Refocusing Faith: A Study of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (Right and Wrong - 1 Corinthians 5:1–6:20)

Paul faced a problem. One of the churches he’d planted in Greece was being torn apart by factions and internal conflict, a situation that sounds an awful lot like what we see within the modern church. These divisions not only endangered its ability to share the Christian faith within a pagan world, they also threatened the unity of the church itself. In this letter, Paul challenged these Christians to put aside their animosities and refocus their faith on Jesus Christ. In each session, we’ll consider a part of Paul’s letter as follows:

• Session 1 - Paul’s Greeting (1 Corinthians 1:1-9)
• Session 2 - The Issue (1 Corinthians 1:10–3:4)
• Session 3 - Doing the Work We’ve Been Given (1 Corinthians 3:5–4:21)
• Session 4 - Right and Wrong (1 Corinthians 5:1–6:20)
• Session 5 - Marital Distractions  (1 Corinthians 7:1-40)
• Session 6 - Food, Freedom and Focus (1 Corinthians 8:1–9:23)
• Session 7 - What’s Most Important (1 Corinthians 9:24–11:1)
• Session 8 - Dealing with Traditions and Customs (1 Corinthians 11:2-34)
• Session 9 - Like a Body (1 Corinthians 12:1-31)
• Session 10 - Love (1 Corinthians 13:1-13)
• Session 11 - Tongues  (1 Corinthians 14:1-40)
• Session 12 - Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-58)
• Session 13 - And in Conclusion (1 Corinthians 16:1-24)

In our fourth session, we looked at the issue of freedom and morality within the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 5:1–6:20). The discussion and passage are below.

1 Corinthians 5:1–6:20 [New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition]

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and the sort of sexual immorality that is not found even among gentiles, for a man is living with his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Should you not rather have mourned, so that he who has done this would have been removed from among you?

For I, though absent in body, am present in spirit, and as if present I have already pronounced judgment in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Your boasting is not a good thing. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all of the dough? Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy or an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler. Do not even eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging those outside? Are you not judges of those who are inside? God will judge those outside. “Drive out the wicked person from among you.”

When any of you has a grievance against another, do you dare to take it to court before the unrighteous, instead of taking it before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels, to say nothing of ordinary matters? If you have ordinary cases, then, do you appoint as judges those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one person wise enough to decide between brothers and sisters? Instead, brothers and sisters go to court against one another, and this before the unbelievers.

In fact, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—and brothers and sisters at that.

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, men who engage in illicit sex, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

“All things are permitted for me,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are permitted for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,” and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for sexual immorality but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.” But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun sexual immorality! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against the body itself. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.