It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you… I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
There’s a subtle sin of the church we don’t like to talk about, or don’t even know is a sin… the sin of looking the other way. It’s popular to think “hey, all sins are the same, who am I to judge… I lie sometimes, I can’t say anything about Bob’s infidelity… right?” WRONG! There are sins which are worse, one of which is sexual immorality. If you’re part of a church, and you know about someone who is (brace yourself for an old fashioned phrase) “living in sin” then you have an obligation to say something. People never like it when I tell them “you need to get married or move out.” In fact, they generally have the attitude of “well, who are you to judge…” to which I’d say, not that I am their pastor, but that I am their fellow member in Christ. We all have a responsibility to keep the Church pure by regularly evaluating not only our own lives, but each other’s as well. The church is a place for repentant people, not the arrogant who think sin is no one’s business but the sinner’s. This does get tricky, because while we are called to not even associate with “Christians” who have lifestyles of sin, this is not talking about the lost. We should expect sinners to sin, and we should invite them to become part of the church… but that means they’ll change. There is no salvation without transformation… let’s hold each other to this.
