“The Authority of Church Discipline”
I Corinthians 5:1-13, {1} 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. {2} 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? {3} 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. {4} So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, {5} 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. {6} Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? {7} 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. {8} Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. {9} I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—{10} 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. {11} 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. {12} What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? {13} God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”