The Call to Maintain the Purity of Christ’s Church – 1 Corinthians 5:1-13
5 It is actually reported that there is fornication among you, and the kind of fornication that does not even exist among the Gentiles, namely, that someone has his father’s wife. (2) And you are arrogant! Should you not rather be grieved, so that he who has done this thing might be removed from your fellowship? (3) Though I am not present physically, yet being present by the Spirit, I have already judged him who has done this thing, just as though I were present with you. (4) When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, I exhort you, by the power of our Lord Jesus, (5) to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of his sinful nature, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.
(6) Your boasting is not good. Do you not realize that a little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough? (7) Get rid of the old leaven, so that you may be what you are—a new batch of unleavened dough. Since, indeed, our Passover lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed; (8) let us observe the Feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
(9) I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with fornicators. (10) I was not referring to the people of this world who are fornicators, or who are greedy, or swindlers, or idolaters. If that were the case, you would have to leave the world. (11) But what I meant when I wrote to you is that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a Christian brother, but is a fornicator, or who is a greedy man, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or a swindler. With such a person, you ought not to have fellowship. (12) What do I have to do with judging those who are outside the church? But do not even you yourselves judge those who are within the church? (13) God will judge those who are outside the church. Remove the wicked man from your fellowship.
Now proceed to the next section of this study, entitled, Exploring the Passage.
