1 Cor 5 – Studies

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each chapter is divided into a number of studies and each study or passage has a simple four-Part, verse-by-verse approach, to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: 1 Cor 5:1-5

1 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. 2 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? 3 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. 4 So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, 5 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.

A. Find Out:    

1.  What had Paul also heard was happening? v.1
2. What did they feel & what should they have felt about it? v.2
3. What did Paul say about that? v.3
4. When did he say they should act? v.4
5. What did he say they should do? v.5a
6. Why, with what consequence? v.5b 

B. Think:

1. What was the sin being committed?
2. What action did Paul say they should take?
3. What aim should that have?

C. Comment:

Paul now moves on to the second thing he has been told about: a man is committing sexual immorality with his mother! Corinth was known for its immorality and that had now crept into the church. At the end of the twentieth century the church has again allowed immorality to creep into the congregation of God’s people, but the word of God is quite clear about it.

The apostle Paul is clearly scandalized by it. There is no soft “accepting of the people” about this. No, the apostle is (to us) frighteningly clear about it. The man involved should be put of out the life of the church, and note the way it is to be done. It is to be publicly done – when they are assembled together in the name of the Lord.

They are to know the power and authority of the Lord and do it solemnly. This man is to be put outside the protection of the church so that he will be open to Satan’s attacks and brought to his senses.     We need to see the force of this. The intention is to bring him back into a right relationship with the Lord, and the way to do it is to discipline him publicly, so that he realises the seriousness of what he has done, and so that he will be left alone to the ways of Satan and brought to his knees in repentance. 

D. Application:

1. Immorality is sin and is to be excluded from the holy church.
2. The objective is to bring the man to repentance.

Passage: 1 Cor 5:6-13

6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 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. 8 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.

9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people – 10 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. 11 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.

12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. ‘Expel the wicked person from among you.’

A. Find Out:

1. What principle does Paul state, with what command? v.6,7a
2. With what feast does he link this picture and why? v.7b,8
3. What had he previously instructed them? v.9
4. Who did that not mean and why? v.10
5. But who does it include? v.11
6. So what instructions does he conclude with? v.12,13

B. Think:

1. What was the context of the previous verses?
2. What do you think the picture of yeast is all about?
3. So how does Paul explicitly apply that?

C. Comment:

The context is of a man who has been involved in sexual immorality who Paul says should be put out of the fellowship of the church. Now he uses a typically Jewish illustration, that of yeast in dough. Yeast in the dough makes it rise but if not cooked immediately, the yeast ferments and the dough goes moldy. This was why the bread at Passover was without yeast, as a sign of the haste with which the Jews had had to leave Egypt, not being able to wait for the bread to rise, but also so that it would not go off in delay in cooking. Yeast in Jewish spiritual terms therefore referred to any evil influence. If you allow a little in, says Paul, it will soon spread like yeast does, and the dough will be affected throughout. No, get rid of it quickly!

Paul had obviously written to them before this letter, about these very issues because of the influences of Corinth probably, so now he reiterates his teaching: separate out from those who are immoral and call themselves Christians. We’re not in the business of judging those outside the church (which we do so often do!) because they don’t know any better, but the members of the church should know better and we are to deal with those who hold onto their old immorality or fall into it.

D. Application:

1. A little tolerated sin soon spreads. It must be dealt with.
2. The church is to be holy and we are not to tolerate various forms of sin in a misguided sense of love. No, we are to expel it!