W. N. BARTLETT entered the College of the Bible from Unley Church, S.A. in 1928. He has conducted Ministries at Berri, 7 years, 4 years at Balaklava; 5 years at Gawler; and since 1946 has ministered with the Church at Croydon. All these churches are in South Australia. Before entering the College of the Bible Mr. Bartlett was in Commonwealth Civil Service for 10 years.

      It is well known that the Corinthians in the days of the Apostle Paul were notorious for their immorality. Although the Apostle had succeeded in winning many of them for Christ and establishing a Church at Corinth, some of the members found it difficult to give up their old immoral habits. No doubt some of them didn't even try. Inconsistency between profession and practice had not become noticeable to them. This is not so very strange. Inconsistency between profession and practice is still a charge that can be laid at the door of some Christians. It just happened that among the Corinthians inconsistency manifested itself in the realm of morals.

THE CORINTHIAN SCANDAL

      In writing to them about their moral laxity Paul used the term "fornication." "It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you," he said. He didn't have in mind one particular sort of impurity, but all of them. However, there was a man in their midst who was indulging in a particular form of immorality which brought down the condemnation of the community upon his head and, at the same time, was responsible for much criticism of the Church. He was living in promiscuity with his stepmother. It would not be the only case of its kind in the community but it would be the most noticeable because of his association with the Church as a member. It was regarded as a most infamous crime by non-Christians as well as Christians. For a Christian to be involved in such a flagrant breach of conduct and for the Church to tolerate it was a most incongruous situation.

      Very naturally it aroused a great deal of gossip and censure.

      Paul realised the need of speaking out in the strongest possible terms against this thing. The Church had to be made aware of the danger to itself; to its very existence, as well as of the spiritual plight of the member who was at fault, in allowing such sordid wickedness to go unchallenged in their midst. He let them know how astounded he was that the scandal had not humiliated them and compelled them to take steps to remedy the position. Evidently they were so full of their own importance; so taken up with other things, such as the propagation of their religious views according to the party to which they belonged, that all other matters were overlooked as being of little or no consequence.

EXCOMMUNICATION?

      How urgent this matter was the apostle hastened to show the Corinthians by saying that the sinning man should be "taken away" from among them. His words have generally been taken to mean that the man should be excommunicated, but he surely could not have meant the man to be cut off from his brethren in the callous way the Church came to excommunicate its members in later years. In spite of the severity of his words it should not be imagined that he was counselling the Church to tell the man to get out and go to the hell where he belonged.

      If the spirit of the Apostle is caught, the direction he gave would surely have to be interpreted this way, "Although I am so far away from you I am terribly upset by what is happening among you. So far from sitting in smug silence as you Corinthians

seem to be doing when you meet as a Church, I would shift heaven and earth to bring home to that sinning man the heinousness of his sin. I would approach him in the name and in the spirit of our Lord and show him how shameful a thing it was to act as he is; to practise such immorality and then present himself at the table of the Lord. The position is intolerable.

      To speak to the man in that way, even though on the authority of Christ and in the gracious spirit of the Master, would be to risk the loss of his membership. Paul would know that. It is well known that such people are offended quite easily for they have a false sense of the fitness of things. It could mean that this man would retire from the church in a huff and have nothing more to do with it. But in such a case he would be handing himself over to Satan, over to the world, the flesh and the devil. Only in the sense that Paul's appeal to the man's best self initiated such a move could he, or the Church, be said to excommunicate him. It would be truer to say he excommunicated himself. Such a contingency however would have to be risked in the interests of the Church and in order to the man's own salvation.

FAILURE IN MORE THAN ONE AREA OF LIFE

      Very plainly Paul revealed the failure of the Church at Corinth, not only in regard to this matter, but in regard to all matters where ethics were concerned by saying, "While you are glorying in your superior knowledge and are so busily employed in setting up and supporting your respective teachers and parties with the Church, the whole Church is suffering from the most disgraceful impurities. Such laxity is bound to lead to your extinction as a Church. With all of your boasted wisdom you have forgotten that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Let that incestuous man, for instance, remain among you without correcting him, and sooner or later you will find yourselves engulfed and overwhelmed by a flood of unchastity.

      When Paul added, "Purge out the old leaven" he was not thinking of any one type of impurity but of all the evils the Church was tolerating. "Get rid of the lot" he was saying, "including that wretched complacent spirit which allows them. Start afresh." As he wrote those words the proper observance of the Lord's Supper, about which he was soon to write, was in his mind. The idea of the Corinthians sitting down at that sacred feast whilst harbouring all kinds of malicious and filthy thoughts was as nauseating to him as the incest he had already so strongly condemned. "Throw all the leaven of wickedness out" he said. "Commence anew with the leaven of sincerity and truth."

      Apparently this was not the first time Paul had written to the Corinthians in that strain. It looks as if in a previous letter he advised them, without any qualification, to have nothing to do with immoral living people. But in this letter he makes it clear that he did not mean all contact with people who did evil things would have to be avoided for that would be an impossibility. He meant they should not associate with people who indulged in immoral practices as if they were brethren in Christ, even though they protested that they were Christians. Business transactions and the like might bring them into touch with such people but there was no need to fraternise with them. They must be made to realise the seriousness of their inconsistency.

REDEMPTIVE COUNSEL AND CORRECTION

      Wrong-doers outside the Church would have to be left to the judgment of God but those within the Church must surely expect to be counselled and censured in the manner indicated by Paul in the case of the incestuous man. However,

such judgments would need to be in keeping with the directions of Christ in respect of a sinning brother. Jesus said, "If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee then take one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church, but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. In other words, every possible avenue must be exploited with the least possible publicity and with all graciousness and kindness as well as all earnestness and honesty to save the man from his sin and keep him in the Church. If after all has been done and failure must be conceded then the onus is on the sinning brother not on the Church or the member who initiated the proceedings.

