Part 2: Judge Inside: Paul and the Responsibility to Judge Inside the Church

This is part 2 in our series on ‘Judging in the New Testament.” For part 1, please click here.

Part 2: Paul and the Responsibility to Judge Inside the Church

Paul Makes Our Responsibility Clear

If Jesus established the character required to judge rightly, the apostle Paul established the responsibility to do so. His letters are not gentle suggestions about tolerance and minding your own business. They are repeated, urgent calls for the Church to exercise discernment, confront sin, and protect the community of believers from those who would corrupt or prey upon it.

Nowhere is this more vivid than in 1 Corinthians 5. A man in the Corinthian congregation was sleeping with his father's wife — a level of sexual immorality that Paul notes was shocking even by pagan Roman standards. And the church's response? They were proud. Whether they were proud of their tolerance, their grace, or their refusal to judge, we don't know.[1] But Paul is having none of it.

“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.” (1 Corinthians 5:1-2)

Paul then says something that should permanently settle the “we don't judge” argument: “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.” (1 Corinthians 5:12-13)

WHERE is Our Responsibility?!

Read that carefully. Paul draws a sharp and deliberate line. The Church is not called to be the moral police of the surrounding culture. Our message to the world is the gospel — the good news of Jesus, his death, resurrection, and the forgiveness of sins. We are not called to rage at unbelievers for behaving like unbelievers. That is not our assignment. But inside the church? Inside the community of those who claim the name of Yeshua, who have been immersed in water, who sit at the Lord's table? There, Paul says, you absolutely judge. In fact, he is astonished that they haven't already done so.

This distinction matters enormously in our current moment. Much of what passes for Christian engagement today is outrage directed outward — at politicians, at cultural trends, at the moral failures of people who never claimed to follow Jesus in the first place. Paul would look at much of that energy and ask why it isn’t being redirected inward, toward the health and holiness of the body of Christ. We have inverted the apostolic priority. We are scandalized by the world and permissive toward our own leaders. Paul commanded the opposite.

(To be clear, Paul did not live in a modern democracy, where citizens vote, have freedom of speech, and have influence to build a safe society. It is one thing to seek to influence change in society, while reflecting the character of Jesus; it is another thing to be constantly angry at the world, judging it instead of seeking to reach it.)

But Paul didn't just tell the Church to judge — he gave practical guidance on how to do it. Writing to Timothy, his young protégé who was navigating real leadership challenges in the church at Ephesus, Paul laid out a process: “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.” (1 Timothy 5:19-20)

Two Important Points

Two things stand out here. First, Paul protects leaders from frivolous or malicious accusations by requiring the testimony of multiple witnesses. This is not a low bar — it reflects the same evidentiary standard rooted in Deuteronomy 19:15 that Jesus himself invoked in Matthew 18. Accusations require substantiation. Accountability is not a witch hunt.

But — and this is the part that gets ignored — when sin is substantiated, and the elder persists in it, Paul does not say:

• Handle it quietly.

• Protect the institution.

• Wait for God to sovereignly remove the person.

He says to rebuke them publicly, before everyone, so that others will take warning. The purpose of public rebuke is not humiliation. It is protection. It is deterrence. It is the sober acknowledgment that leadership carries greater accountability, not less — and that when a shepherd becomes a predator, the entire flock is at risk.

Paul’s instruction to “test everything” (1 Thessalonians 5:21) and John's command to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1) establish that discernment is not optional for the believer — it is a spiritual discipline. The Greek word used in these passages carries the sense of putting something to the test, examining it carefully, the way a metallurgist tests metal to determine whether it is genuine. We are not called to be gullible. We are not called to suspend our critical faculties at the door of a church building or in the presence of a charismatic personality. We are called to test, to discern, to evaluate — and to act on what we find. In fact, it is when we refuse to make sound judgments that we open ourselves to abuse.

Conclusion

John Stott, in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, captured this well when he wrote that Jesus's command to judge not is “not a requirement to be blind, but rather a plea to be generous.” Generosity of spirit and rigorous discernment are not opposites. They are companions. We approach one another with charity, with humility, with a genuine desire for restoration — and we do not look away from sin, cover for abusers, or silence survivors in the name of grace.

That is not grace. That is cowardice disguised as grace.

Be sure to look out for Part 3 in the coming days!

[1] There is another theory that this man's father was a pagan and had died. In ancient Roman culture, the father remained the head of the household until he died. Even if you were married, your father was still considered the leader. It is possible that they were proud because this Christian man took possession of what was his—including his wife.