1 Corinthians 5:1–2: “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife! And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.”

May 16th, 2022 by Pastor Ed in devotional

One of the main reasons Paul was writing to the church at Corinth, a church he had personally founded about 5 years earlier, was because there was open sin in the church that no one was doing anything about. So, as the founding pastor, he took on the task of confronting it. An incestuous relationship with a stepmother was a forbidden act by both Greek and Roman law. It should have been enough that this was declared sin by the Bible, but if not, then surely the fact that worldly culture itself considered it sin would settle the matter. Paul made it clear that the man was a well-known person in the church and that the woman was his stepmother, or father’s wife, not his biological mother. Paul said it was an embarrassment on the church that this thing was happening, but it was even worse that nothing was being done about it. He then pointed to the underlying problem of pride, a problem that he mentions 6 times in this letter. Paul’s point was that they were so arrogant and carnal in their pride, that instead of mourning over the shocking sin, they were openly tolerating it. It was a sin problem that would destroy the church from within.

Radio host, Paul Harvey was quoted in Leadership magazine as saying:

The way an Eskimo kills a wolf is grizzly, yet it offers fresh insight into the consuming, self-destructive nature of sin.

First, the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another layer of blood, and another, until the blade is completely concealed by frozen blood.

Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait, he licks it, tasting the fresh frozen blood. He begins to lick faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge is bare. Feverishly now, harder and harder, the wolf licks the blade in the Arctic night. So great becomes the craving for blood that the wolf does not notice the razor sharp sting of the naked blade on his own tongue nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his own warm blood. His carnivorous appetite just craves more—until the dawn finds him dead in the snow!¹

This account is hard to read, but allowing sin to destroy our lives is every bit as gruesome and heartbreaking. Sin is serious and deadly; we cannot take it lightly.

“LORD, please give us the courage to confront any sins right now in our own lives this day, in Jesus’ name.”

¹Charles Swindoll, The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998).