Blood, Bread, the Angel of Death...and church

Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. -1 Cor. 5:7-8

Today was one of those challenging days of teaching through a book of the Bible. I knew that Chapter 5 of 1 Corinthians would be a tough one. Any passage that contains Incest, casting a unrepentant sinner out of the church and into Satan's clutches, tackling a over tolerant church and purging sin from your life...is going to get touchy with folks these days. I teetered on the idea of preaching something less controversial but in the end my inner commitment to allow the scriptures to speak for themselves vs me speaking about the scriptures won out. I determined when this church was planted to commit to being a body that stays rooted in the navigational compass of "learn not to exceed what is written." 1 Cor. 4:6.

But when you pastor a very diverse group of pre-christians, becoming christians, growing christians, rebellious and sinning christians and sincere mature christians...applying the texts can be a dance of applicability that is quite challenging.

But the soberness of this chapter gripped me. Paul uses Passover imagery...A lamb slain, blood on the doorposts, cleaning out all the leaven from inside the house and a fallen angel roaming about outside the sphere of a faith community is quite dramatic.

The fact that our faith embodies the passover imagery is deep stuff...Christ is our Passover (1 Cor. 5:7). To know that I am saved from Satan through the blood of the Lamb of God is critical to experiencing the freedom, joy and celebration of the Christian life. But understanding the just as there was an act of salvation on the outside of the house...there has to be an act of sanctification on the inside of the house too! Blood on the door posts of the house...removing of all the leaven(sin) on the inside of the house. Many people want to hear only one side of that dual handed work of Grace...God calls us to embrace both.

Approaching the most challenging part of the passage, was like doing heart surgery...not done haphazardly or with frivolity...these are the very souls Christ died for:

"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. -1 Cor. 5:5

Being on the outside of the house with blood was an invitation for the ANGEL OF DEATH to visit you. According to Paul being expelled from the believing community for unrepentant chronic sin is...potentially as dangerous.

It's always to be restorative in purpose but jeepers!...this is intense dialogue going on here; and it worries me when I hear people say in an almost cavalier way, that they don't go to church, need the body of Christ or care about it. They profess to be part of some universal church body; but that pretty much sinks the practicality of this chapter from ever being reality in their lives. It's pretty near impossible to be kicked out of something you never commit too!

These passages are extremely mysterious and produce a holy fear of God in me. I dont ever take the subject matter lightly and pray to God that fellow believers will allow the message in them to spurn them on to godliness and heartfelt obedience.