In today's passage Paul addresses the case of a man in the congregation at Corinth who is caught up in a sexually immoral lifestyle. He is disturbed by how this man is living, but far more than that he is disturbed about the Corinthian's casual attitude about it.
"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." (1 Corinthians 5:1) We know this man is a Christian, because Paul says to them that he is "among you". Instead of some of the church leaders going to this man in love and trying to bring him to repentance, the Corinthians have shrugged their shoulders and said, "Oh well." They have not tried to deal with this situation, and they are harming the entire congregation by turning a blind eye to such blatant sin. This could cause other church members to feel it's okay to live however they please.
It is generally understood that this man is sleeping with his step-mother. Paul doesn't call the woman his mother, but refers to her as "his father's wife". Although these things did occasionally happen among the pagans, even the pagans considered it immoral and shocking. So Paul is saying, "This man is behaving worse than a heathen who doesn't know the Lord! And the rest of you are behaving worse than pagans because even pagans don't tolerate this type of behavior in their society! They would shun a person who did such things."
We don't know the exact circumstances of how this situation came about. It could be that an older man married a younger woman who was close to his son's age, and then the woman left him for the son. Or it could be that the father died and his wife took up with his son. She does not appear to be married to the son, for Paul only says that they are sleeping together, but even if she had married the son after his father's death this still would have been considered an incestuous relationship by both Jews and Gentiles.
"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?" (1 Corinthians 5:2) The church members are not proud of what the man has done, but they are prideful about themselves in general, as we have already seen in Paul's letter to them. They are perhaps too prideful to admit such things are going on in the church, so they have swept this situation under the rug.
The Lord Jesus gave instructions about how to deal with sin in the church. "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. 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.' If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector." (Matthew 18:15-17)
When the man's sin first became known, one of his friends in the church should have gone to him privately in love and said, "I'm worried about you. You are caught up in an immoral lifestyle. This is not who you are in Christ. This is not what Christ wants for you. He wouldn't give you someone else's wife, so let Him choose a good Christian wife for you. I love you and I don't want anything to hinder your relationship with the Lord. Please repent and turn away from this sin. I'm happy to kneel down right here and now and pray with you." If someone had done this, and if the man had listened and repented, it would have helped both the man and the church as a whole.
If he had not listened, the friend should have come back with one or two other friends from the church, and they could have talked privately with him in his own home. Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 19:15 when He stresses the importance of witnesses. There needs to be two or three witnesses to the man's refusal to repent, for if he still does not repent the matter is to be brought before the church, and the word of more than just one person will be needed to make a case against him.
If two or three people talked privately with this man and he remained stubborn and refused to turn away from his sin, the matter should have been brought up before the church. This may mean the entire church or it may mean the leaders of the church. If the man refused to listen to the church leadership, a decision should have been made that the man be banned from the assembly until such time as he repents. This form of shunning is not intended to be cruel to him, but to lead him to repentance. The church members are still to love him and pray for him, but they have to think of the good of the church as a whole. Allowing the man to continue to participate in church activities gives the impression that sexual immorality does not matter. This would lead to more and more sin in the church. Meanwhile, the man would be missing the wonderful fellowship he enjoyed in the church. He would be thinking about the consequences of his sin. Hopefully this would lead him to repentance so he could come back to the church and be welcomed with open arms.
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