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 reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.
2And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
3For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
4In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
8Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
12For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
13But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.