Deeper Commentary

CHAPTER 5

5:1 Note how Paul deals with ecclesial problems in places like Corinth. He doesn’t write to the elders and tell them to sort it out and clean up the ecclesia. He writes to every member of the ecclesia. He confronts the whole ecclesia with his concerns over pastoral issues- not just the pastors. He tells the whole ecclesia of his concern about how they have not dealt with flagrant sin amongst them (1 Cor. 5; 6:1-11). The Lord’s teaching in Mt. 18:15-18 doesn’t ask us to refer our concerns about others’ behaviour in the ecclesia to the elders. He asks us to personally take the matter up with the individual. His church was to be built on individuals who followed Him personally and closely.

It is actually reported- The Greek implies it was widely being spread about. Some were boasting about their liberality, as some do today. They were "puffed up" about the matter (:2). It was not a case of quietly accommodating a non-standard moral situation, but of boasting in it and claiming it was quite acceptable and even commendable.

That there is sexual immorality among you, and such immorality as is not even among the Gentiles- This alludes to Old Testament condemnations of Israel for being actually worse than the surrounding Gentiles. And Paul is writing to Corinth, a city famed for its sexual immorality. Why is it that believers at times act far worse than unbelievers? The Corinthians were not living by the Spirit but rather by legalism; and obedience to a few laws leads people to fail spectacularly in other areas, because they feel justified. And as Paul explains in Romans 7, the knowledge of God's law provokes within human nature a desire to disobey it. The only way forward, then, is to recognize God's law but live in the Spirit. The legalistic spirit of the Corinthians is reflected in the way that they treated the man too harshly- for in 2 Cor. Paul has to urge them to receive him back lest he be psychologically and spiritually destroyed by their attitude. So, as legalists do, they went from one extreme to another rather than following the way of the Spirit.

That one of you has taken to himself his father's wife- The woman may not necessarily have been the mother of the offender. This case involved a man suffering wrong (2 Cor. 7:12), so we can assume that the woman was already married to the man's father, and he took her away from him. Hence "taken to himself...". The end of chapter 4 must be connected with chapter 5; Paul speaks of his choice of dealing with Corinth with a rod, or with the spirit of meekness, and he has in view the case he is now discussing. Adam Clarke provides some background which is likely relevant in this case: "This woman might have been a proselyte to the Jewish religion from heathenism; and the rabbins taught that proselytism annulled all former relationship, and that a woman was at liberty in such a case to depart from an unbelieving husband, and to marry even with a believing son, i.e., of her husband by some former wife". Jewish influence was at work within the Corinthian church, and they had Jews amongst them, both in society and in the church. It was presumably this ruling of Judaism which had been eagerly seized upon to justify immorality. Which is how Paul judged the case. Whereas it was doubtless presented under the garb of loving spirituality. This of course is just how marital affairs amongst believers are usually justified to this day. The man who suffered wrong in the case (2 Cor. 7:12) was therefore the woman's husband; he was perhaps a believer, but she declared him an unbeliever and his own son slandered him as an unbeliever. The emphasis upon the need to separate from the wicked individual male ["that wicked person", :13] would suggest that the man who had the affair with the woman had slandered his own father as an unbeliever to justify his father's wife separating from her husband and marrying him. Hence the man is called not only a fornicator, but an idolator and slanderer (:11). This scenario would explain why some in the church were "puffed up" in support of the man; they willingly believed the slander about the woman's husband, and justified what had happened as being a spritual act, "glorying" in it (:6). Unless there was some quasi-spiritual narrative being claimed, it is hard to imagine how naked lust could be so glorified. The words for "malice and wickedness" in :8 imply wicked plots and plans. The whole scenario was not therefore simply a case of unbridled lust, but of a wider planning. The hypocrisy was extreme, because according to :11, the man was in fact an idolator [not a super spiritually minded Christian, although he was called a brother]. He was also a manipulator, blackmailer and a thief (:11); presumably because he got his father's wealth from his father's wife, who would have had to give something to her as part of the divorce settlement especially if the divorce involved slanderous accusations against him. This suggested scenario would explain how a man marrying his father's wife was also a slanderer, thief and blackmailer.

