Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 13.

God judges those outside.

Purge the evil person from among you.

And this could not be any clearer.

I was talking not long ago with some church leaders in another country,

and we were talking about church discipline and the point of excommunication.

And one of the pastors just kind of said,

I just don't think Jesus is telling us to remove anybody from the church.

And it's kind of an awkward moment because we've been talking about that some.

And I just took the room of pastors of 1st Corinthians chapter 5.

We read this passage and this verse, where it ends, purge the evil person among you.

And I said, so, so what do we think that means? And a long pause

around the room and pastor after pastor said, I think it means we remove someone from the church.

And that one pastor had raised the question said, I think it does mean that. So this is where we realize I think a couple of things.

One, what Jesus is instructing us to do in His Word in Matthew 18 and now here in First Corinthians

chapter 5 is not natural to us, goes against the grain of the way we might think, and therefore is challenging to us. So that's one.

Two, I think we would have to realize that many churches, either we're a part of now or that we've

been a part of in the past, have not actually done this. I have not actually done what God

says and His Word to do in First Corinthians

chapter 5. Now there's all kinds of complications in doing this like challenges. And we've seen

those and any church that has walked through this process has experienced some of those challenges.

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