Accountability

SCRIPTURE: Josh. 7-8; Ps. 69; 1 Cor. 5

1 Corinthians 5:9-13
I wrote you in my earlier letter that you shouldn’t make yourselves at home among the sexually promiscuous. I didn’t mean that you should have nothing at all to do with outsiders of that sort. Or with crooks, whether blue or white-collar. Or with spiritual phonies, for that matter. You’d have to leave the world entirely to do that! But I am saying that you shouldn’t act as if everything is just fine when a friend who claims to be a Christian is [sinning], whether promiscuous or crooked, flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can’t just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior. I’m not responsible for what the outsiders do, but don’t we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers? God decides on the outsiders, but we need to decide when our brothers and sisters are out of line and, if necessary, clean house.

OBSERVATIONS: In the readings from Joshua, Achan, the one who stole from the cursed items (plundered Jericho), was stoned for his sins. In Paul’s writings, there is a similar call for accountibility. I’m just glad that we don’t stone folks for being greedy. There’d be a lot of piles of rubble with greedy corpses lying beneath.

APPLICATION: If we aren’t to stone the sinners, if there is no real punishment, what is the point of accountability? The point is to redeem a brother from his own actions, to call a sister back into relationship with the family, and to purge the nonchalant attitude from the fellowship.

PRAYER: God, give me strength to call for a little more intolerance. In Christ, Amen.