5:2 Instead of grieving, you have become arrogant- The moral failures of others should cause our grief, as Lot grieved for Sodom. The Greek can mean mourning at a funeral; they were to mourn the spiritual death of the individual, and not boast about it nor be angry with him. His loss was their loss. But as noted on :1, the Corinthians were boasting about this case. Dealing with the offender was therefore a far more nuanced question than simply removing someone from a church because they are immoral. The Lord in writing to the churches in Rev. 1 and 2 doesn't take this approach; so here in 1 Cor. 5 the question is far wider than simply the private misbehaviour of an individual.

Any such separations are brought forth from much sorrow; Corinth ecclesia were told that they should  have mourned as they withdrew from one who had left the faith (1 Cor. 5:2). "The whole house of Israel" were commanded to "mourn" the necessary destruction of Nadab and Abihu (Lev. 10:6). Samuel mourned and God repented when Saul was finally rejected (1 Sam. 15:35). Paul wept when he wrote about some in the ecclesia who had fallen away (Phil. 3:17-19). It must be said that 'block disfellowship'- the cutting off of hundreds of brethren and sisters because theoretically they fellowship a weak brother-  hardly enables 'mourning' and pleading with each of those who are disfellowshipped.

Remove the one who has done this deed from among you- Paul explains his motivation for writing this in 2 Cor. 7:12: "So although I wrote to you, I wrote not for his cause that did the wrong, nor for his cause that suffered the wrong; but that your earnest care for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God". Paul was surely aware of many such non-standard moral cases in the churches, but he was making a test case of this one. He was not commanding the removal of the person solely for the sake of the offender, but for wider reasons. So it would be unwise to assume from this case that every immoral person in a church must be removed. There was clearly a wider context here.

5:3 For I truly, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him that has done this thing- There was a Spirit gift of knowledge which resulted in Paul being as it were virtually present; he was not therefore judging from a distance on the basis of gossip. Hence he can write in :4 that "when you are gathered together (and my spirit is present with you when you do)". And he alludes to the same phenomenon in 2 Cor. 13:2 "I tell you as if I were present". This ability to be virtually present is used supremely by the Lord, whose presence is to be found in our lives and where two or three are gathered together. If Paul knew this case by the Spirit and was spiritually present in their gatherings to discuss the matter; how much more the Lord Himself.

5:4- see on 1 Cor. 1:2.

I command you that in the name of our Lord Jesus- This decision was confirmed by the Lord Jesus; for Paul commands it by the Spirit. But it's a dangerous path to assume that this is a pattern for all disfellowships, for we have not received an inspired word from the Lord to excommunicate specific named individuals.

When you are gathered together- The principles of Mt. 18:16,17 concerning dealing with personal offences are applied by Paul [writing on the specific command of the Lord Jesus, which we do not have in the cases we deal with] to dealing with the moral and doctrinal problems at Corinth (= 2 Cor. 13:1; 1 Cor. 5:4,5,9; 6:1-6). We are all priests, a community of them. This is why Paul writes to whole ecclesias rather than just the elders. 1 Cor. 5:4,5,11 make it clear that discipline was the responsibility of all, “the many” as Paul put it in 2 Cor., not just the elders. Even in Philippians, where bishops and deacons are specifically mentioned, Paul writes to “all the saints”.

And my spirit is present with you when you do- See on :3.

With the power of our Lord Jesus- Paul was commanding this course of action with the specific authority of the Lord. We do not have this available to us today when considering specific individuals. Perhaps this is why Paul labours the point- that he is speaking in this case according to a specific Spirit revelation received.

5:5 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- Who the Lord Jesus was is who He will be in the future; in the same way as who we are now, is who we will eternally be. For our spirit, our essential personality, will be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 5:5). “Flesh and blood” will not inherit the Kingdom (1 Cor. 15:50); and yet the risen, glorified Lord Jesus was “flesh and bones” (Lk. 24:39). We will be who we essentially are today, but with Spirit instead of blood energizing us. It’s a challenging thought, as we consider the state of our “spirit”, the essential ‘me’ which will be preserved, having been stored in Heaven in the Father’s memory until the day when it is united with the new body which we will be given at resurrection. For in all things the Lord is our pattern; and we will in that day be given a body like unto His glorious body (Phil. 3:21)- which is still describable as “flesh and bones” in appearance (Lk. 24:39).

