Every single person who comes to church Sunday by Sunday has problems with sin in their lives.
What I am suggesting is that it's not necessarily a good idea for me, or the church as a whole, to decide that this sin is completely intolerable and must be remedied immediately, while a) turning a blind eye to all the other sins which are live in the community, and b) not trusting that God is at work in the life of the couple, and will convict them about marriage if/when God sees fit.
They're new converts! They've got plenty to work through and deal with. (Which is why I pointed out that baptism might be the first thing to raise with them). It's not necessarily helpful for me to try to dictate the order in which they tackle the various changes which will be consequent on their conversion.
Well in scripture we read "Repent and be baptised" - not be Baptised and then Repent... !!!
Mind you, in these days, 1 Cor 5 is no longer taken seriously it seems. We seem to parade a faith that once was, rather than see any judgement within the church even although God through Paul demanded it.
I quote...
Immorality Rebuked
1It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife.
2You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.
3For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present.
4In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus,
5I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump
of dough?7Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are
in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.
8Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people;
10I
did not at all
mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.
11But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
12For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within
the church? 13But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.
