There are several passages in Deuteronomy that include the line, “so you shall purge the evil from your midst.”
In each case, it is referring to the death penalty.
Throughout Deuteronomy Moses is laying out the sort of community that should characterize Israel. Those who wish to be part of the community should live in a way that is consistent with God’s rule.
Paul will use precisely the same terms in 1 Corinthians 5 to describe the church. The church is the same covenant community as Israel. If you refuse to live in that way, you will be removed from the community.
Before the 1830s, businessmen and lawyers would often refrain from joining the Christian church because they knew that the church might cast them out for their greed and dishonest practices.
In Lexington, Kentucky, in 1823, there was exactly one lawyer out of dozens who was a communicant member of a Christian church. Almost every lawyer went to church on Sunday! but only one was willing to subject himself to the discipline of the church.
Gradually, however, churches stopped disciplining people for “economic sins” – and by the 1850s the same men who refused to join the church earlier were now the ruling elders.
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