The purpose of this delivering was in order “that the spirit may be saved”. If Satan is intent on making people sin and alienated from God, why should what he does to them result in them being saved? It is by the experiences of life that God controls, that we are spiritually developed (Heb. 12:5–11). How could the church at Corinth deliver the fallen brother to Satan if no one knows where to locate him? “Destruction” can also imply “punishment” (e.g. 2 Thess.1:9). Are we to think that God would work in cooperation with an angel who is rebelling against Him? Notice that Satan is not described as eagerly entering the man, as we would expect if Satan is constantly trying to influence all men to sin and to turn believers away from God. The church (v. 4) is told to deliver the man to Satan.

We note that in 1 Cor. 3:16,17, where the warning is that God will destroy the sexually immoral. But here, the satan is the destroyer. God therefore is ultimately behind the satan; just as in the Old Testament parallel between God and a satan / adversary of God's people in 2 Sam. 24:1 cp. 1 Chron. 21:1. The allusion in 3:16,17 may in turn be to Josh. 7:25 LXX, where the need for destruction by the Lord is in order to preserve the community: "And Joshua said to Achan, why have you destroyed us? The Lord will destroy you as at this day". And the spiritual preservation of the community may well be an issue in the command to separate from this sinful man. But the purpose was "for the destruction of the flesh", not the body. Death is not in view, because we will later learn that the man repented and was to be received back into the church. The idea was to save the man from his flesh, that in the process of discipline leading to repentance, this aspect of the "flesh" would be destroyed. This is in fact the process which happens to us all as we respond to our connection with the Lord Jesus; baptism is so that "the body of sin might be destroyed" (Rom. 6:5).

One of the big “Satans” – adversaries – to the early church was the Roman authority of the time, who, as the first century progressed, became increasingly opposed to Christianity. The Greek phrase “to deliver” is used elsewhere, very often in a legal sense, of delivering someone to a civil authority, e.g.:

– Someone can “deliver you to the judge” (Mt. 5:25).

– “They will deliver you up to the councils” (Mt. 10:17).

– The Jews “shall deliver (Jesus) to the Gentiles” (Mt. 20:19)

– “The Jews will... deliver (Paul) into the hands of the Gentiles” (Acts 21:11).

– “Yet was I delivered prisoner” (Acts 28:17).

So is Paul advising them to hand over the sinful brother to the Roman authorities for punishment? The sin he had committed was incest, and this was punishable under the Roman law. Remember that “destruction” also implies “punishment”. Leander Keck demonstrates that the behaviour of the incestuous man was “contrary to both Jewish and Roman law”, rendering him liable to punishment by those authorities (Leander Keck, Paul and His Letters (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) p. 106).

“Satan” here may also refer to the man’s evil desires. He had given way to them in committing the sin of incest, and Paul is perhaps suggesting that if the church separates from the man and leaves him to live a fleshly life for a time, maybe eventually he will come round to repentance so that ultimately his spirit would be saved at the judgment. This is exactly what happened to the prodigal son (Luke 15); living a life away from his spiritual family and totally following Satan – his evil desires – resulted in him eventually repenting. Jeremiah 2:19 sums this up: “Your own wickedness shall correct you and your backslidings shall reprove you: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter” (that they had done).

“The flesh” does not necessarily mean “the body”. It may also refer to a way of life controlled by our evil desires, i.e. Satan. Believers “are not in the flesh, but in the spirit” (Rom. 8:9). This does not mean that they are without physical bodies, but that they are not living a fleshly life. Before conversion “we were in the flesh” (Rom. 7:5). Galatians 5:19 mentions sexual perversion, which the offender at Corinth was guilty of, as a “work of the flesh”. 1 John 3:5 (cp. v. 8), defines sins as the “works of the Devil”, thus equating the flesh and the Devil. Thus 1 Corinthians 5:5 could be understood as ‘Deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of Satan/the Devil’, so that we have Satan destroying Satan. It is impossible to understand this if we hold to the popular belief regarding Satan. But if the first Satan is understood as the Roman authority and the second one as the flesh, or sinful expressions of our evil desires, then there is no problem.

