New Testament
1 Corinthians 5
Overview
Paul turns abruptly from divisions to a shocking moral scandal: a man in the church is sleeping with "his father's wife" (5:1) — a kind of incest so notorious that even pagans condemned it. Worse than the sin is the church's response: "you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn?" (5:2). Paul, though absent in body, has already pronounced judgment in the name of the Lord Jesus, instructing them when assembled to "deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord" (5:5). The aim is corrective, not merely punitive. He then explains why they cannot tolerate this: "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" (5:6). Drawing on Passover, he declares "Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (5:7), so they must "cleanse out the old leaven" and keep the festival "with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (5:8). Finally Paul clarifies an earlier letter: he never meant they should avoid all immoral outsiders — that would require leaving the world — but rather they must not associate with anyone who "bears the name of brother" yet persists in flagrant sin. The chapter ends with the command: "Purge the evil person from among you" (5:13).
1It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father’s wife.
2You are arrogant, and didn’t mourn instead, that he who had done this deed might be removed from among you.
3For I most certainly, as being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has done this thing.
4In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together with my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5you are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump?
7Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place.
8Therefore let’s keep the feast, not with old yeast, neither with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9I wrote to you in my letter to have no company with sexual sinners;
10yet not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world, or with the covetous and extortionists, or with idolaters, for then you would have to leave the world.
11But as it is, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortionist. Don’t even eat with such a person.
12For what do I have to do with also judging those who are outside? Don’t you judge those who are within?
13But those who are outside, God judges. “Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.”