1 Corinthians 5
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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 puffed up, and didn’t rather mourn, 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, you being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 5are 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 us 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.”
World English Bible (public domain)
“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife.”
1 Corinthians 5:1
Summary
In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul addresses a serious issue of immorality within the Corinthian church. He is astonished and appalled at the tolerance of a man living with his father's wife, an act not even accepted among Gentiles. He instructs the church to mourn over this sin and urges them to remove the man from their community. Paul emphasizes the importance of church discipline, drawing an analogy to the Passover, where leaven must be cleaned out to maintain purity. This chapter highlights the necessity of holiness within the church and maintaining witness to the wider community. Paul closes by instructing believers to judge those within the church, while God will judge those outside.
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