We have seen in our notes on Luke 10:18 that Satan is sometimes used in the context of reminding us that physical illness is ultimately a result of our sin. It may be that the spirit – gifted apostles in the first century had the power of afflicting sinful believers with physical illness or death – e.g. Peter could order Ananias and Sapphira’s death (Acts 5); some at Corinth were physically “weak and sickly” as a punishment for abusing the communion service (1 Cor. 11:30); Jesus could threaten the false teachers within the church at Thyatira with instant death unless they repented (Rev. 2:22–23) and James 5:14–16 implies that serious illness of some members of the church was due to their sins, and would be lifted if there was repentance. If the sickness mentioned here was an ordinary illness, it does not follow that if a Christian repents of sin he will automatically be healed, e.g. Job was afflicted with illness as a trial from God, not because he sinned. It was for the help and healing of repentant believers who had been smitten in this way, that “the gift of healing” was probably mainly used in the early church (1 Cor. 12:9). Thus Paul’s delivering the incestuous brother to Satan and also delivering “Hymaenaeus and Alexander... unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme” (1 Tim. 1:20), may have involved him smiting them with physical sickness due to their following of Satan – their evil desires. Some time later Paul noted how Alexander still “greatly withstood our words” (2 Tim. 4:14,15). The extent of his withstanding Paul’s preaching is made apparent if we understand that Alexander had been struck ill by Paul before he wrote the first letter to Timothy, but had still refused to learn his lesson by the time Paul wrote to Timothy again. Again, notice that Satan would try and teach Alexander “not to blaspheme” (1 Tim. 1:20). If Satan is an evil person who is a liar and blasphemer of God’s word, how can he teach a man not to blaspheme God?

The same verb for ‘delivering over’ occurs in the LXX of Job 2:6, where God ‘hands over’ Job to Satan, with the comment [in LXX]: “you are to protect his psyche, his spirit”. The connection between the passages would suggest to me that Job was in need of spiritual improvement, even though he was imputed as being righteous (Job 1:1). Whatever, the point surely is that God handed a person over to an adversary, for that person’s spiritual salvation. The orthodox idea of God and Satan being pitted in conflict just doesn’t cut it here. Biblically, God is portrayed as in charge of any ‘Satan’ / adversary, and using ‘satans’ at His will for the spiritual improvement of people, rather than their destruction. The story of Job is a classic example. Are we to really understand that there is a personal being called Satan who’s disobedient to God, out of His control, and bent on leading people to their spiritual destruction? No way, Jose. Not yet, Josette. 1 Cor. 5:5 and the record of Job teach the very dead opposite. And by all means bring on board here 2 Tim. 2:26, which speaks of people being caught in the Devil’s trap at God’s will / desire. This is the translation offered by H.A. Kelly, Satan: A Biography (Cambridge: C.U.P., 2006) p. 119.

5:6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little yeast raises the whole lump of dough?- Paul is cleverly alluding to a common Jewish maxim that sinners must be removed from the community because just a little yeast affects the whole lump. But he is saying that the attitudes of those who were boasting about this matter were in fact the yeast. He has said that they were "puffed up" (:2 Gk. and AV). And here he continues the analogy. Their boasting had to be purged out- and so he urges them to purge out that yeast so that they might be "a new lump" (:7). Their boasting was the yeast. Whilst indeed the immoral personal had to be removed, their attitudes were no better. This is a very telling play on the idea of yeast, and is so true of the wrong attitudes which have accompanied so much excommunication. Those attitudes were as bad and as damaging as the behaviour of the individual being disciplined. Paul makes his point specifically in :8, where he asks them to remove the yeast of "malice and wickedness" and instead be sincere and truthful. He uses the same word for "malice" in describing how things were amongst the Corinthians (1 Cor. 10:6; 13:5; 15:33; 14:20; 2 Cor. 13:7). The Greek word for "wickedness" is that used of "that wicked person" (:13). Their wickedness, which they had to purge out, was no better than his wickedness. As noted earlier, the command to remove the individual was not simply for his sake (2 Cor. 7:12); there were far wider issues here. The essence of his sin was to be found in those who were boasting of him, and who would later over harshly condemn him.

