Deselection
And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you… 1 Corinthians 5:2
Paul is rarely apologetic, and he isn’t here - if there is someone doing wrong in your congregation - remove him.
This doesn’t sit well with Christians today (or, conversely, sits too well with Christians today), so I hope to quantify what Paul is trying to say.
This man (who, in the previous verse, has his father’s wife) is not just living in sin, but he is living defiantly in sin. If he and she will not repent, and are stubbornly holding on to this sin (that is clearly outlined in scripture to be unclean and punishable by stoning), they qualify for the deselection process.
However, elsewhere, Paul has also said that if a man is to sin, you approach him yourself first, then with a backup, then with a group, then as a church - and only then when he still resists it is better to root him out and tell him you mean business by cutting him off, for he is doing nothing for the health of the church by holding on to this sin.
