Is This Excommunication?

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1 Corinthians 5:9-13
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

It depends on what you mean by “excommunication,” I think.

Since this passage is describing what the church should do, not what individuals should do, it does describe what is often called “church discipline.”

I’ll describe some details about what biblical church discipline is from this passage (and from 2 Corinthians):

1. This is an action that the congregation as a whole performs (see the plural pronoun “you” in verse 12).
2. The action is one of “purging,” of removing them from the church (v. 13).
3. This action may have been done with a vote (see 2 Cor 2:6).
4. And this discipline was for serious, public sins (see the list in verse 11).

There’s a lot more that could be said; perhaps I will bracket some of the passages at some point!

@Mildred-Codilla That’s the spirit! I’ll do a post about that at some point in the near future.

This church discipline is entirely new to me brother, but I’m willing to learn.