1 Corinthians 5
CHAPTER 5
A case of sexual immorality
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such immorality as is not even among the Gentiles, that one of you has taken to himself his father's wife. 2 Instead of grieving, you have become arrogant. Remove the one who has done this deed from among you. 3 For I truly, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him that has done this thing, 4 I command you that in the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are gathered together (and my spirit is present with you when you do), with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 deliver such a person to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little yeast raises the whole lump of dough? 7 Purge out the old yeast so that you may be a new lump, even as you actually are. For our Passover lamb has been sacrificed, even Christ. 8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old yeast, neither with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the bread of sincerity and truth which has no yeast.
9 I wrote to you in my letter to have no association with fornicators. 10 I did not mean with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous and extortioners, or with idolaters. For you must go out of the world to do this. 11 But as it is, I wrote to you not to keep association, if anyone that is named a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. With such a one have no association, not even to eat. 12 For what have I to do with judging those that are without? Do you not judge those that are within? 13 But them that are without God judges. Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.
Commentary
5:2 Local church discipline is occasionally required in cases of severe immorality such as this. But the aim is that through the process, they will be saved (v. 5). We should not cast people out just because of personal disagreement with them and never in anger, only in love and a desire to save both them and others.
5:5 The common understanding of 'Satan' breaks down here; for the adversary [perhaps local Roman authorities, in this case] plays a part in the salvation of people, under God's hand.
5:6 The leaven or yeast which negatively influenced others in the church wasn't merely the sexually perverted person; it also refers to "malice" (v. 8). The reason for church discipline in this case was protective- so that others wouldn't be badly influenced.
5:11 Eating together in the first century was a sign of acceptance and fellowship. Jesus ate with all kinds of sinners in order to bring them to Him; He didn't refuse to eat with people because they weren't up to His spiritual level.
