brutal but necessary

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people- not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. IN that case you would have to leave this world. But now i am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

1 Corinthians 5:9-11


Is this passage saying what i really think it's saying? Don't hang around with sexually immoral people, immoral, greedy, idolaters, etc...basically people who live by the rules of this world, not of heaven. But what if you have lots of "friends" who possess all those qualities? Those qualities that Paul (and most probably God) condemns? It's a little hard to wrap my head around this. I mean i know that it's the 21st century, and practically everyone's done everything,.. and there might only be a few of us who can safely & confidently say, "I've never done any of those" left in the world... and then it makes me question, well what about the command that tells us to love others like God has loved us? So is loving someone and associating with someone different? But how can you love someone if you don't associate with them. i guess there's my question.

It's kinda hard to get to know somebody without associating with them. I'll be first to admit; i have a hard time accepting how some of my friends live their lives. But then, i enjoy their company- we have fun together, we laugh together, and we eat together. Well there's my first problem right there. I'm not trying to be judgmental, because in the end it's God who does that, not me. But all the stuff that they+me (when i'm with them) talk about and do are probably belonging in one of those categories. This has got to be one of the most brutal yet necessary passages i've ever read.

i know that i shouldn't hang out with the immoral because that'd only bring me down. i've already been brought down! I just don't see how we are going to expel those who are immoral away from our lives. so that just means that we are to stay in our comfortable christian circle of friends? But then how are you supposed to survive in the real world? not everyone's going to be Christian where you will end up working, most likely, and then we'll have to deal with non-christian, secular people. i don't know. i really like this passage because it's very clear-cut on what we should do, or in this case what we shouldn't do. i guess i'm just confused about how to live this passage.