I can’t say that I like the idea of church discipline.  If you look at how it has been practiced in many churches, the exercise can be vindictive and confused.  The sins that are pursued are the ones that those practicing the discipline would not commit, the sins of slander and gossip that they themselves are guilty of go unaddressed.  I see in scripture a desire for harmony and restoration.  Coupled with Matthew 18, we see that this passage would be addressed to someone who would not listen to a quiet word about their public behaviour.  There are persistent actions that fracture a church and they should be addressed.  However,an overzealous policing of the church can be even more divisive.

1 Corinthians 5

¹It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife. ²And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? ³Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. ⁴When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, ⁵hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature^[a] may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.

 ⁶Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? ⁷Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. ⁸Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

 ⁹I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— ¹⁰not 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. ¹¹But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

 ¹²What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? ¹³God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man from among you.”

Questions

1. What was the guilty man guilty of?
2. How was he to be treated?
3. How did Paul assert his authority?
4. What should you do when someone sins shamelessly?
5. How can you help avoid something as serious as this occuring in your church or family?