Jesus Isn't Decaf (By Naomi Meyers)

With a weary sigh, he rested his forehead in the palm of his free hand. From the fingers of his other hand dangled the letter he’d just finished reading. The news was not uplifting. The sweat and tears and time he’d put in seemed not to have been enough. Perhaps he hadn’t spent enough time among them. Perhaps he hadn’t covered all the topics as well as he’d thought. Perhaps he had. Perhaps, in their young, vulnerable state, the evil one had set upon them and was wreaking havoc one little seed at a time. Whatever the situation, the church Paul had planted at Corinth was struggling.

Sin had been accepted into their circle. Immorality. Apparently overlooked by most members. Too arrogant to recognize their precarious situation, perhaps thinking they were too good to be troubled by this indiscretion, they didn’t mourn and reject the sin. They didn’t call out the member bringing sin into their midst. They didn’t rebuke the evil one. By not speaking their disapproval, they proclaimed their approval. It was not supposed to be that way.

Heavy-hearted, Paul sat ruminating over ways to help them, to reach them, to make them understand. He needed them to recognize the slippery slope they were teetering atop. Overlooking, accepting, allowing even one sin among them would begin the gradual unleashing of a fury of sins. It would spread among them. First one would be accepted. Then another. Then another. Their parameters of sinful behavior would become so distorted they would eventually be rendered unable to distinguish good from evil. He couldn’t let it go. He had to address the subject. Their souls depended on it.

The words would be hard. The lessons would be difficult. The directions he gave would possibly be ill-received. It didn’t matter, couldn’t matter. Paul wasn’t interested in coddling secret (or not-so-secret) sins! He wasn’t inclined to ignore or allow the spread of wickedness in their midst. He was wholly unwilling to risk the spiritual life of the church at Corinth by allowing the leaven of sin to remain and spread. It had to be removed. It could not be tolerated. It could not be embraced. He would do everything in his power to prevent their trek down the murky pathway of altering God’s laws in adherence to the current social status quo. 

Drawing a fortifying breath, he drew out a sheet of parchment, dipped his quill in ink, and began to write. Get rid of the sin among you. Literally. Kick it out. Do not ignore it. Do not approve it. Do not embrace it. Rebuke it. Reject it. Remove it. There is no caveat, no alternative. Sin must be eradicated or, much like yeast in bread dough, it will spread, puff up, and engulf the church in an arrogantly erroneous sense of spiritual accuracy. (I Corinthians 5:1-7)

Paul’s yeasty bread dough analogy works well for me. I bake a lot of bread. Occasionally I’ll think I’ve killed the yeast with over-warmed liquid. I still set it in the bowl, cover it, and wait to see if it will rise. Turns out yeast is harder to kill than I thought. More often than not, that dough rises. If left too long, it just keeps rising, creating a mountainous bubble, nearly obscuring the bowl. I punch it down, roll it out, shape it into loaves. They look almost pitiful in the pans. Again I cover them and set them to rise. Again the yeast rises. And I understand exactly what Paul is saying. 

Sin does the exact same thing. If allowed to remain in your life, it takes over. The excuses you make to keep it, coddle it, will become the building blocks for accepting more sin. It will blind you to the truth. Maybe you will find a Scripture passage and interpret it to accept your sin. Perhaps you will find a preacher on television who will tell you it’s okay because everyone sins. Maybe a friend will salve your conscience. Society will happily endorse your self-indulgence. Perhaps you will choose to believe them. Don’t. It will never be just that one sin. Once begun, it will grow and breed and feed into a multitude. It will fill your life, infiltrate every part of your heart. And sin, when its work is perfected, will bring death to your soul. (Ezekiel 18:20)

This is why Paul felt so desperately that he needed to address the issues in the church at Corinth. It is why the words seemed terse, the rebuke harsh. They were allowing sin to take over. They thought they knew it all. They thought they had arrived. They thought they were on a cruise ship to Heaven. They were headed for disaster. Paul knew that. But he loved them too much to allow them to float away without a warning. So he sent one. A forthright rebuke liberally laced with loving edification. (I Corinthians 8:1)

I hope they read it as such. I hope they read those difficult to hear words and felt the love beneath. As harsh as the words sounded, as difficult as the message might have been to receive, as ruthless as the set down seemed to be, Paul wasn’t hating them. He was loving them. He wasn’t yelling at them. He was enlightening them. Informing. Illuminating. Uplifting. Paul was more worried about their eternity than his eloquence. His love and desire for the people of Corinth to know and serve Jesus far outweighed his concern for the pleasantness of his tone or the gentleness of his words. He loved them too much to speak in such a way they might miss his meaning, leaving unresolved sin among them. Instead, his love forced him to say hard things, honest things, so they could be fully informed concerning the outcome of choosing to allow sin to infest their hearts, their lives, their church. Paul spoke the truth in love, seasoned it with salt, to the edification of their souls. (Ephesians 4:15, 29; Colossians 4:6; I Thessalonians 5:11; Romans 14:19; I Timothy 4:12)

Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but we are in dire need of the same edification from Paul.  It is difficult, if not impossible, to find an area untouched by sin. It clutters our hearts and chokes out the light of God within. It infests the world and pushes against our soul on every side. Sometimes we let it in. We sweep it under the carpet, hide it behind the cabinet, coddle, tolerate, ignore. We think we can control it. We think we can handle it. We can’t. Clearly. We have become a society that accepts wrong in place of right. We have become churches full of theologians that tweak Scripture to be more inclusive and accepting of our sins. We have become the nation depicted in Isaiah, calling evil good and good evil. We have wholeheartedly embraced the leavening of sin, a decaffeinated gospel, and are so full of ourselves we can’t even see how much damage we have done. (Isaiah 5:20; Proverbs 16:18; Deuteronomy 4:2; John 9:41; I Corinthians 2:14; Proverbs 30:6)

Yes, we desperately need an epistle from Paul. A letter full of truth. Hard words. Pointed lessons. Spiritual rebukes. Eternal realities. So many churches, homes, and lives are overwhelmed with the multiplying leaven of sin. They are starving for truth; many will be lost without it. But who will bring it to them? Paul has long since transitioned to his eternal reward and, although his letter to the Corinthians remains, many have entirely stopped reading it. So who is going to tell them? Who is going to warn the wayward preacher? Who is going to inform the faltering parishioner? Who loves deeply enough to lovingly speak truth for the spiritual edification of a world that is dying for lack of correction and reproof? Is it you? Is it me? (II Timothy 3:16; Luke 10:2) 

It has to be. Both of us. All of us. You. Me. Every Christian the world over. The responsibility lies at our door. We must become the loudest voice in the room. It is up to us to speak the words. Consistently. Preach the message. Don’t waiver. Don’t falter. Hold the line. Live it out. Don’t let even one little sin remain in your heart, your life, your home, your church. Fight for freedom from sin. Everywhere. Preach it. Teach it. Live it. Eloquent or not, speak the words. Lovingly edify. Someone’s eternity depends on it. (II Timothy 4:2; I Timothy 5:20; Luke 17:3; Titus 1:13; Proverbs 28:23; I Thessalonians 5:21)