5:7 Purge out the old yeast so that you may be a new lump- See on :6. As a man or woman seriously contemplates the cross, they are inevitably led to a self-knowledge and self-examination which shakes them to the bone. We are to “purge out" the old leaven from us at the memorial meeting (1 Cor. 5:7). But the same Greek word for “purge" is found in passages which speak of how the blood of Christ purges us: Jn. 15:2; Heb. 10:2. We purge ourselves because Christ has purged us. This is the connection between His death for us, and our self-examination.

Even as you actually are- They were full of yeast, and yet they were in another sense a new, unleavened loaf. The loaf represents the Lord Jesus. They were in Christ and by grace counted as in Him. But in reality they were leavened with malice, wickedness and boasting. This approach surely helped the spiritual Paul in coping with the unspiritual Corinthians. And it helps us in our struggles with all the moral weakness we see in our brethren. We are not to be naively blind to it, whilst on the other hand we are to perceive them as our brethren, justified in Christ.

For our Passover lamb has been sacrificed, even Christ- They were to live in the intensity of Passover night, awaiting the call to leave Egypt at the Angel's coming, just as we await the Lord's coming. The lamb had been slain; now they were to keep the feast with unleavened bread. The plagues on Egypt are the basis for the various latter day judgments described in Revelation and the Olivet prophecy. Perhaps we too will be shielded from the final ones, as Israel were. The lamb was to be eaten with unleavened bread, and Paul urges them all to look to themselves in order to purge themselves within of yeast. He was concerned that the expulsion of a failed individual might lead them to not look within, when they were in essence as much at fault as him.

5:8 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- Paul's selfless relationship with Corinth was inspired by that of Moses with Israel. This is echoing Moses' command to keep the Passover feast without leaven, putting Moses' words in his own mouth (Ex. 12:15; Dt. 16:3). Paul saw himself as Moses in trying to save a generally unresponsive and ungrateful Israel.

The word chosen for "wickedness" [poneros] clearly echoes that for fornication [pornos], indeed the two words are a simple anagram of each other. The hint may be that the fornication was occuring at the breaking of bread meeting. And that is quite possible, because the church in Corinth were clearly acting like the idol cults, where alcohol was consumed and cult prostitutes were slept with as part of the worship. The scene in 1 Cor. 11 seems to suggest this was happening, and I have commented on 1 Tim. 2 that a similar problem was going on at Ephesus. Jezebel taught the Lord's servants to commit fornication within the church (Rev. 2:20). This would explain why the man is accused of being an idolator (:10); but like Israel of old, he was mixing idolatry with an apparently hyper conservative spiritual argument, that his father was apostate and so he had disfellowshipped his father and married his father's wife, and was having sex with her publically in church as an expression of his supposed spirituality. This explains :3 Gk. "he that has perpetrated this deed in such a manner". And Paul goes right on in 1 Cor. 6:12-20 to warn the church to quit fornication with prostitutes, as if it were a widespread problem. He reasons that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body with her (6:16), whereas the breaking of bread service commemorates that we are one body with Christ. All 'being one' with anyone or anything else is thereby precluded.

We marvel that Paul does not teach disfellowship of the entire church, but rather a focus upon the removal of one individual who was openly teaching and exhibiting publically this kind of behaviour. And yet according to 2 Corinthians, the man repented and Paul was urgent that he should be restored, lest he be "consumed from overmuch sorrow", i.e. be psychologically shattered by realizing what he had done. We take the simple lesson that change really is possible even in the apparently hardest cases. If that brother changed, and we look forward to seeing him in the Kingdom- then so can we. We also see that quoting this passage as an excuse to disfellowship brethren who differ on some matter of interpretation, or who failed morally in hot blood, is totally inappropriate. But we also must note that this extreme, public immorality is bracketed together with malice and wickedness. To have malice in your heart, to be covetous and argumentative (:11), is the same "leaven" or yeast which will spread to others. The searching for leaven (:7), as the Jews did at Passover, speaks of the searching of our own hearts. Especially at the breaking of bread.

