The Book of
1 Corinthians 5
13 verses≈ 3 minBSB
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Where we are
- 1–4DivisionsChrist crucified, not rival leaders
- 5–6A holy peopleDiscipline, lawsuits and the bodyChapter 5
- 7–10Your questionsMarriage, food and freedom
- 11–14Worship togetherThe Supper, gifts and love
- 15–16Raised with ChristResurrection hope; the collection
Immorality Rebuked
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is intolerable even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife.
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And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been stricken with grief and have removed from your fellowship the man who did this?
Although I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit, and I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, along with the power of the Lord Jesus, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the Day of the Lord.
Reflect
Grief, not pride
Paul’s sharpest words are not for the man alone but for a church that was proud when it should have grieved: “Shouldn’t you rather have been stricken with grief?” Is there a sin you have learned to live with, in yourself or among friends, that God would have you grieve over instead? Write it down honestly, and remember that Paul’s goal is never ruin but rescue: “so that his spirit may be saved.”
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old leaven, that you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are.
For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
1 Corinthians 5:7
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old bread, leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and of truth.
Keep the feast
Whiteboard
At Passover every Jewish home swept out the old leaven before the lamb was eaten. Paul turns it around: the Lamb has already been sacrificed, so the feast has begun. Christ has made His people “a new unleavened batch,” and now they are to live like it, clearing out “malice and wickedness” and keeping the feast with “sincerity and of truth.”
Question
Quick question
Paul reaches for the oldest feast in Israel’s calendar, the night the lambs were killed and the bread had no leaven in it.
Who does Paul call “our Passover lamb”?
Expel the Immoral Brother
I wrote you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. I was not including the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.
But now I am writing you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a verbal abuser, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
What business of mine is it to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man from among you.”
0:13
Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain
Pray
Holy and gentle
Thank Jesus that He is “our Passover lamb,” sacrificed for you. Ask Him to make His church both holy and gentle: honest about sin, quick to grieve over it, and longing for every wanderer to come home. Pray for any believer you know who has drifted, that God would bring them back. And ask Him to keep you from judging “those outside,” and to make you a friend to them instead.
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1 Corinthians 5
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A verse to carry with you
For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
1 Corinthians 5:7
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