1 Corinthians 5:1
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.
This is the low point of this letter, in my opinion. It shows just how low the church had fallen in its holiness. Not only were they acting like the world, they were worse than the world. This is something that would not even be worth putting on a grocery store tabloid paper. This is what happens when sin is not taken serious. It is dangerous for believers and the church to accept the ways of the world. When a person lives by the flesh and allows selfish desires to reign, it is not far to slide down the slope of degradation. The sad thing is when we are not even aware of how much sin and compromise have entered our lives. This most significant value in American culture has become political correctness. People don’t want to do anything that offends someone else. This leads to compromise on multiple levels. Are Christians entrapped by this value system? Have we succumbed to compromising with the value system of the world around us? The best defense is to affirm the Holy Spirit’s leading and transforming us into the mind of Christ. This is the way of holiness and love. Paul will begin to focus in the next few chapters on the theme of holiness. As Christians, we are called to live by a different set of values than the unbelieving world around us.
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