Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.
Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

• 1 Corinthians 5:1-13

Noted Biblical Scholars, Teachers, and Preachers Comments

1 Corinthians 5:1-7 ‘The Consequences of Sin’: “The coming of the Lord Jesus and the bema judgment loom large in Paul’s theology. He is concerned that believers recognize the consequences of what we do as Christians. …
“It was reported to Paul that there was a man in the assembly who was having illicit relations with his stepmother (verse 1). The church had become insensitive and ‘arrogant’ (Greek, thusioo) over the issue, failing to mourn over the evil and to remove the man from their midst (verse 2). Though Paul was nor there, he ‘already judged’ the man in spirit (verse 3). In the name of Christ, the apostle decided ‘to deliver such a one to Saran for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus’ (verses 4-5). Paul is saying char he had decided to set the man outside the protection of the fellowship of believers so that Satan could be used to discipline him and cause him to drop the sin of the flesh that was so destructive. The word ‘destruction’ (Greek, olethros) means ‘to bring to ruin, nullify’ and cause to end, in this case, his vile and gross carnality.
By sending the man outside the assembly, his fellowship with other believers is broken. At the bema judgment following the coming of ‘the day of the Lord’ (verse 5), the offender will have no rewards, though his spirit will be saved. The arrogance and boasting of the congregation ‘is not good’ because a little leaven of sin ‘leavens the whole lump of dough’ (verse 6). Such open sin seen by all will corrupt the entire congregation.”

• Tim LaHaye and Ed Hindson, Exploring Bible Prophecy

1 Corinthians 5:1 ‘sexual immorality’: “Jewish law forbade a son to marry his stepmother (Lev 18:8; Dt 22:30). This incest was also taboo in Greek culture. Nevertheless, a man in the church at Corinth was sexually involved with his father’s wife or perhaps even married to her. Paul was incredulous that in the name of ‘wisdom’ they could bring the gospel into disrepute and condone a kind of sexual immorality even disallowed by pagans.”

• Dorothy Kelley Patterson, General Editor, NIV Woman’s Study Bible (Patty Comber, Pauline Epistles contributor)

1 Corinthians 5:2 ‘puffed up’: ”So arrogant and carnal as to excuse even that extreme wickedness. taken away. Excommunicated as in v. 7 (see Matt 18:15–17; Eph. 5:3, 11, 2 Thess. 3:6).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

1 Corinthians 5:4-5 ‘destruction of the flesh to save the soul’: “What was the Corinthian church to do? They were to gather in the name of our Lord Jesus and with the power of our Lord Jesus (5:4). That means they were to act on Jesus’s behalf, under his authority, to exercise his kingdom power. Then they were to hand over this man to Satan-that is, excommunicate him from the church, so that God’s covenant protection was removed from his life. With that umbrella gone, the man would have no defense against the devil’s schemes. But the goal of this move was not punitive. Rather, the goal was for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord (5:5). In other words, Paul wants the man to be driven to repentance and even allows the devil to be used as the instrument to accomplish this so that the man could be delivered from this sin before facing Christ’s judgment seat.”

• Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

1 Corinthians 5:6-13 ‘Yeast Puffs Up the Dough’: ”The church was to purge the sin. The image here is that of the Passover supper (Ex. 12). One of the requirements was that no leaven (yeast) be found anywhere in their dwellings. Even the bread at the feast was to be unleavened. Leaven is a picture of sin. It is small but powerful; it works secretly; it ‘puffs up’ the dough; it spreads.”

• Warren W. Wiersbe, The Wiersbe Study Bible

1 Corinthians 5:6-8 ‘A Sourdough Starter’: “Israelite women used the sourdough process for making their bread. Every week they would withhold a small portion of bread dough and allow it to ferment as a “starter” for the following week’s batch. When added to new ingredients, the yeast in the “starter” would ferment the whole lump. This process continued for an entire year until the Festival of Unleavened Bread (Ex 12:15; 13:6) when all the old starter with its yeast was cleared from the house so that a completely fresh start might be made. Yeast is symbolic of the process by which evil spreads to affect an entire community. The Corinthians failed to realize that the incestuous man’s sin was like this yeast.”

• Dorothy Kelley Patterson, General Editor, NIV Woman’s Study Bible (Patty Comber, Pauline Epistles contributor)

1 Corinthians 5:6 ‘excising the one to save the rest’: “Paul uses a baking metaphor to explain the consequences of not dealing with serious sin in the church: Don’t you know that a little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough? To put it another way, one bad apple will spoil the whole barrelful. Or, to use another analogy, you need to treat cancer before it metastasizes and spreads throughout the body. Paul was telling them that sin, left unchecked, would harm the entire congregation. Consider the account of Israel at the battle of Ai (see Josh 7:1-26). The sin of one man (Achan), who lived among God’s people, cost other men their lives and resulted in the temporary loss of victory for the entire congregation.”

• Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

1 Corinthians 5:9 ‘my epistle’: “A previous letter that Paul had written the church at Corinth instructed them to disassociate with the immoral (cf. v. 11, 2 Thess. 3:6–15).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

1 Corinthians 5:11 ‘named a brother’: “Paul clarifies his intention in the earlier letter. He expected them to disassociate with all who said they were brothers, but had a consistent pattern of sin. not even to eat. The meal was a sign of acceptance and fellowship in those days. See 2 Thess. 3:6, 14.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

1 Corinthians 5:13 ‘The Judgment of the Lost’: “After discussing the flaunted sin of the brother in verses 1-7, Paul now addresses the issue of the person in the church who does not know Christ as Savior. The church is not to associate (Greek, sunanaginnumi, aorist passive infinitive) with ‘any so-called brother’ (verse 11) who is living in sin. The verb can read as meaning we are not to be mixed together. By saying ‘so-called brother,’ Paul is referring to pretenders, or those who confess but do not possess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Such a one is described as ‘an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler’ (verse 11). The believer is ‘not even to eat with such a one’ (verse II). The church will someday judge the world as a system of evil. At present it judges only those who profess to be brothers and sisters.
“Since these people are not believers, Paul makes it clear that he has no reason to be ‘judging outsiders,’ though judgment within the congregation is legitimate (verse 12). It is God who will judge those who are outside the assembly. However, as with the Jewish people when they were sojourning in the wilderness, the congregation should ‘remove the wicked man from among yourselves’ (verse 13; Deuteronomy 13:5; 17:7). He was to be cast outside the camp. At the Great White Throne Judgment, righteousness will finally prevail (Revelation 20:1-4). But even now, ‘the wrath of God is revealed [presently] from heaven against all ungodliness’ (Romans 1:18).”

• Tim LaHaye and Ed Hindson, Exploring Bible Prophecy

1 Corinthians 5:13 ‘Expel the wicked man’: ”Beginning in chapter 5, Paul turns to the matter of scandals in the church. These were, of course, the result of the carnality of the Corinthian members. Paul bluntly confronts the sexual immorality in the church and cites a specific case-a case that was being openly regarded with acceptance and tolerance. Paul’s response: This sin must be dealt with. ‘Expel the wicked man from among you;’ he writes in 5:13, citing a principle from Deut. 17:7; 19:9; and elsewhere. Whenever sin breaks out openly and there is no repentance, the church must act in discipline-or the sin may infect the entire church. The Corinthian church had failed to act. As a result, immorality was eating away at the heart of the body.“

• Ray C. Stedman, Adventuring Through the Bible

My Thoughts

It is interesting to consider that Paul has written about church division, including divisiveness.  He has talked about pride a great deal.  Now, a third of the way through the letter, he mentions sexual immorality.

I have seen video discussions and read in books that the secular world thinks that Christians are focused on sexual sin.  Of course, the secular world has been in a mode of “if it feels good, do it” for decades.  The activity slowed down in the early stages of the spread of HIV, but these days it seems they are not worried about that anymore, or they have protection against it.

But the truth is that the Bible does not speak of sexual sin that often.  It is the easy, low-hanging fruit, and the secular opponents keep bringing it up.  But Rev. Tim Keller says that greed is mentioned by Jesus many times more often than sexual misconduct.  Here Paul addresses pride, and even repeats his admonishment against pride, in that the church nearly praises the boy for sleeping with his father’s wife.  Paul uses the metaphor of yeast rising the dough and the dough becomes “puffed up,” a common expression for pride.

Puffed up may have come from Paul’s illustration, but a bellows was used during the biblical times.  You are puffed up to look bigger than you are, but then a bellows can blow air to make the fire hotter.  In the range of the third to fifth century BC, the Chinese are credited with inventing a double bellows in steel making so that air can blow into the furnace continuously.  Single bellows had been around for a long time before then.  Thus, puffed up could be related to being filled with hot air.  But yeast in a batch of bread provides the same image of being puffed up and the yeast can spread throughout the dough.  Thus, in this case, the yeast (the unrepentant sinner) must be removed.

Many scholars say that the woman was a stepmother.  This does not remove this restriction in that the Levitical Law speaks of the person acting as the parent.  But the idea of “stepmother” may come from the translation to father’s wife, instead of the boy’s mother.

Some older scholars think that Second Corinthians came first due to the mention of another epistle, but the first letter was probably lost to history.  It is obvious that the letter had been ignored in that the sin continued and the church had done nothing about it.

At this point, we need to differentiate.  Jesus said to take the log out of our own eye before we worry about the speck in our neighbor’s eye, but Jesus also speaks of correcting our neighbor in love.  In this case, Paul says that the boy does not lose his salvation, but the rewards at the bema judgment are gone.  We cannot lose our salvation due to a sin, but John speaks in his first letter that living in sin shows that the truth is not in us.  Thus, habitual sin with no repentance may point to the acceptance of Jesus to be false.

The Amish call it shunning.  The Catholics call it excommunication.  But removing someone from the fellowship should be neither of those things.  When administering the punishment, leaving a return available is important.  If the person learns from their mistake, they can repent of the sin and return to the fellowship.  I have rarely seen such returns occur, but I have seen it.  I have seen instances of sexual immorality, even among church leaders, go unpunished more often.

Then Paul adds at the end of this chapter that it is no business of his to judge non-believers.  That is probably why the secular world is so sensitized to Christians being judgmental.  Our rules show that we should not do such things, but the secular world does not live by those standards.  If we can live by God’s standards, separate from the world’s rules, and not judge those who follow the world’s rules, then the difference in the two worldviews becomes less of a barrier in talking about the Gospel with these non-believers.

Some Serendipitous Reflections

1 Corinthians 5 1. In matters of discipline, are you overly judgmental? Too permissive? Inconsistent? Helpful? Explain.”

• Lyman Coleman, et al, The NIV Serendipity Bible for Study Groups

First Corinthians 5 has one question.

Substitute whatever group for any reference to a small group or ask who could come to your aid.

If you like these Thursday morning Bible studies, but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Thursday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.