we air out the dirty laundry of one person in the church to a bunch of strangers?

That's that's not the heart of what Jesus is saying.

And in fact, that actually happened to a close uh family member of mine.

They hadn't gone to church in 10 years, and somebody finally wrangled them into going to a church service, and on it was a it was a church in Fresno, and um on that one particular church service, they decided to follow through with the last phases of church discipline.

And my family member was sitting there, again, first time in church in 10 years, and they were telling the whole congregation about an affair that had happened between worship leaders and how they were being um excommunicated from the church, and my family member was like, Cool, like, why did I come again?

This is really weird.

So, Sunday morning, we don't do it, but when it says tell it to the church, tell it to the community of people that surround that person.

Maybe it looks like a member meeting in a bigger church, probably not even that.

I don't know.

That's where different churches have to decide how they walk out Jesus' words.

But the point is to expand the circle of accountability without airing dirty laundry out before complete strangers.

You guys with me?

Um and the last stage of Matthew 18.

Jesus says to treat them as a pagan or a tax collector, which at first glance might look like, oh dang, Jesus, my gosh.

Like we turn our backs to them and kind of like stick our tongues out at them whenever they look our direction, you know?

Like, get out of here, you sinner.

Like, but how did Jesus treat tax collectors and pagans?

He was actually really kind.

He actually ate with them, reached out to them.

Um, so Jesus is not saying, remove them from your sight.

And in fact, that's the very next thing that Paul clarifies in the passage.

So let's read on.

Um, skipping to 1 Corinthians 5, 9 through 13 here, Paul says, 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'd have to leave this world.

But now I'm 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.

I know this is a not very oft repeated passage, right?

Paul's like, yeah, no, you better judge each other in the church.

I mean, that's not a very popular verse.

But he says, but don't judge the people outside.

Reach out to them, love them.

Um Martin Luther has a quote about this, about this idea of like reaching out to people who are outside of the church and not shunning them.

Martin Luther said this: he said, The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies, and he who will not accept this does not want to be of the kingdom of Christ.

He wants to be amongst friends, to sit amongst roses and lilies, not with the bad people.

Oh, you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ.

If Christ had done what you were doing, who would ever have been spared?

So Martin Luther gets a little fire and brimstone on us, calls us blasphemers and betrayers.

But his point is if you never reach out to people outside of the church, how would we have ever gotten saved?

Like, what kind of heart is that?

So, summing this all up, um sorry, slide people, I'm doing this all out of order.

C.K.

Barrett, the commentator, he says this.

I thought this was helpful.

He says, Paul's policy is strict discipline within and complete freedom of association outside.

That's the principle that Paul's introducing is that we enact Matthew 18 among one another in the right spirit and gentle and loving ways.

But for people who don't know the Lord, we find ways to be in their lives.

We love them, we pray for them.

Of course they're sinning.

They don't know Jesus, right?

Okay.

That is episode number one of Corinthians Gone Wild.

So let's go to episode number two in chapter six.

Chapter six, verse one.

If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord's people?

So when Paul says Dispute here.

He's gonna clarify in a second, he's talking about a lawsuit.

Like they were actually taking each other to court, Christian on Christian.

So was this a was this a thing?

Did people sue each other in the first century?

Did they get sue happy?

And it turns out it was.

They did get sue happy in the first century.

Commentator William Barclay says this.

So instead of sitting around watching sports, they'd sit around and like decide other people's law cases.

It was like a hobby.

The Greeks were in fact famous or notorious for their love of going to law.

Not unnaturally, certain of the Greeks had brought their litigious tendencies into the Christian church, and Paul was shocked.

So they were sue happy, suing each other for just the smallest infractions.

Somebody charges them$5 too much.

Sue.

Somebody calls them a bad name.

Sue.

I remember I think I was probably in seventh or eighth grade where I where I first heard the idea of suing somebody, and I thought it was so cool.

Like, you can just sue somebody for money if they do something, if they like look at you wrong or like cut you off on the freeway.

And probably my friends at the time were like, Yeah, you just sue them.

You just get like a thousand bucks.

I was like, dude, this is awesome.

I'm gonna sue everyone when I grow up.

I'm gonna make so much money.

So the Corinthians were the same.

This is what Paul's reaction is.

He goes on, chapter 6, verses 2 through 6.

He says, or do you not know that the Lord's people will judge the world?

And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases?

Do you not know that we will judge angels?

How much more the things of this life?

Now, when Paul says we're gonna judge the world, we're gonna judge angels, I know he's talking about the age to come.

Beyond that, I'm not really sure.

I'm not really sure what he's talking about.

But it sounds really awesome.

All I know is that when Jesus comes back, we're gonna be entrusted with some kind of authority where we're actually deciding the cases of other angels, it looks like.

You know, Michael and somebody else comes in, and we're like, nope, Michael's right, other angel, you're out of there, buddy.

We're gonna do this in the age to come.

So Paul's point is if you have such a lofty position in Christ, can't you help each other out right now instead of going to a secular court in Corinth to decide your petty disputes?

It's like, can't you find a wise Christian counselor?

Can't you save yourself the humiliation of going to a secular court?

Um, he goes on, therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church?

I say this to shame you.

Which this is kind of funny, because if you remember in chapter four, he goes, I'm not saying any of this to shame you.

And now we're at chapter six, he's like, nah, I'm shaming you now.

He's like, it's on.

