We (I) fall back on human wisdom much too readily. As I’ve mentioned before, during this time of political sparring for the next presidency it becomes even more obvious. Who seems like they can best help solve the country’s problems? Whose plan seems most like what this country needs? Today I was saddened to hear that Antonin Scalia passed away. I have been an admirer of him for over 20 years and yes, of the “wisdom” in his words and decisions. I’m guilty.

Paul laid the foundation for how to the church should make decisions and handle issues in chapters 1-4. It’s very different from how the world handles things. So much so that in 4:19-20 he told these believers that on his next visit he’d ignore their words and observe only the spiritual power they displayed.

If someone belongs to God’s kingdom, you’ll know it by the power of the Holy Spirit working through them, not by their eloquence.

Human decisions begin with what we feel, think, or reason. Christian decisions begin with what we know about God, Christ, and His faithful servants. It’s not wrong for us to consider emotions and reason. After all, God develops a NEW HEART and a NEW MIND in us, and we’re told to love God with all of both of those. Emotion and Reason, though, must be subjected to the things God has taught and demonstrated for us in His Word. The results will usually be much different than the direction our human natures would lead us.

Everything Paul has written so far in this letter has been prep for the issues he’ll deal with throughout the letter. He could have just delved right into the topics of sexual permissiveness (Chapter 5), suing brethren (Chapter 6), divorce and remarriage (Chapter 7), eating food sacrificed to idols (Chapter 8), improper worship (Chapter 11), spiritual gift abuse (Chapters 12-14), and dismissing key doctrines of the faith such as the resurrection (Chapter 15).

But those topics are only symptoms of an underlying problem. Addressing the symptoms without first addressing the disease wouldn’t help anything. So he spent the first 4 chapters of this letter addressing the core issue: This puffed up church was infected by worldly wisdom and it allowed that infection to divide them.

Paul will remind them of this core infection several times as he treats the symptoms in the following chapters. And no healing from these symptoms will occur unless they address their worldly wisdom disease.

Importantly, while Paul does deal with those issues at one level, his primary focus is THE FACT THAT the problems entered the church, WHY the problems entered the church, how the church at Corinth IS handling them, and how the church SHOULD handle them. If we miss that nuance we’ll miss the core of his message. For example, when we get to chapter 8 and read about whether or not it’s OK to eat meat sacrificed to idols, we’ll quickly move on because we don’t do that these days. But he didn’t just write about eating idol meat in that chapter. He wrote about attitudes and habits that entered the church that caused the believers to become confused about what to do when that issue – or any other – arises.

5:1 It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. 2 You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. 3 For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present.

So a man in the congregation was having sex with his mom or step-mom (it’s not clear which one, and it doesn’t really matter). Did these Corinthian Christians handle the problem with the Holy Spirit’s power? No! Instead, they were proud. Proud of what? Proud of incest? No, they were proud of themselves and were ignoring the incest. They continued feeling good about themselves, about their church, about their “wisdom,” about their great teachers and preachers.

Maybe we can infer (doing so at least lets me apply it to modern churches) that they were proud of how many people were attending their services”! If we’re getting this big, who can say God isn’t blessing us? Sure, we’re tolerating some sin here and there, but hey we’re all sinners, right? And if we were intolerant we’d drive people away and they may never hear the gospel.”

Paul says “If you really had a good reason to be self-confident, it would be because the Holy Spirit’s power was flowing through your church! And if that were happening you wouldn’t be tolerating such grotesque sin. You would do what I would do if I were there – turn this man over to Satan so that he may be saved!”

Paul says their self-confidence had two effects: (1) It robbed them of their ability to be “filled with grief,” and (2) It caused them to overlook sin.

This gets to the very core of Christ’s mission when He was on earth and His mission on earth through us – to eradicate sin!

SPOILER ALERT! Toward the end of 2 Corinthians, Paul said he was afraid that he’d be filled with grief when he visited their church because of their unrepentant sin: “For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish and may be found by you to be not what you wish; that perhaps there will be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances; I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality and sensuality which they have practiced.” (2 Cor 12:20-21)

In other words, nothing had changed even several years later.

So, what’s the proper response to sin in the church? It is first grief and then dealing directly with the sin.
Pride and self-confidence get in the way of those responses.

4 In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. 6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?

So we now understand the disease in the church, and the prescribed surgery is straightforward – hand him over to Satan. What does handing him over to Satan mean? It means disconnecting him from the body of Christ; cutting him off from the fellowship of the church. V. 2 says they should have put him out of their fellowship.

Being severed from the body should be a very painful thing to a Christian. If this man was a Christian, he would feel great pain if the church hands him over to Satan.

What is the purpose of handing him over to Satan? The church is instructed to do it for a very specific purpose:

To destroy the sinful nature so that he will be saved. Handing him over to Satan is an act of love.

It is grotesquely sinful for a church to “kick people out of fellowship” and then abandon them. 2 Thess 3:14-15 says “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, SO THAT HE WILL BE PUT TO SHAME. Yet do NOT REGARD HIM AS AN ENEMY, but ADMONISH HIM AS A BROTHER.”

Their pride and self-confidence as a congregation (because of their worldly wisdom and great preachers) caused them to allow this yeast – the sexual immorality of this incestuous man – to potentially destroy the whole batch of dough.