Scripture quotations on this page are from the World English Bible (public domain), shown in quotation marks; all commentary is written by Scripture Trove. Source: 1 Corinthians 5 · Commentary
In chapter 4, Paul had just closed his argument for unity with a "father's heart," asking the Corinthians whether he should come "with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness." In chapter 5 he raises the rod at once. Someone in the church is living with his stepmother, and the church not only fails to act but is actually "puffed up" about it. Paul takes one concrete scandal as his entry point and opens the central theme of Block Two (5:1–6:20): the holiness and discipline of the church.
This chapter opens Block Two, "The Holiness of the Church" (5:1–6:20). Block One (chapters 1–4) dealt with the problem of division; Block Two turns to the problem of morality. The two are internally connected: division grows out of spiritual immaturity, and so does moral permissiveness. Chapter 5 addresses sexual immorality, the first half of chapter 6 addresses lawsuits, and the second half of chapter 6 addresses the theology of the body.
The chapter has four movements, running from scandal to verdict to analogy to principle:
The four movements form a logical progression: diagnosis → verdict → theological rationale → operational principle. The first section exposes the problem, the second announces how it is to be handled, the third uses Passover theology to explain why this action is necessary, and the fourth draws a clear boundary: church discipline applies only to insiders. The whole chapter answers one question: when obvious sin appears within the church, what does love look like?
Love is not permissiveness. When open, ongoing, serious sin appears within the church, the church has a responsibility to exercise discipline. This is not out of revenge but for the salvation of the offender's soul and the holiness of the whole community. Christ has already been offered as our Passover lamb, so the church must remove the old leaven and keep the feast with the unleavened bread of "sincerity and truth."
5:6-7 "Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump? Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place."
1 Corinthians 5:6-7（World English Bible）
5:12-13 "For what do I have to do with also judging those who are outside? Don’t you judge those who are within? But those who are outside, God judges. “Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.”"
1 Corinthians 5:12-13（World English Bible）
Dear brothers and sisters,
This chapter is uncomfortable to read. "Hand him over to Satan." "Don't even eat with such a person." "Put the wicked man out." These words feel out of place in a church culture that today emphasizes "unconditional acceptance." But Paul wants us to see one thing: real love sometimes needs to say "No."
A father who sees his child reaching toward an open flame does not gently say, "Sweetheart, I support all your choices." He pulls the child away. What Paul does for the sinning man is exactly that kind of action. "Hand him over to Satan" sounds terrifying, but his purpose could not be stated more clearly: so that his soul may be saved. Discipline is correction, not rejection.
Perhaps even more piercing is the leaven analogy. Have you ever experienced this? Everyone in the church knows there is a problem — an improper relationship, a long-standing culture of slander, a leader abusing power — yet no one says anything. Because "we don't want to damage relationships." Because "we need to show grace." Paul says: you think this is love? You are letting the leaven work, and in the end the whole culture of the church will be changed.
What has God done for you? He offered the most costly Passover lamb — his own Son — so that you could become a "new unleavened lump." You are already clean. What remains is not to earn cleanness but to guard the cleanness you already possess, to clear out what does not belong here. This is not legalism; this is treasuring grace.
Paul says the church should have "mourned" rather than being "puffed up." When you hear that someone in the church has committed a serious sin, what is your first reaction — judgment, gossip, indifference, or grief?
"A little leaven leavens the whole lump." In your own church or fellowship group, are there problems everyone quietly knows about but no one is willing to address? Why does no one speak up?
Verse 5:12 says, "What have I to do with judging those who are outside?" Are there times when you are too harsh toward the moral standards of unbelievers outside the church, while turning a blind eye to problems inside it?
5:1 "It 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."
1 Corinthians 5:1（World English Bible）
πορνεία (porneia, sexual immorality, sexual sin) is a wide-ranging word in Paul's letters, covering all sexual activity outside of marriage. But the specific case here is that "one of you has his father's wife": γυναῖκά τινα τοῦ πατρὸς (a woman, or wife, of his father), almost certainly his stepmother (the father has likely died or divorced).
"Not even found among the Gentiles": Paul is not saying the pagan world is free from sexual immorality. He is saying that this specific type of incestuous relationship was forbidden even by Roman law (Gaius, Institutes 1.63), and that even Corinth, a city famous for sexual license, would have considered it scandalous. Leviticus 18:8 explicitly forbids it: "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife; it is your father's nakedness."
