Scripture Daily

Context No. 2958 of 4322 · 1 Corinthians

Context · Reflection

1 Corinthians 5:1-5: in context

1It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father’s wife. 2You are arrogant, and didn’t mourn instead, that he who had done this deed might be removed from among you. 3For I most certainly, as being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has done this thing. 4In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together with my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 5you are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Paul confronts a scandal in the Corinthian church: a man is living in open sexual sin with his father's wife, something even the surrounding pagans would not tolerate, and the church, instead of grieving, is arrogant about it. Paul, though absent, has already judged the matter, and instructs them, gathered in the name of the Lord, to hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

This is a hard passage about church discipline, and its aim is easy to misread. Paul is not being vindictive; the stated purpose is restoration, that his spirit may be saved. The church had grown proud and casual about blatant sin, and Paul calls them to take it seriously, removing the unrepentant man not to destroy him but to bring him to his senses and, in the end, to salvation. Real love sometimes means refusing to pretend that sin is fine, precisely for the sake of the person caught in it.

Do I mistake tolerance of clear, unrepented sin for love, when real love sometimes has to confront it for the person's own salvation?

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