Big Idea: The desire to gain cultural acceptance, significance, and influence can lead a church to lose its Christ focus and make it blind to even the most blatant violations of the Christian message by its prominent members. Genuine disciple making, then, becomes impossible and even unnecessary.

Understanding the Text

A major shift occurs here. The theological discussion of the first four chapters dealing with the church’s cliquish behavior, pride, and attachment to secular culture now moves to a head-on confrontation of specific community issues. The connection between chapters 1–4 and chapters 5 and 6 must not be missed, though. Because the community of the Corinthian Christians looks nothing like a true Christlike community, their vision has become so blurred that they cannot evaluat…