5:2 "You are puffed up, and didn’t rather mourn, that he who had done this deed might be removed from among you."
1 Corinthians 5:2（World English Bible）
This is what shocks Paul most: not that the man sinned (sin happens in a fallen world), but that the church is unmoved by it, even boastful. φυσιόω (physioō, to inflate, to be puffed up) is a word that just appeared three times in 4:6, 4:18, and 4:19. It is the Corinthians' "signature disease."
Why are they "puffed up"? Scholars offer several guesses. Perhaps they were defending this in the name of "freedom" or "grace" ("we can do anything in Christ" — the slogan 6:12 will address). Perhaps they were showcasing their "openness" and "spiritual transcendence" by tolerating it. Whatever the reason, Paul's diagnosis is the same: you should have mourned (πενθέω, pentheō, to grieve as at a funeral), not been proud.
5:3-4 "For 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. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,"
1 Corinthians 5:3-4（World English Bible）
Though physically absent from Corinth, Paul pronounces his verdict from afar with apostolic authority. "Present in spirit": τῷ πνεύματι (tō pneumati, in spirit). Paul understands that through the Holy Spirit's presence, even though he is far off in Ephesus, his spirit truly takes part in the deliberation of this assembly.
The structure of this passage is extremely important: "when you are gathered together, and my spirit is present, in the name of the Lord Jesus, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ." This is not Paul deciding on his own. He lays out a threefold source of authority:
Paul does not say "I alone have decided to expel him." He says "when you are gathered together... hand him over to Satan." The apostle's authority here is initiatory (he renders the judgment), but carrying it out requires the participation of the whole church.
5:5 "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."
1 Corinthians 5:5（World English Bible）
"Deliver such a one to Satan": παραδίδωμι (paradidōmi, to hand over, to deliver up) is an extremely weighty verb. This is the most shocking sentence in the whole chapter. What does "hand over to Satan" mean?
The most likely explanation: expulsion from the church. In Paul's worldview the church is God's domain, and outside the church is Satan's domain (cf. Ephesians 2:2, "the prince of the power of the air"). To drive a person out of the church is to hand him back over to Satan's territory, where he loses the protection and covering of the church community.
"The destruction of the flesh": ὄλεθρος (olethros, destruction, ruin). This may refer to:
The key lies in the final clause: "that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." This shows that the ultimate goal of church discipline is not punishment but redemption. Expulsion is not a way to vent anger but a way to lead him, having lost everything, to repent and return. The logic is similar to 3:15: a person may suffer devastating loss and yet in the end still be saved.
5:6 "Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump?"
1 Corinthians 5:6（World English Bible）
ζύμη (zymē, leaven, yeast). Paul uses an image every Jew would immediately recognize. In the Old Testament, leaven usually symbolizes the infectious, penetrating nature of sin (though it can also be used positively, as in Matthew 13:33). Paul's point is that sin is not a private matter. If one person's open sin goes unaddressed, it will spread like a pinch of leaven through the whole church, gradually changing the community's culture and standards.
"Your boasting is not good": the "tolerance" the church takes pride in is, in God's eyes, precisely the most dangerous thing. When the church turns a blind eye to sin, it is not displaying grace; it is letting the leaven do its work.
5:7 "Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place."
1 Corinthians 5:7（World English Bible）
The theological density of this verse is extraordinary. Paul makes a brilliant "already/not yet" dialectic:
Already: you are unleavened (ἐστε ἄζυμοι, este azymoi); in Christ your identity is already holy, already a new creation.
Not yet: therefore you must purge out the old leaven; your conduct needs to catch up with your identity.
This is not becoming holy by your own effort. You already are holy (because of Christ's blood), so live out that holiness. What is the theological basis? "For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed": πάσχα (pascha, Passover) directly connects Christ's death to the book of Exodus. The Passover logic runs like this: the lamb has been slain, the blood has been put on the doorposts, you have been redeemed. Now clear every trace of leaven out of your house (Exodus 12:15).
5:8 "Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old yeast, neither with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."
1 Corinthians 5:8（World English Bible）
"Keep the feast": ἑορτάζωμεν (heortazōmen, let us keep the feast). Paul reframes the whole of the Christian life as one continuous Passover celebration, observed not once a year but lived out every day in the reality of the Passover: the Lamb has been offered, and our life is that unleavened feast.
