Scripture: I Corinthians 5
Translation:
1Sexual sin is actually heard of among you, even the kind of sexual
sin, which isn’t even among the pagans, namely that someone has his father’s
wife! 2And you are proud [of it]! You’re not even grieving enough,
so the one practicing this action is removed from your midst, are you? 3So,
as for me, although away in body, but present in the Spirit, I’ve already
judged the doing this in this way as though I was present, 4in the
Name of the Lord Jesus, when you and my Spirit gather together with the power
of our Lord Jesus, 5to hand this kind of person to Satan for the
destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit might be saved on the Day of the
Lord! 6Your bragging is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast
leavens the whole batch of dough? 7Clean out the old yeast, so that
you can be a new batch of dough, just as you unleavened loaves, because our
Passover Lamb, the Messiah, was sacrificed! 8With the result that we
celebrate the feast not with the old yeast, that is not with the yeast of
badness and sexual sin, but rather with unleavened loaves of pure-motivation
and truth! 9I’m writing to you in the letter to not have anything to
do with sexual sinners, 10not totally with sexual-sinners of this
world or with the greedy people and robbers or idol-worshipers, because you
then ought to come out from the world! 11And now I’m writing to you
not to have anything to do with anyone called a brother who would be a
sexual-sinner or greedy person or idol-worshiper or verbally abusive person or
drunk person or robber—don’t even eat with that kind of person! 12Because
why is it my job to judge people on the outside? You don’t judge people on the
inside, do you? 13And God judges the people on the outside.
Completely remove the wicked person from you yourselves!
Interpretation
1.
Structure
a.
Structure 1
i.
Paul Calls the Church to
Pass Judgment on the Sexual-Sinner (vv.1-8)
1.
Paul’s Shock that the
Corinthians Haven’t Already Dealt with the Sinner (vv.1-2)
2.
Paul’s Judgment on the
Sinner (vv.3-5)
3.
Paul’s Explanation of the
Need to Deal with It (vv.6-8)
ii.
Paul Explains His First
Letter and His Current Letter (vv.9-13a)
1.
He Doesn’t Mean Avoid All
Sinners Everywhere (vv.9-10)
2.
He Means Avoid Sinners Who
Call Themselves Christians (vv.11-13a)
iii.
Conclusion: Deal with the
Sinner! (v.13b)
b.
Structure 2
A Why Haven’t You Dealt with the Sinner (vv.1-2)
B Pass
Judgment on the Sinner as a Community (vv.3-5)
C Why
Pass Judgment on the Sinner (vv.6-8)
B’ Pass
Judgment on the Sinners in the Church, not the World (vv.9-13a)
A’ Deal with the Sinner (v.13b)
2.
Themes
a.
Sexual sin (πορνεια)
b.
Judgment (κρινω)
i.
Judgment needs to happen in
the church (vv.1-2, 3-5, 6-8, 11-13)
ii.
Christians are supposed to
let God judge the non-Christians (vv.9-10)
iii.
The “Day of the Lord” in
v.5 is a reference to the Day Jesus returns to judge the world
c.
Boasting/bragging (καυχημα)
d.
Passover/Leavened/Unleavened
Bread (πασχα και ζυμη και αζυμοι)
i.
So this is the more
difficult section to understand without understanding the background of the
Passover feast in the Old Testament. In the OT, when God saved the Israelites
from slavery in Egypt, He had them have a feast where they ate bread that
hadn’t risen and a Lamb was killed and the blood was put around the front door.
The Lamb was cooked and eaten, but the blood on the door posts meant that the
Angel of Destruction would pass over that house and let all the people inside
live, but if there was no blood on the door posts, the firstborn child was
killed. The Israelites then celebrated this festival each year, but before the
festival began they searched the entire house and got rid of all the yeast or
leavening agents inside the house. Then they killed the Passover lamb and ate
unleavened bread for a week
ii.
Paul’s point is that sin,
in particular this sexual sin, is like the leaven that you have to get out of
the house before you worship God with the Passover meal. The community needs to
be free of all the impure activities, instead replaced with pure-motives and
truth
iii.
Jesus as our Passover
Sacrifice makes it possible for us live a new lifestyle, not like the old one,
but like the new one
e.
Sinners in general
i.
