I Corinthians 5
5
Immorality Defiles the Church
1It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s #Lev. 18:6–8; Deut. 22:30; 27:20wife! 2#1 Cor. 4:18And you are puffed up, and have not rather #2 Cor. 7:7–10mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. 3#Col. 2:5; 1 Thess. 2:17For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed. 4In the #(Matt. 18:20)name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, #(Matt. 16:19; John 20:23); 2 Cor. 12:9with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 5#Ps. 109:6; Prov. 23:14; Luke 22:31; 1 Tim. 1:20deliver such a one to #(Acts 26:18)Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6#1 Cor. 3:21Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that #Hos. 7:4; Matt. 16:6, 12; Gal. 5:9; 2 Tim. 2:17a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed #Is. 53:7Christ, our #John 19:14Passover, was sacrificed for us. 8Therefore #Ex. 12:15let us keep the feast, #Deut. 16:3not with old leaven, nor #Matt. 16:6with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Immorality Must Be Judged
9I wrote to you in my epistle #2 Cor. 6:14; Eph. 5:11; 2 Thess. 3:6not to keep company with sexually immoral people. 10Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go #John 17:15out of the world. 11But now I have written to you not to keep company #Matt. 18:17with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—#Gal. 2:12not even to eat with such a person.
12For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 13But those who are outside God judges. Therefore #Deut. 13:5; 17:7, 12; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21, 24; 24:7; 1 Cor. 5:2“put away from yourselves the evil person.”
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I Corinthians 5: NKJV
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The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.
1 Corinthians 5
5
The Mystery of Sex
1-2I also received a report of scandalous sex within your church family, a kind that wouldn’t be tolerated even outside the church: One of your men is sleeping with his stepmother. And you’re so above it all that it doesn’t even faze you! Shouldn’t this break your hearts? Shouldn’t it bring you to your knees in tears? Shouldn’t this person and his conduct be confronted and dealt with?
3-5I’ll tell you what I would do. Even though I’m not there in person, consider me right there with you, because I can fully see what’s going on. I’m telling you that this is wrong. You must not simply look the other way and hope it goes away on its own. Bring it out in the open and deal with it in the authority of Jesus our Master. Assemble the community—I’ll be present in spirit with you and our Master Jesus will be present in power. Hold this man’s conduct up to public scrutiny. Let him defend it if he can! But if he can’t, then out with him! It will be totally devastating to him, of course, and embarrassing to you. But better devastation and embarrassment than damnation. You want him on his feet and forgiven before the Master on the Day of Judgment.
6-8Your flip and callous arrogance in these things bothers me. You pass it off as a small thing, but it’s anything but that. Yeast, too, is a “small thing,” but it works its way through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast. So get rid of this “yeast.” Our true identity is flat and plain, not puffed up with the wrong kind of ingredient. The Messiah, our Passover Lamb, has already been sacrificed for the Passover meal, and we are the Unraised Bread part of the Feast. So let’s live out our part in the Feast, not as raised bread swollen with the yeast of evil, but as flat bread—simple, genuine, unpretentious.
9-13I wrote you in my earlier letter that you shouldn’t make yourselves at home among the sexually promiscuous. I didn’t mean that you should have nothing at all to do with outsiders of that sort. Or with criminals, whether blue- or white-collar. Or with spiritual phonies, for that matter. You’d have to leave the world entirely to do that! But I am saying that you shouldn’t act as if everything is just fine when a friend who claims to be a Christian is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can’t just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior. I’m not responsible for what the outsiders do, but don’t we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers? God decides on the outsiders, but we need to decide when our brothers and sisters are out of line and, if necessary, clean house.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.