In 1 Corinthians 5, the problem was sexual immorality. Verse 1 explains that someone counted among the Christians of Corinth openly lived in an on-going sexual relationship (either as married or living together) with his stepmother. The woman involved wasn’t a believer because Paul didn’t address her.

Paul said that they must take the man away from among the church: This was part of God’s answer to the problem – to take this notoriously unrepentant man away from the protection of the fellowship of God’s people. Yet, the Corinthian Christians didn’t do this. Why not? How could this kind of thing be allowed?

They allowed it because they were influenced by their surrounding culture. Remember that Corinth was a city notorious for sexual immorality, and the pagan religions did not value sexual purity. It wasn’t hard for a Corinthian to think you could be religious, yet still act any way you pleased when it came to sex. Greek culture matter-of-factly said: “Mistresses we keep for the sake of pleasure, concubines for the daily care of the body, but wives to bear us legitimate children.”

They allowed it because they didn’t know or didn’t apply the Scriptures, such as Leviticus 18:8, which forbids a man to have sex with his stepmother.

More than anything, they allowed it in the name of “tolerance.” The Corinthian Christians said to themselves, “Look how loving we are. We accept this brother just as he is. Look how open-minded we are!”

The Corinthian Christians were proud (puffed up) over their acceptance of this man; they thought it said something good about them. Instead of glorying, they should have grieved, both for the man and over what God wanted them to do with the man: put him out of the church until he repented.

Generally, Christians are to be a tolerant people. In the broader world, we should love even those who are enemies to the Christian faith (Matthew 5:44). Yet leaders among God’s people have the responsibility of dealing with believers who are in open sin, refusing to recognize it as sin or to repent. In those situations, it’s a grave error to pretend everything is OK or the church should be praised for its so-called tolerance.

May God give leaders in the church the wisdom and strength to deal rightly with open sin among God’s people.

It’s important to recognize that those whom Paul addressed were part of the family of God; they are called brethren. In a sense, that was their problem. They were not behaving like spiritual people, but like carnalpeople – that is, fleshly people. They behaved like immature Christians, as babes in Christ.

There are some who think that there is no such thing as a carnal Christian. Some say it is a contradiction in terms; that what Paul really meant was that these carnal ones were not Christians at all. Yet Paul clearly called them brethren, and he said they were babes in Christ. It’s hard to see how Paul could consider them brothers and call them babes in Christ if they weren’t in the family of God and as babes in Christ, had made a genuine start in the Christian life.

These Corinthian Christians, to some extent, were thinking and acting according to the flesh, not the Spirit. Of course, the flesh did not dominate every aspect of their life, or they would then have had no evidence of being born again. But Paul confronted them where they were clearly thinking and acting in a carnal (fleshly) manner.

Paul didn’t mean that our material substance – the cells and tissues that make up our body – are inherently sinful. There is weakness associated with being “made of flesh,” but this weakness isn’t automatically sinful (2 Corinthians 3:3). Here, the problem with the Corinthian Christians was they were carnal, that is “fleshly” – they were characterized by the flesh. This speaks of the believer who can and should live differently but does not. They aren’t spiritually minded, but they are fleshly minded.

Paul told the Christians of Galatia that they must “walk in the Spirit” and then they would not “fulfill the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:6). There were more than a few among the Corinthian Christians who were losing that battle; they were believers, but at least in some ways, their life was marked more by the ideas and actions of their flesh instead of the ideas and actions of the Spirit of God.

Paul spoke of three categories.

– The natural man (1 Corinthians 2:14), is patterned after Adam and rejects the things of God.
– The spiritual man (1 Corinthians 2:15), knows the things of God and endeavors to think and live according to the Spirit.
– The carnal man knows the things of God, yet in some significant ways doesn’t walk in the Spirit, but is characterized by the flesh.

Which one are you?

As his two letters to the church in Corinth show, the Corinthians Christians had a lot of problems. 1 Corinthians shows that at times, they had moral problems, doctrine problems, church government problems, spiritual gift problems, church service problems, and authority problems.

What do you do with a “problem church”? Paul thanked God for them. That’s what he said: I thank my God always. Paul spent a lot of time in this letter rebuking sin and correcting error, yet he was still sincerely thankful for God’s work in the Corinthian Christians.

Those who feel called to rebuke sin and correct error in the church today should follow Paul’s example. Unfortunately, many of them never communicate any encouragement with their correction and advice.

