Devotion: 1 Corinthians 5:12

1 Corinthians 5:12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 

Today may seem a little confusing after yesterday’s devotion where we learned there is only one Judge and Lawgiver. But then we throw a monkey wrench in things on day two. I wanted to be sure we looked at both yesterday’s Scripture and today’s close together.

In order to understand what is going on and what prompted today’s verse we need to stop and look back at what was going on and read the context. Paul was writing to the Corinthian church, where the church members were tolerating a sinful and scandalous situation. The man in question was having an affair with his father’s wife. You can imagine how scandalous that would be if it happened in our churches today and it was definitely a big issue.

Paul does not tell them HOW to address the issue, only to do SOMETHING. He argued that the church was responsible for holding its members accountable for unrepentant sin, especially sins that were being flaunted so blatantly and publicly. By addressing the issue they would be encouraging repentance in the sinner (2 Thessalonians 3:14-15). Doing so would protect the spiritual well-being of the church members (Galatians 2:4; Jude 1:12).

But what about yesterday’s verse? Only God is able to judge the unbelievers, not us. Though I did mention that we could argue that it is equally important that we not judge   both believers and unbelievers  (I still feel it is more important for us to love one another rather than judge), today we see that in some cases we actually do need to step in and help our fallen brothers or sisters in Christ. We are not judging them in the same way God will judge us. Instead, a better translation would be evaluating (judge in Greek is krinein and means evaluate, separate, or distinguish). We are to evaluate the behavior of our fellow church members and lovingly guide them to repentance and restoration.

So in today’s verse we see that we are still NOT to judge those outside of the church because that is God’s job to do and He alone has that authority. And while it is good practice to not judge those inside the church, sometimes we do have to put ourselves in a position where we need to evaluate the blatant sins of our brothers or sisters – something that is never fun to do.

Over the next few days we will be looking at the many different ways that we actually are to  judge others, according to Scripture. But regardless of the situation that we find ourselves in, we are still NEVER to judge those outside of the church and that is why yesterday’s verse was first for this month’s devotions.

Prayer: Lord, I pray that we can live in harmony and not be needed for evaluating one another’s sins. I prefer leaving the judging to You. Amen 

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