Here the "old leaven" is interpreted as "malice and wickedness" (κακία, kakia; πονηρία, ponēria), and the unleavened bread is interpreted as "sincerity and truth" (εἰλικρίνεια, eilikrineia; ἀλήθεια, alētheia). The leaven/unleavened image is thus lifted from the ceremonial level to the moral and spiritual level.
5:9 "I wrote to you in my letter to have no company with sexual sinners;"
1 Corinthians 5:9（World English Bible）
Paul mentions an earlier letter (written before our "1 Corinthians"). That letter has been lost. This reminds us that the Pauline letters collected in the New Testament are not everything he wrote, but only those the Holy Spirit preserved as canon.
5:10 "yet not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world, or with the covetous and extortionists, or with idolaters; for then you would have to leave the world."
1 Corinthians 5:10（World English Bible）
Paul immediately clears up a misunderstanding: by "have no company" he does not mean cutting off contact with every sinner in the world. That would be impossible, unless you moved to the moon. Christians are not meant to withdraw from society and build a sterile bubble.
5:11 "But as it is, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortionist. Don’t even eat with such a person."
1 Corinthians 5:11（World English Bible）
The key qualifier is "called a brother" (ὀνομαζόμενος ἀδελφός, onomazomenos adelphos). Paul's concern is not with outsiders but with insiders who claim to be believers yet go on living in obvious sin without repenting.
"Don't even eat with such a person": in the ancient Mediterranean world, eating together was the most basic expression of social acceptance. In the church it was even more so, for the Lord's Table (the Eucharist) was the highest expression of shared identity. To break off table fellowship was to exclude someone completely from the community.
The list of sins Paul gives — sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, slander, drunkenness, extortion — is not every possible sin but a representative set of serious, public, ongoing patterns of sin. Note that this is not about "stumbling once" but about a persistent way of life combined with refusal to repent.
5:12 "For what do I have to do with also judging those who are outside? Don’t you judge those who are within?"
1 Corinthians 5:12（World English Bible）
Paul draws an extraordinarily clear line: church discipline applies only to members within the church. The church has neither the authority nor the calling to judge unbelievers in the world; that is God's business. The church's responsibility is to keep its own house in order.
This offers a double correction in honor-and-shame cultures, both ancient and modern. On the one hand, some churches keep their internal problems under wraps, treating them as "family shame not to be aired in public." Paul says no: matters inside the church you must deal with. On the other hand, some Christians are eager to judge the morality of unbelievers in society. Paul says that is not your concern; tend to the people inside the church.
5:13 "But those who are outside, God judges. “Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.”"
1 Corinthians 5:13（World English Bible）
The closing sentence quotes a fixed formula from Deuteronomy: "Put away the evil person from among you" (Deuteronomy 17:7; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21; 24:7). This is the legal language Old Testament Israel used for handling serious offenders in the community. Paul applies the disciplinary concept of Israel's holy assembly directly to the New Testament church.
| Theme | Key Point | Textual Basis |
|---|---|---|
| The necessity of church discipline | Silence toward open, ongoing sin is not grace but enabling, and it infects the whole body | 5:2, 5:6 |
| The ultimate goal of discipline | Not punishment or revenge, but redemption: "that his soul may be saved in the day of the Lord" | 5:5 |
| Passover theology | Christ is the Passover lamb; the church's life is a continuous Feast of Unleavened Bread — already holy, called to live out holiness | 5:7-8 |
| Inside vs. outside | Church discipline applies only to those inside who claim to be believers; God himself will judge those outside | 5:12-13 |
| The relationship between grace and holiness | "You are unleavened" (identity) → "purge out the old leaven" (behavior). Identity is not earned by works; identity drives behavior | 5:7 |
| 1 Corinthians Text | Citation / Echo | Connection |
|---|---|---|
| 5:1 "one has his father's wife" | Leviticus 18:8; Deuteronomy 22:30 | The Old Testament explicitly forbids this relationship: "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife." Paul uses this as the basis for "not even found among the Gentiles" |
| 5:5 "deliver to Satan" | 1 Timothy 1:20 | Paul did the same with Hymenaeus and Alexander: "that they may be taught not to blaspheme." The purpose is likewise corrective |