In Dt. 16:3 the unleavened bread is called the "bread of affliction", whilst in 1 Cor. 5:8 it is called the "unleavened bread of sincerity and Truth", as if being sincere and true and not having malice and bitterness in our hearts is a result of much mental affliction and exercising of the mind. So to keep the feast we have to search our houses, our lives, for anything like leaven- anything that puffs us up, that distorts us from the true smallness and humility we should have, that corrupts our sincerity. By nature we have so much pride in us, so much that puffs us up. We should always find some leaven in us every time we examine ourselves. The Jews used to search their houses with candles, looking for any sign of leaven. So we too must look into every corner of our lives with the candle of the word. Similarly before the great Passovers of Hezekiah and Josiah there was a searching for idols which were then thrown down. Note how Paul calls on the Corinthians to keep the feast “with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth,” which he contrasts with “malice and evil” (1 Cor. 5:8). Truth is set up against evil- not against wrong interpretations of Bible passages.

5:9 I wrote to you in my letter to have no association with fornicators- Paul had written a letter to the Corinthians previously which has not been preserved. Pornos , "fornicators", doesn't really refer to a young unmarried couple who 'go too far', although that is also not spiritual behaviour. The word refers to prostitutes or those wilfully pushing immoral behaviour; we might translate 'pornographers'. The man who had taken his father's wife was therefore involved in a far wider scene of immorality. In 1 Cor. 5:9-13 Paul says that he doesn’t intend the converts “to get out of the world” but rather to mix with the greedy, robbers and idolaters who are in the world. We know from later in this epistle that Christians in Corinth were free to use the pagan meat markets, and to accept invitations for meals in pagan homes. The Corinthians seemed to think that because they were self-consciously separate from the world, therefore it didn’t matter how they lived within the community. It seems they had misunderstood Paul’s previous letter about separation from sinful people as meaning they must be separate from the world. But Paul is saying that no, one must mix with the world, but separate from sin within our own lives. However, by the end of the 1st century, ‘going out of the world’ became the main preoccupation with some Christians, even though they themselves often developed low moral standards as a result of this. It was these ascetic groups who so over analysed some aspects of doctrine- for they had nothing better to do with their time- that they ended up with false doctrine. They converted only from within their groups, so the world was not witnessed to, the fire of love and compassion for humanity that was the hallmark of true Christianity was lost, and thus by the 2nd century the Truth both doctrinally and in practice had been lost.

5:10 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- The implication is that the "world" of Corinth was totally full of these things, and to not mix with such people meant going out of the world, which is impossible. We have here a window onto the deep immortality in Corinth. The Lord likewise mixed with sinful people and shared His table with them in order to bring them to Himself. He came into the world rather than going out of it to live on a mountain top. But this does not mean that within the community of Christ we can act just as the world does. It would seem that the Corinthians had misunderstood Paul's teaching; they were reasoning that they should not mix with unbelieving fornicators, but such fornication was therefore acceptable within the Christian community, and they were boasting about it. This is psychologically credible. Some of the most 'separated from the world' Christian communities today have been exposed as riddled with sexual immortality. "I did not mean..." suggests there had been an earlier communication from Paul about this matter (:8 "I wrote unto you in a letter..."). Nearly all misinterpretation is not simply a case of intellectual failure; there is a moral, psychological drive behind it, however subconscious. Later in this letter we will read of the Corinthians not believing in the resurrection, getting drunk at the breaking of bread, even using prostitutes within their church services. This was hardly misinterpretation, but rather a desire to justify unspiritual behaviour. And I suggest that all of the classic 'false doctrines' likewise have a subconscious element driving them- the parade example would be the refusal to accept the Lord Jesus had human nature. For that demands so much practically from we who share that same nature.