Paul was especially grateful for the grace they received by Jesus Christ. Everything good, everything worth being thankful about among the Corinthian came to them by grace. Grace means that God gives freely, for His own reasons.

God’s grace had an effect among the Corinthian Christians. The Corinthians were a “rich” church, not only materially, but also in their speech and knowledge of Jesus (all utterance and in all knowledge… the testimony of Christ, 1:6), in their abounding in the gifts (come short in no gift, 1:7), and in that they lived in anticipation of Jesus’ coming (eagerly waiting, 1:7). In these things, they were genuinely enriched.

On could say that the work of God in the Corinthian Christians could be seen by what they said, by what they learned, by a supernatural element in their lives, and by their expectant anticipation of Jesus’ return.

When Paul looked at the Corinthian church, he could say: “These people proclaim Jesus, they know about Jesus, there are the supernatural gifts of God among them, and they are excited about Jesus’ return.” All those things made him thankful, so Paul’s gratitude was sincere.

Whatever problems the Corinthians had, they also had these impressive strong points. Can even this much be said about many churches today? We may pride ourselves on not having the problems of the Corinthian Christians, but do we have their positives?

Yet, these positives were no great credit to the Corinthian Christians themselves. They were not the spiritual achievements of the Corinthians, but the work of the grace of God in them.

If you’re around some problem people or problem churches, there are probably still reasons to give thanks for them. Be real about the problems; but find a way to give thanks.

Are you a strong Christian? If so, hear what the Holy Spirit says to you: we then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. If you consider yourself strong in comparison to your brother, use your strength to serve your brothers and sisters in Christ, instead of using your “strength” just to please yourself. You should think of how you can use your superior strength to support and help your weaker brother. That’s the idea of bear with.

This goes against the spirit of our age, which tells people to look out for number themselves and often despises those who live lives of real sacrifice for the sake of others. Yet undeniably Paul points the way to true happiness and fulfillment in life: get your eyes off yourself, start building up others and you will find yourself built up.

This does not mean that the church is ruled by the whims of the weak. In a healthy church, those who are weak are gently, continually challenged to grow in Jesus Christ and become stronger. There’s something wrong when weak believers stay weak for extended periods of time.

That was God’s word to the strong. Then God had something to say to every believer, weak or strong: let each of us please his neighbor. This is a simple yet challenging call to simply put our neighbor first. Paul later wrote much the same thing in Philippians 2:3–4: Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

“Wait,” someone says. “I thought we were to be concerned with pleasing God, not pleasing man. How can it be said that I should therefore please my neighbor?” The answer is found in the next few words: let each of us please his neighbor for his good. This shows that Paul did not mean being a “man-pleaser.” Such a person may want to please his neighbor, but not for his neighbor’s good.

We do this all because it leads to edification. If you’re strong in the Lord, use the strength to build others up, instead of tearing them down. That’s a great way to honor God and further the work of His kingdom.

Scary enough. Yet even more frightening was that, according to the Associated Press story, the wife of the home didn’t wake up. Joanne Donovan slept right through it. Mr. Donovan had to shake her awake after the crash.

It’s amazing what we can sleep through. God can do an awe-inspiring work among many, but others can sleep right through it, spiritually speaking. In Romans 13:11, we find out what it takes to keep us awake, or to awaken us from our spiritual slumber.

First, Paul wrote about knowing the time. Often, when we oversleep it is because we didn’t know the time. We wake up late, and in a panic look for the time, and get a sick feeling – “I’m late! I overslept!” Spiritually speaking, if we know the time we won’t sleep when we shouldn’t. And when we look around at the world today with open eyes and an open Bible, we see that the time is short. If we really believe Jesus is coming soon, if we know the time – then we will wake up.

Second, Paul wrote about what would happen at the right time: now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The coming of Jesus, and the completion of our salvation, is closer than ever. Every day since God worked in your life and you first decided to follow Jesus, the time has become closer and closer, and the finishing of your salvation comes nearer and nearer. When we remember how wonderful it will be to have our salvation finished – no more sin, no more death, no more of the weakness of this flesh – that will keep us awake.

Right now, are you taking a spiritual nap? Perhaps there is some spiritual activity in your life, but you might as well be sleepwalking through it. So, the right prayer for you today is, “Lord, wake me up. Help me to know it is time to awaken. Get me excited about the completion of my salvation.” God loves to answer that kind of prayer.

Even if you are sleeping so soundly that if a car crashed through the roof of your house, you wouldn’t know it, God can still make you awake and keep you awake for His glory.