1 CORINTHIANS

Chapter 5, Verses 1-13

 “What Should We Do? What Should We Do?”

[3-22-22]

 

Review: “Are We Really ‘All That’?”

1 Corinthians 4:18-21) [NAS] Now some have become arrogant, as though I were not coming to you.

19) But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I shall find out, not the words of those who are arrogant, but their power.

20) For the kingdom of God does not consist in words, but in power.

QUESTION: What is Paul doing here?

ANSWER: He is again addressing the false teachers. He’s answering their assumptions that he is afraid of conflict.

QUESTION: Why is he so bold in his claim that he will find out if their words have any power?

ANSWER: God struck an opponent of his blind in the past; [Acts 13:7-12] God could do anything.

21) What do you desire? Shall I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of gentleness?

QUESTION: What is Paul doing here?

ANSWER: I believe he is now addressing the believers. He is asking them if they would prefer him to visit them “with a rod or with love and a spirit of gentleness.”

 

This Week’s Lesson: “What Should We Do? What Should We Do?”

1 Corinthians 5:1-13) [NAS] It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife.

(GNB) Now, it is actually being said that there is sexual immorality among you so terrible that not even the heathen would be guilty of it. I am told that a man is sleeping with his stepmother!

Deuteronomy 22:30) [NAS] A man may not marry his father’s ex-wife–that would violate his father’s rights.

QUESTION: What is Paul telling his readers in this verse?

ANSWER: Sexual sin matters! Sometimes Christians do what even unbelievers would be ashamed of.

2) And you have become arrogant, and have not mourned instead, in order that the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst.

(GNB) How, then, can you be proud? On the contrary, you should be filled with sadness, and the man who has done such a thing should be expelled from your fellowship.

QUESTION: What does this verse show us?

ANSWER: It’s possible that Paul is still talking to the false teachers here. They were so arrogantly proud, but they should have been ashamed of the conduct of this man.

QUESTION: What did Paul say they should have done if they were now the leaders of the church?

ANSWER: They should have expelled the man from the church.

3) For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present.

4) In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus,

5) I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

QUESTION: What is Paul telling us is the reason behind expelling this man from the church?

ANSWER: Expulsion would remove the man from the covering of the church and place him back in the realm of the world/Satan’s kingdom. The purpose in doing that is to subject the man to sufferings that would embarrass him and lead him back to the Lord.

QUESTION: What does “the destruction of his flesh” mean?

“Paul’s command would also serve the important purpose of remove any false feeling of security the sinning man might have among the fellowship of Christians. They couldn’t just ignore his sin, and let him ignore it, pretending it wasn’t there. If the man refused to face his sin, the church must face it for him, for his sake and for their sake” [Guzik].

 

ANSWER: Commentators disagree on this subject. I believe that the idea is that this man was walking in the flesh, doing what his flesh wanted him to do, and something needed to happen that would break the power his flesh was exerting over him.

QUESTION: What end result was Paul hoping for?

ANSWER: Repentance!

QUESTION: Why did that form of church punishment work better then than it would now?

ANSWER: There was only one church in town then. If you were expelled from that church you had nowhere else to go. Your redeemed spirit would long for the fellowship of the church and that would cause you to repent so you could be re-instated into the church. Today, there are multitudes of other churches in every town in America of any size. If someone were expelled from their church today they would simply go to another one.

6) Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?

(MSG) Your 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.

7) Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.

8) Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

(NLT) So let us celebrate the festival, not by eating the old bread of wickedness and evil, but by eating the new bread of purity and truth.

QUESTION: What is Paul telling his readers in this verse?

**ANSWER: When you allow sin to operate in your church it affects the entire church as surely as yeast affect the entire dough. As uncomfortable as it is, sin must be dealt with.

9) I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people;

10) I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters; for then you would have to go out of the world.

11) But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he should be an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler —  not even to eat with such a one.

QUESTION: What is Paul teaching us here?

ANSWER: When we associate with the unbelievers we are not condoning sin, but rather hoping to be a light in the darkness of their lives. When we associate with believers who don’t care what the Word teaches, but have conscientiously decided to live contrary to its teachings, we are condoning sin.

QUESTION: Why is eating with someone the subject here?

ANSWER: Eating with someone is the same as fellowshipping with someone. The idea here is to withdraw our fellowship from that individual .

QUESTION: Is this verse telling me that if a fellow believer slips into one of the sins mentioned above that I am forbidden to eat with them?

ANSWER: No! Paul is talking about individuals who are living in sin.

***REMINDER TO MYSELF: ENLARGE ON THIS.

12) For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?

13) But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.

QUESTION: Did this expulsion from the church work in this case?

ANSWER: Yes! Paul later encourages them to re-admit this brother to their church [2 Cor. 2:6-11].