5:11 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- When Peter baptized thousands of people as recorded in Acts, there is no indication that he as it were screened them for morality. Likewise the 'baptismal interview' of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8 focused upon his faith in Christ rather than his personal morality. The spirit of grace which there is in Jesus leads us towards a tolerance of others, in order to patiently lead them towards repentance. The Lord Himself broke His bread with serious sinners- and was criticized for eating with them, seeing that 'eating' with someone was freighted with huge spiritual significance in 1st Century society. The apparent command here not to eat with sinners would appear at variance with the Lord's teaching and example, almost purposefully so. Paul writes here in the context of the breaking of bread (5:8), and in chapter 11, he criticizes the Corinthians for being drunk at the breaking of bread. We know from Rev. 2:20 that there was a female false teacher in at least one ecclesia, who was teaching Christ's brothers to engage in fornication and idol worship. Bearing this in mind, let's observe that the format of the breaking of bread service was in outline terms similar to the 'symposia' of the trade guilds and religious club gatherings of Corinth; a group of likeminded people sat down to a meal, heard an address from a member of their guild or religion about what was of common interest to them all, and then drank wine to the relevant gods. These meetings, however, were characterized by the presence of male and female prostitutes, drunkenness was common, and the commonality provided by the trade guild or religion was really an excuse for an evening of debauchery and idol worship. It would appear that there was a tendency in Corinth for the breaking of bread meeting to be turned into just such an event, featuring drunkenness and idolatry. The word used here in 1 Cor. 5:11 for "fornicator" is pornos, which specifically carries the meaning of a male prostitute- exactly the kind of person to be found at the 'symposia'. The Greek words translated "covetous", "railer" and "extortioner" all carry the idea of someone given over to utter debauchery. Such behaviour would be commonly associated with the drunken sexual debauchery which the symposia could turn into. It seems that the church at Corinth, and perhaps elsewhere, was slipping into this kind of behaviour at the breaking of bread. Paul condemns it in the strongest terms. He's saying that if any brother is acting as a 'pornos', a male prostitute, a facilitator and thereby teacher and encourager of this kind of behaviour, he is not to be eaten with. The Greek construction is rather strange: "Any man that is called a brother... with such an one, no not to eat". The grammar could suggest that one specific individual is being spoken about- 'That person who calls himself a brother, yes, that's right, with that one, don't even eat'. And the earlier context of chapter 5 makes it quite clear who that person was- the individual who had taken his father's wife, whom Paul had just commanded they separate from (:5) during those times when they were "gathered together" at the breaking of bread meeting (:4). This individual was involved in leading the breaking of bread meeting into gross sexual misbehaviour, alcohol abuse and debauchery. Such a person should not be eaten with, he shouldn't be allowed at that meeting as he clearly had an unspeakably awful agenda. Read this way, this verse doesn't mean we shouldn't break bread with someone who e.g. struggles with an alcohol problem or who is at times "covetous". The question of whether or not such a person has repented is very difficult to decide. But we don't need to struggle with those questions, because this verse doesn't demand that of us. It asks the Corinthians to exclude an individual with the awful, publically advertised, wilfully perverted agenda described above, and we likewise of course should do the same. In our age any church comprised of new converts will have its share of immorally living folks; the question is whether this immorality is being paraded and gloried in, by them and others.

This approach is confirmed by reading on in :13: "Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person". A specific notorious individual was in view. Paul in chapter 11 will note that there were many in the ecclesia who were getting drunk. But he doesn't say they were to be disfellowshipped. So, the reference here to the "man" who is getting drunk is a special case, and cannot be extrapolated to mean that every man called a brother who gets drunk must be disfellowshipped. Getting this kind of interpretation right is important; because many comments on this thread are demonstrating the evil and permanent damage of disfellowship. By insisting that everyone who is covetous or alcoholic must be disfellowshipped, one would be doing huge damage to those for whom the Lord died.

5:12 For what have I to do with judging those that are without? Do you not judge those that are within?- They were already judging those within by having adopted a position on the individual in question. They were being asked to reassess that judgment. But bear in mind that judging can mean either to condemn, or to have an opinion. By not judging in the sense of condemning, pre-judging the Lord's final judgment, this doesn't mean that we have no moral position on anything.

5:13 But them that are without God judges. Put away the wicked man from among yourselves- As noted on :6, their "wickedness" is described with the same word as used for the "wicked man". They were in essence no better, and the command to remove him was not so much for his sake as for other reasons (2 Cor. 7:12). It was not that wicked people must be removed from the church; for as noted on :6, they too were "wicked". There was a wider agenda here, as noted throughout this chapter. This was not temporary hot blood failure, but a wilful way of life. Paul is quoting here from Dt. 17:7 LXX "And the hand of the witnesses shall be upon him among the first to put him to death, and the hand of the people at the last; so shalt thou remove the evil one from among yourselves". This was to be the punishment for the man who broke covenant and "should go and serve other gods, and worship them, the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven" (Dt. 17:2,3). Clearly Paul sees the behaviour of immorality, lying and boasting in it as the equivalent of idolatry under the new covenant. Hence the mention of idolatry in :10. The worship of sex and wealth in our age is clearly enough the equivalent of Old Testament idolatry.