Like, we're we've we've gotten to the point where you need a little bit of shame.

So sorry, shame on you guys.

I say this to shame you.

Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers?

But instead, one brother takes another to court, and this in front of unbelievers.

Okay, Paul's embarrassed.

And more importantly, it's like you guys are embarrassing Jesus by doing this.

The Corinthian courts of that day were known for injustice, not justice.

It was more common for a judge of that day to be bribed and that to a defect effective decision than to just decide it equally.

So that's another reason why Paul's like, no, get this out of the court, bring this into the church.

Now, as soon as I say that, a couple clarifications are in order.

I am not saying that every dispute or matter should always be settled in-house.

Okay?

There are a couple reasons for this, and I think um Andrew Wilson, the commentator, says it best.

He says, given the scandals of the last few years in virtually every part of the church, it is worth highlighting one thing that this passage definitely does not mean.

It does not mean that we should deal with criminal activity in-house without informing the police of illegal behavior.

Paul would be horrified if we were to use this passage as a pretext for cover-ups, institutional silence, or the protection of abusive leaders when serious allegations are made.

So Paul's talking about petty, minor conflicts between believers.

Okay, if you want to get technical, it's like the difference between a civil lawsuit and a criminal lawsuit.

Paul is not addressing it addressing criminal lawsuits.

He, and again, like Wilson says, if a crime happens in the church, somebody's abused, sexually abused, if theft occurs, if some kind of violence occurs, call the police.

That's not what Paul's talking about.

That's it's actually really important for us to make that distinction.

Another exception to what Paul is referring to here would be if there is some kind of pervasive corruption in the church leadership that needs to be addressed.

Because that's one way that this passage is actually abused today is a church leadership might be going astray, and they use this passage and they go, no, we gotta we gotta keep it in house, guys, keep it in house.

And it's like, no, that's the last thing we need when the whole leadership is under question.

In that case, bring somebody in from outside, whether it's authorities or there are actually Christian nonprofits that are dedicated to this very thing, to coming in from the outside and giving an objective evaluation of a church.

So, two exceptions to Paul's rule, um, but what Paul says is super important and still stands that in these kind of minor uh disputes and conflicts, take it to other believers.

They have the wisdom that we need.

And in fact, Paul goes on and he gives us one more principle that will kind of end us here today.

Um, 1 Corinthians 6, verses 7 through 8, Paul says this the very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already.

1 Corinthians 6:7–8

Why not rather be wronged?

Why not rather be cheated?

Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters.

So these are weighty words.

Paul's saying, it's embarrassing enough that you guys have this many conflicts among you.

It's worse that you can't seem to work it out among amongst yourselves.

And Paul says, why not allow yourself to be cheated?

Why not allow yourself to be wronged?

And you go, wait a second, I thought Paul was all about justice.

Like, I thought the whole purpose was to find somebody wise enough to figure out the case so there could be justice.

And Paul goes, Yeah, sometimes that's what I'm talking about, and other times the more godly thing to do is just let it go.

Jesus talked about this very thing when he said, turn the other cheek.

And in fact, Paul is basing his words here off of Jesus' words in Matthew 5.

All of Paul's teachings refer back in some way to Jesus.

And in this case, it's the famous passage in Matthew 5, which I'm going to read.

Matthew 5, verse 39 through 42, Jesus said this, but I tell you, do not resist an evil person.

Matthew 5:39–42

If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.

If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.

Again, notice the examples that Jesus gives are not life-altering or life-threatening situations.

They are petty conflicts that mostly involve just our pride.

And sometimes those are the hardest ones to let go, though, right?

And those are the very situations Jesus says, let it happen, let it go, turn the other cheek.

He finishes by saying, if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles, give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Okay.

I teach in a classroom every week, and so I'm gonna end with a summary of my major points.

And I'm gonna give an exit exit ticket assignment for you guys to um fill out.

Not really.

No quizzes for you guys today.

Okay, first principle we went over.

Ongoing and unrepentant sin in the church should go through the Matthew 18 accountability process.

That was chapter 5.

Second, criminal activity in the church should be reported to the police.

Paul doesn't say that explicitly, but we can we can gather that from his words.

He's referring to that one specific kind of situation.

Third, civil disputes among believers should be taken to wise Christian counselors, not to the outside courts.

After all, we'll judge angels someday.

And then lastly, there are other times when the most Christ-like thing to do is to simply let it go, is to simply turn the other cheek.

Jesus walked this out, didn't he?

He lived this out, he turned the other cheek.

Because Jesus faced injustice and turned the other cheek, we all can have justice.

We all can be saved because Jesus walked these words out.

He lived them.

Even when it was unfair, when he was slapped, when he was beaten, even when he was crucified, Jesus turned the other cheek.

He gave himself up so we could be saved, so we could eventually get justice.

I mean, that's that's the gospel, and that's what that's what Paul's referring back to.

I'm gonna pray and then hand it over to Chris here.

Uh, worship team, if you guys want to come up.

Jesus, we asked for just the wisdom of these chapters.

Help us to find ourselves somewhere in it, even where it feels extreme.

Would you show us what applies to us?

Would you show us whether we're in a situation where we need to go find a wise counselor?

Or we need to have courage and talk to a friend and have a hard conversation?

Or if we need to just let it go, would you would you help us, Holy Spirit?

And would you just reveal Jesus in us and and in our church?

Amen.