Interestingly, while Paul
is focusing on sexual sin, he frequently groups it with other kinds of sin, so
that the Corinthians think it is only sexual sin that has to be dealt with like
this
f.
The activity of
doing/personal responsibility/activity
g.
Old vs. New
h.
Outside vs. Inside
i.
Excommunication
i.
Paul tells them to pass
judgment on the sinning brother (vv.3-5), kicking him out of the church and
disassociating themselves with him (vv.6-8, 11-13)
ii.
Paul considers this act as
handing the sinner over to Satan to be destroyed in the body
iii.
But Paul’s actual hope and
aim is that the person will through the process see the error of their ways and
return to Christ and to living the Christian life
3.
Doctrines
a.
Sin, especially sexual sin,
is a community issue. It is the church’s business who is living out the
Christian life well.
b.
The church is a connected
entity, one part effects the whole, and the whole should effect the part
c.
God judges non-Christians,
and Christians judge Christians
d.
Excommunication is an
important act of church discipline
e.
Church discipline is
redemptive in nature, not merely judgment
Applications
1.
We need to be a community
that deals with sin, all sin, but in particular sexual sin
2.
In our culture the guiding
assumption is that what you or I do sexually is no one’s business. This is true
actually of things in general. It’s no one’s business if you are getting high
and drunk but yours. It’s no one’s business if you’re marriage is having
trouble but yours. It’s no one’s business if you’re cheating on your tests or
whatever. But in our culture this is especially true of sex. And it is perhaps
one of the biggest lies that we are liable to believe, because we buy our
culture’s claim that your sex life can’t hurt anyone but you. But of course
that’s a load of bull! Let’s take porn for example. Someone who watches porn is
destroying so many people but he or she doesn’t even see it, because they do it
the dark of their room. But in fact that person watching porn, by watching it
is propagating the continued production of porn. And the porn industry is one
of the biggest users and abusers of women period. It is our culture’s form of
legalized prostitution. But porn degrades the person performing and the person
watching. Both get wrong ideas of where their value or joy really lies, and
what sex is really about, and whether their body is a chunk of meat to be
bought and sold! It ruins and shapes the view of people. It jacks with your
mind. But of course once it messes with your mind you are liable both to not
realize this and to then inadvertently share that warped perspective with other
in the church, and perhaps you know enough not to suggest that they watch porn,
but you model interactions and thoughts towards others that highly sexualized
and warped. Actual sexual activities involving other people of course has a
huge impact on them and the relationships all parties involved have with others
in the body. Moreover, sexual sin among the Church is sin against members of
the church, you or I looking at someone inappropriately or making out with
someone is going to violate the purity that God has called them to, which means
you are affecting your relationship with God, their relationship with God, and
the whole church’s relationship with God as we would be adversely affecting the
spiritual health of the community as a whole, in addition to the same warping
of the understanding of purity and value
3.
But of course, to be a
community that actually deals with sin, and especially sexual sin, we will need
to be the kind of community where failures are confessed and forgiven, where
weaknesses are strengthened and supported, where insecurities are brought to
Christ and identity is formed by the Spirit, where we seek out help when we
need and we seek to give strength and encouragement when we have it, a place
where shame and guilt and given to Jesus and not used by the community to
control and devalue others, where we model that same shame-and-guilt-removing
tendency of Christ, but it will also need to be a community that cares and that
is not willing to let things go on without change, it will have to be a
community where people who refuse to change are called to repentance, and a
community that does have standards that it upholds, a community that although
with great pain and personal cost enacts judgment for the glory of God, the
good of the community, and the good of the sinning brother or sister!
4.
We also will need to be the
kind of community that is known for the grace and patience and lack of judgment
on non-Christians, but still willing to make moral assessments of our brothers
and sisters, not in a gossipy, self-serving, holier-than-thou attitude or
practice, but one that really does seek to embrace the new life that Christ has
given us
5.
Questions
a.
What are some sins that we
act like we are proud of, but shouldn’t?
b.
When do you think we need
to take the step as a community to pass judgment on a sinning brother or
sister? How much or how long should we be patient?
c.
How can we become a
community that deals with our sins, especially our sexual sins? What needs to
change? What should stay the same? How can we help sinning brothers or sisters?
d.
How does Jesus death on the
cross for our sins change how we live? What is different about us if we believe
in Jesus?
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