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Today, people don't want anyone to judge anyone else. They say, "only God can judge people".

Paul in 1 Corinthians 5 was covering how to deal with immoral church members. From a distance, Paul was hearing that some in the church were walking in immorality. His word to the church leaders was that they were to discipline those people and possibly remove those people from the church.

Paul goes on to say that a Christian should not associate with another Christian that is walking in immorality. Remember, Paul is not talking about the lost world....he is talking about people in the church. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 "for what business is it of mine to judge outsiders? Don't you judge those who are inside? God judges outsiders. Remove the evil person from among you."

Back to 1 Cor. 5:6 Paul mentions that a little leaven, leavens the whole lump of dough.

Most would agree with the Bible when it speaks of the church being "set apart", that the church is to pursue "holiness".

When the church and her leaders are afraid to confront sinful people...you have what you tolerate. Paul back in 1 Cor. 5:11 mentions some sins that were perhaps problems inside the Corinthian Church...he mentions sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, people that were verbally abusive, drunkards and swindlers. By the way, a swindler is a cheater.

What Paul is getting at is this...certain types of behavior are incompatible with a Christian's testimony and with Church fellowship. Nothing hurts a church more than to have individuals within the church as "members of good standing" and those same people be walking in these types of sins.

That's why Paul says that the leaders in the Corinthian Church were to judge those on the inside. They were to deal with these issues. Now, the lost people outside the church that did these same things would be judged by God.

So today, when Christians say that we should not judge another Christian...they better check their Bible first. Now I do believe Church leadership should deal with these issues prayerfully, biblically and carefully. Church discipline should be carried out by those God has placed into leadership.

Does anyone know of a church that actually operates this way today? That's the question that is on my mind.

If all church's cared for their testimony like this, wouldnt the church look drastically different than the world? We would probably look more like the body of Christ if we cared about our testimony more...