1 Corinthians 5: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul confronts the Corinthian church about a man living with his father's wife, a case of sexual sin that even outsiders would not accept. He tells them to stop boasting, to grieve instead, and to remove the man from the group, handing him over to Satan so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. He compares tolerated sin to yeast spreading through dough and points to Christ as the Passover sacrifice. He then clarifies an earlier letter: he meant they should not associate with people who claim to be believers yet live this way, not with outsiders, whom God judges.

Claim by Claim

1. 5:1
   • It is commonly reported that there is sexual immorality among the Corinthians.
   • The immorality reported is of a kind not even named among the Gentiles.
   • The immorality is that a man has his father's wife.
2. 5:2
   • The Corinthians are puffed up.
   • The Corinthians have not mourned instead.
   • Paul asks why they did not mourn so that the man who did this deed would be removed from among them.
3. 5:3
   • Paul is absent in body.
   • Paul is present in spirit.
   • Paul has already passed judgment on the man who did this deed, as though he were present.
4. 5:4
   • The judgment is made in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
   • The Corinthians are to be gathered together.
   • Paul's spirit is to be gathered with them.
   • The power of the Lord Jesus Christ is to be present.
5. 5:5
   • Such a man is to be delivered to Satan.
   • The purpose of delivering him to Satan is the destruction of the flesh.
   • The purpose is that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6. 5:6
   • The Corinthians' boasting is not good.
   • Paul asks whether they do not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
7. 5:7
   • Paul commands them to purge out the old leaven.
   • The purpose is that they may be a new lump.
   • They are unleavened.
   • Christ is the Corinthians' passover.
   • Christ has been sacrificed for us.
8. 5:8
   • Paul calls for keeping the feast.
   • The feast is not to be kept with old leaven.
   • The feast is not to be kept with the leaven of malice and wickedness.
   • The feast is to be kept with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9. 5:9
   • Paul wrote to them in a letter.
   • In that letter he told them not to associate with sexually immoral people.
10. 5:10
    • Paul did not mean the sexually immoral of this world.
    • Paul did not mean the covetous.
    • Paul did not mean extortioners.
    • Paul did not mean idolaters.
    • If he had meant those people, the Corinthians would have to leave the world.
11. 5:11
    • Paul has now written to them not to keep company with such a person.
    • The person meant is anyone called a brother who is sexually immoral.
    • The person meant is anyone called a brother who is covetous.
    • The person meant is anyone called a brother who is an idolater.
    • The person meant is anyone called a brother who is a reviler.
    • The person meant is anyone called a brother who is a drunkard.
    • The person meant is anyone called a brother who is an extortioner.
    • They are not even to eat with such a person.
12. 5:12
    • Paul asks what business it is of his to judge those outside.
    • Paul asks whether the Corinthians judge those inside.
13. 5:13
    • God judges those who are outside.
    • Paul commands them to put away the wicked person from among themselves.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

5:1

"Fornication" in the King James is a broad term for sexual sin in general, not only sex between unmarried people. "His father's wife" is the standard biblical way of saying stepmother rather than mother, and both Jewish law and Roman law forbade such a union; under Roman law it counted as incest. "Gentiles" means non-Jews, that is, the wider pagan society, so Paul's point is that even outsiders with no Jewish scruples did not tolerate this.

5:2

"Puffed up" is the King James rendering of a Greek word meaning inflated or swollen, used throughout this letter for the Corinthians' self-importance. "Mourned" refers to formal, visible grief, the kind shown at a death.

5:3

"Verily" simply means truly or indeed. The contrast between "absent in body" and "present in spirit" was a familiar way of speaking in ancient letters: the writer's authority and person were felt to be carried by the letter itself.

5:4

The sentence in Greek runs on without clear punctuation, and it is genuinely unclear which phrases attach to which: "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" could modify the gathering, or Paul's judgment, or the handing over in the next verse. Translations differ, and the rendering preserves the sequence as it stands.

5:5

"The flesh" translates a word that can mean the physical body or a person's sinful self, and readers have long disagreed about which is meant here, so what the "destruction" involves is disputed. "The day of the Lord" is an Old Testament phrase for the day of God's final judgment.

5:6

"Glorying" means boasting. "Leaven" is yeast, in the ancient world usually a lump of fermented dough saved from a previous batch and worked into the new one, so a very small piece did in fact change the whole mass. The "lump" is the batch of dough.

5:7

Before Passover, Jewish households searched the house and cleared out every trace of leaven, which is the practice behind "purge out the old leaven." The Passover lamb was killed on the eve of the festival; calling Christ "our passover" identifies him with that lamb.

5:8

"The feast" is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the seven days following Passover during which only bread made without yeast was eaten. "Sincerity" here carries its older sense of being pure or unmixed rather than merely honest in speech.

5:9

"Epistle" means letter. Paul refers to an earlier letter to Corinth that has not survived; what we call First Corinthians is at least his second letter to them. "To company with" means to keep company with, to associate.

5:10

"Covetous" means greedy for what belongs to others. "Extortioners" translates a word for those who seize property by force or fraud, closer to swindlers or robbers than to blackmailers. "Then must ye needs go out of the world" is a way of saying you would have no choice but to leave human society altogether.

5:11

"Called a brother" means someone counted as a fellow member of the congregation. "Railer" is one who attacks others with abusive speech. Refusing to eat with someone was a strong public act in this culture: shared meals marked who belonged to a group, and the early churches ate together as part of their common life.

5:12

"Them that are without" and "them that are within" are standard idiom for those outside and inside the community, here the church.

5:13

The last sentence quotes a formula repeated several times in Deuteronomy, "put away the evil from among you," used there for offenses that required expulsion or execution. The Greek verb translated "judgeth" can be read as present or future, so "God judges" and "God will judge" are both defensible.