Accountability Is True Love

REFERENCE: I Corinthians 5:11-13 I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people. 12 It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. 13 God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, "You must remove the evil person from among you."

Observation: This is one passage of scripture we don’t hear much about. It is not popular in the church today to refuse fellowship to anyone. We have adopted the mindset of the world that we are never to judge or to draw distinctions; we are only supposed to love and accept all the time in every way. We may even wonder; how does this equate to Paul admonition in chapter 13 to love each other deeply and sincerely?

To hold each other accountable for our gross sin is not unloving or unscriptural. Obviously this passage is talking about those people who are unrepentant and choose to persist in their sin. The most loving thing we can do for these people, because we know that sin brings death, is to use social pressure to bring about change. If we continue to relate to them as though they were not doing any of these things, then we are enabling behavior that will ultimately destroy them. God is in favor of love but not enablement.

It’s not easy to draw these lines. We may even be condemned by other Christians as being judgmental and unloving. But, if we do, we will be doing what we can to save the spiritual life of those we care about.