Jubilee Life Coach: Daily Meditations

When the Church Looks More Like Corinth 1 Corinthians 5

• Jubilee Christian Life Coach • Season 1

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Open your Bible to 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

A man in the Corinthian church is in a sexual relationship with his stepmother. Paul says even the pagans around them found this shocking — Roman law actually prohibited it. The church knew. And they had done nothing. If anything, they seemed proud of their restraint.

Paul says: "Shouldn't you rather have gone into mourning?" (1 Corinthians 5:2, NIV)

Somewhere along the way, the Corinthians had mistaken silence for grace. Paul sees it as something else — not sophistication, but a failure of love.

The Problem.

The church was puffed up. The same pride that drove their theological factions had now shown up in their moral passivity. They had a name for it — grace, tolerance, not judging. Paul had a different name for it.

There is a difference between genuine grace toward sinners and a silence that leaves people undisturbed in patterns that are hurting them.

The Purpose.

Paul calls the church to remove the man from fellowship. That sounds severe — until you read the reason: "that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord." (1 Corinthians 5:5, NIV)

The goal is not punishment. The goal is restoration. And if you read 2 Corinthians, you find it worked. The man repented. Paul then urged the church to welcome him back warmly.

But Paul doesn't stop at discipline. Right in the middle of these instructions, he breaks into Gospel:

"Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch — as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed." (1 Corinthians 5:7, NIV)

As you really are. Not: become holy so God will accept you. Rather: you already are a freed people — now live like it. Christ is the Passover Lamb. The sacrifice has been made. The deliverance is done. Holiness flows from that reality, not toward it.

The Parameters.

Paul closes with a clarification. He is not asking the church to avoid immoral people in the world — you would have to leave the planet. The church is called to be fully present in the world, bringing the Gospel to people in all their complexity.

What he is describing is something more specific — the integrity of the covenant community itself. When someone claims to follow Christ but shows no interest in what that actually means, the community's silence is not neutral. It sends a message.

Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. The old leaven can be purged because the feast has already begun.

Here are three questions to sit with — from Coach Brian:

The Problem invites us to ask: is there something in your life you have quietly made peace with, that deserves a more honest look?

The Purpose invites us to ask: when someone has cared enough to tell you something hard, what made it possible — or difficult — to receive?

The Parameters invites us to ask: what shifts when holiness begins with what God has already done, rather than what you still need to do?

Take those with you into your day.

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