RATIONALISING IMPURITY

      Although the evil was frowned upon by all decent citizens, the Corinthians appear to have pleaded that the offence of the incestuous man, like the offence of those who ate meat offered to idols, was not contrary to the law of the land nor yet against the natural laws governing a man's make-up. Had anyone the right to deny a man the gratification of his God-given appetite? Paul answered by saying, "Just because God has made our bodies with appetites it does not follow that those appetites are to be gratified under any and all circumstances. Gratification must bring some necessary benefit or there should be no indulgence. With regard to fornication in particular, so far from being of benefit, it was not even agreeable to propriety, decency, order or purity and should not be tolerated anywhere, least of all in the Church.

OUR BODIES BELONG TO CHRIST

      The Apostle also reminded them of something everybody ought to bear in mind. A person is under the control of the thing he can't give up. He is a slave to it: a slave to something which, unlike himself, is temporal. All of our lower appetites such as bodily hunger are destroyed by death, but we are not. Just as Christ was raised up from the dead so shall we be raised up. Unlike our fleshly appetites we are not subject to decay and death. It is altogether unseemly therefore, that we should become subservient to that which should serve us.

      "Shall we who profess to be allied with Christ connect ourselves with anything of an immoral nature as a lewd man might associate himself with an harlot?" asked Paul. Can we not see that such an association would link us with evil as inseparably as a man is joined with his wife! How can we contemplate such an unholy union when we are already united with Christ! It would be dishonouring to Christ and pollute both ourselves and the Church. Anyone who is joined to the Lord is a partaker of his Spirit and cannot possibly have any connection with that which is of an immoral nature.

      Every vice must be shunned by the Christian but fornication in particular for, more than any other sin, that one strikes at the human body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. We have no right to dispose of our bodies in any way of our own choosing. God owns them and we are accountable to him for the use we make of them. Since he bought us at the cost of his own Son, the least we can do is glorify him by reserving our bodies for sacred purposes.

THE "EASY" MORALS OF OUR TIME

      From such a study as this a few observations may well be made in

the light of the "easy" morals of our day. It would seem that people, in an attempt to avoid being prudish, have shut their eyes to licentiousness without realising they have done so. Homes, schools and even Churches are suffering in consequence of this blindness toward moral laxity. Sex impropriety in particular is rife. It may not be worse than many another sin; it may not be as bad as some, but it is far too prevalent to be healthy for our nation.

      No one can deny the immorality of our times with all of their attendant evils of greed and misery and wretchedness. Think of the lust and the anger and the malice and the jealousy that make men like beasts. These evils are so rampant and so openly and brazenly displayed that little notice is taken of them. Indeed many people see them and laugh. They must make Christ and the angels weep. Not until we can burn with shame over all wickedness as Christ does shall we enter the fellowship of his suffering and know the power of his resurrection.

      If any evil is tolerated in a Church it is certain that the work of Christ in that Church will cease or, at least, be very seriously handicapped. The appearance of any scandal should cause the entire membership to shrink with shame and humiliation. The principle expressed by Paul "whether one member suffer all the members suffer with it, or one member be honoured all the members rejoice with it" applies in this connection also. If one member be debased all the members are reduced with him. There should be a keen sensitiveness to the fact that a brother in Christ is on his way to perdition, the Church is being brought into disrepute and Christ is being wounded in the house of his friends.

DISCIPLINE IN THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST

      Discipline must be exercised or else the Church would soon become a shamble like the world, but for the caution and wisdom required to exercise discipline the Church needs to be sure it's in tune with the Spirit of Christ. Unless moved by His Spirit it could gloss over evil and through such carelessness become infected with the disease. If, on the other hand, it was led to take unnecessarily stern measures through failure to imbibe the Spirit of Christ, more harm could be done than good. Faithful members could be removed as well as the evil. Wheat could be plucked out as well as tares.

      It should always be remembered that God is unwilling to give up the sinner; that he "suffereth long and is kind" and the Church must be as God. If obliged at some time to exercise discipline then the Church should not only follow up the offender with prayers and kindly advice but, where possible, with practical help as well. The sincere concern of God's people should always be obvious to him. He should know that he is ever remembered and always loved.

      If a Christian or the Church desires to retain a wealth of spirituality, care must be taken how contact with the world is made. Association with unbelievers by choice would be foolish. Such a course would leave one's Christian integrity open to criticism. Such association would inevitably mean contamination to some extent. The only safe contacts would be those enforced by circumstances and those deliberately sought after prayer has been made for the strength and guidance of the Holy Spirit, for the sole purpose of influencing the unbeliever toward Christ.

IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES

      There are immoral persons such as fornicators, adulterers, drunkards, extortioners and covetous

persons who may make a pretence at being Church members, but they should know that in the sight of God they are not members and that their citizenship is not in heaven. However, we should differentiate between these habitually immoral persons and those young people who succumb to sex temptation and afterwards are genuinely sorry.

      A difference must also be recognised between those people who practise immoral habits and those young people who, because of their immaturity, foolishness and lack of spiritual training and insight indulge in sexual intercourse until they find themselves in serious trouble. All these young people pay dearly for their folly. They regret all their days what they have done. Without condoning their wrong the Church should be sympathetic, not censorious, and help these young people to become devout followers of Christ, loyal members of the Church and good citizens of this world and of the Kingdom of God.

      Such an attitude toward the offender should not be adopted as to lead anyone to suppose that the best way to make grace abound is to continue in sin. Love and help the fallen we must; but chastity must be taught, first perhaps, by pointing to the appalling consequences of promiscuity, but certainly by insisting that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit and by holding up the pure and holy Christ as life's great Exemplar.