BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

While the Word is clear that we need to walk in love, as believers we’re not supposed to follow the world or allow those in the world to interpret the Bible for us. They don’t know what the Bible says…and what they do know they misinterpret to satisfy their own desires. Instead, we’re called to not only know the truth—God’s Word—but also to obey it. We’re called to stand out from sin, to stand up to sin, and to stand in faith against sin. We’re not called to be conformed. We’re called to be transformed! Calling Out Sin In 1 Corinthians 5:1-6, Paul dealt with sin in the church in Corinth head-on: "It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?" Does that sound like inclusion, acceptance or tolerance? Paul wasn’t being hardhearted. He was calling sin out and dealing with it. If you read his second letter to the same church, he reveals his state of mind when addressing that situation: “For I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you” (2 Corinthians 2:4, "New International Version"). Paul called them out on their sin from a place of love. Love doesn’t let someone run off into destruction. It tells the truth even if it upsets people. Real love means that we care more about the person trapped in sin than we do about how much that person likes us in the moment. If we can get sin and bondage out of a person’s life, they’ll get over not liking us. We can endure temporary hostility for long-term freedom. Paul continued: “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators” (1 Corinthians 5:7-9). Is this New Testament grace? Yes. Is it inclusion and tolerance? No. Some alternative lifestyles—like a guy being involved with his stepmother—should not be tolerated. Remember, Paul was addressing believers in the Church in this letter, not unbelievers. While it’s true that people “fall in love” with those they should never have gotten involved with—a sad reality that destroys families and churches and businesses—that doesn’t make their relationships right or healthy. They crossed a line long before they “fell in love.” Even before anything physical happened, they were unfaithful. When people in the Corinthian church heard about those alternate lifestyles, they likely thought, Well, that’s unorthodox. But that was the end of it. That kind of blasé attitude is an example of the church being “puffed up.” Paul explained it further at the end of 2 Corinthians 12:21: “And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.” Corinth’s revelation of grace allowed its members to be more tolerant than others because they felt they were “enlightened” on the subject. The church raised their eyebrows, but just went along like nothing was wrong. But the situation was very, very wrong. It was sin, and in a spirit of love, Paul called them on it. Come As You Are…and Change “Come as you are! You don’t need to change. Your sin will work itself out of you someday…if not in this life, then in the next.” That’s a prevailing sentiment in the modern Church. Come as you are? Yes, of course. Stay as you are? No way! From the day a person gets born again, they’d better put on their big-boy pants and believe God to be conformed not to the world, but to the image of Jesus—the Anointed One, the Head of the Church. If Jesus didn’t do it, we, His Church, don’t do it. If He didn’t live like that, we don’t live like that. If He didn’t approve of it, we don’t approve of it. We’re not mere men and women. We’re new creations in Christ Jesus, and we have all the power inside us to be the overcomers we’re destined to be. 10 : BVOV

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