I believe, Strat, that your feelings were how Paul must have felt in dealing with Corinth. It is painful and difficult for someone who is trying to grow the Kingdom of God and see that there are those who wish to continue and bend the Church into something that suits their needs rather than change who they are. It is also painful to let people go from a Church because you consider them to be unable to change, So Paul was faced with a difficult problem and responded how he thought would best suit Christ's Church. That is no easy task and I suppose that his reason for being called on the road to Damascus was so that difficult decisions such as this one would be on his shoulders and he would have to relay on God and Christ Jesus to make these decisions.
God Bless
It's necessary to read the WHOLE CHAPTER to get the gist of Paul's anger... and then... his other Epistle regarding the fornicator with his own mother in 1 Cor.5...
The Rebuke:
1 Cor 5:1-13
1
It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.
2
And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
3 For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company,
if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
12
For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
13
But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
(KJV)
Christ's first coming was to call sinners to repentance. Paul's duty in Christ for those 'within' Christ's Church was discipline and judgment of those in Christ's Body, not sinners outside His Body. So when Paul preached The Gospel to the sinner 'without', that was the SAME application of The Gospel that Jesus did, and thus Paul went directly to sinners with that Gospel.
But for Christ's Body,
members '
within', a rebuke and judgment was necessary, OTHERWISE WHAT?
Otherwise, Christ's Body would become NO DIFFERENT than the fallen world 'outside' His Body! And "there's the rub".
THAT difference is NOT an idea that originated from Paul's personal ideas. IT ORIGINATED FROM THE LORD HIMSELF...
2 Cor 6:14-18
14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God;
as God hath said,
"Iwill dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
17
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
18
And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."
(KJV)
Later in 2 Cor.2, Paul recommends forgiveness after the brother was corrected...
2 Cor 2:1-11
1 But I determined this with myself, that I would not come again to you in heaviness.
2 For if I make you sorry, who is he then that maketh me glad, but the same which is made sorry by me?
3 And I wrote this same unto you, lest, when I came, I should have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice; having confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all.
4 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears; not that ye should be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you.
5 But if any have caused grief, he hath not grieved me, but in part: that I may not overcharge you all.
6 Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many.
7 So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.
8 Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him.
9 For to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye be obedient in all things.
10 To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ;
11 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.
(KJV)
It is FALSENESS to think Jesus and Paul approached the sinner differently.
It's easy to distinguish that falseness as a doctrine of devils, simply because of what's happening today in many Churches regarding members and sin. Most Churches no longer OPENLY REBUKE members within that are sinning? Now we have Churches that glory... in sin, even flaunting sin! (gay churches). Those churches that do that are what God called 'beth'avens' in the Old Testament, houses of vanity.
So this whole idea that 'tallycello' has brought up here should be WATCHED, CLOSELY. It's an easy tool to play on member's GUILT EMOTIONS FOR REBUKING AND CORRECTING MEMBERS WITHIN CHRIST'S BODY!