| 5:6 "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" | Galatians 5:9 | Paul uses exactly the same proverb in Galatians, where the "leaven" is legalism eroding the purity of the gospel |
| 5:7 "Christ, our Passover" | Exodus 12:1–13; John 1:29 | The entire Exodus Passover narrative — the lamb slain, the blood on the doorposts, the destroying angel passing over — finds its fulfillment in the cross of Christ |
| 5:8 "the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" | Exodus 12:15–20 | On the eve of Passover, Israel was to remove all leaven from their houses completely. Paul lifts this ceremonial act into a continuous moral and spiritual way of life |
| 5:13 "put away the wicked man from among yourselves" | Deuteronomy 17:7; 19:19; 22:21 | The fixed formula Deuteronomy repeats: Israel's holy assembly's standard procedure for serious offenders, which Paul applies directly to the church |
| Device | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Remote judicial pronouncement | 5:3-5 | Paul uses legal and courtroom language ("I have already judged") to exercise apostolic authority by letter from afar: a rare, forceful move in ancient epistolary practice |
| Indicative → imperative logic | 5:7 | "You are unleavened (fact) → therefore purge out the old leaven (command)": Paul's most characteristic ethical reasoning — first establish identity, then call for matching behavior |
| Passover typology | 5:7-8 | Christ's death is mapped onto the Passover lamb, and the church's life onto the Feast of Unleavened Bread; an entire Old Testament festival becomes a foreshadowing fulfilled in the New Testament reality |
| Vice list | 5:10-11 | A catalog of sins is a common Pauline device (cf. Galatians 5:19–21; Romans 1:29–31): not exhaustive but representative, letting readers extend the principle by analogy |
| Old Testament quotation as closing | 5:13b | The chapter ends with the fixed Deuteronomic formula "drive out the wicked man," sealing the verdict with scriptural authority that admits no dispute |
| Ring structure | 5:1-2 ↔ 5:13 | Opening: "someone has done this" → Closing: "put the wicked man out." Problem and resolution form an inclusio |
| Greek | Transliteration | CUV Rendering | Meaning and Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| πορνεία | porneia | sexual immorality | A blanket term for all sexual relations outside of marriage. In 5:1 it refers specifically to the incestuous act of living with one's stepmother. In Paul's letters porneia is an umbrella term, not limited to any one type of sexual sin |
| φυσιόω | physioō | puffed up | "To be inflated": a signature word of 1 Corinthians (6 of its 7 NT occurrences are in this letter). In 5:2 the church being "puffed up" about the scandal is the same disease as the pride in 4:6/4:18 |
| παραδίδωμι | paradidōmi | hand over | "To hand over, to deliver." In 5:5, "deliver to Satan": the same word is used in Matthew 26:15 for Judas "betraying" Jesus, and in Romans 8:32 for God "not sparing his own Son, but giving him up for us all." The sense of the handing over depends on the motive |
| ζύμη | zymē | leaven | The central metaphor of 5:6–8. In Passover tradition, leaven represents the old life of Egypt; the unleavened represents the cleanness of a fresh start. Paul moralizes it: old leaven = malice and wickedness; unleavened = sincerity and truth |
| πάσχα | pascha | Passover | 5:7, "Christ, our Passover": one of the most direct New Testament texts equating Christ with the Passover lamb (cf. John 1:29; 1 Peter 1:19). This is not a metaphor but typological fulfillment |
| ἄζυμος | azymos | unleavened | 5:7–8, "you are unleavened": describing the believers' new identity in Christ. The already-true fact (indicative) is the ground for the behavior (imperative) |
| ἐξαίρω | exairō | drive out | 5:13, "put away the wicked man from among yourselves": quoting the fixed Deuteronomic formula (LXX), applying Old Testament holy-assembly discipline directly to the church |
The progression of the chapter's argument can be grasped through the structural overview given in the introduction:
The chapter has four movements, running from scandal to verdict to analogy to principle:
In this chapter Paul gives three layers of theological basis for church discipline:
| Level | Content | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Soteriological | The ultimate purpose of discipline is the redemption of the offender: "that his soul may be saved" | 5:5 |
| Christological | Christ is the Passover lamb: his death made us a holy new lump, and we are responsible to preserve that holiness | 5:7 |
| Ecclesiological | The church is an organism: "a little leaven leavens the whole lump"; one person's sin affects the whole body | 5:6 |
Together these three layers show that church discipline is not human judgment but a response to Christ's redemptive work. Because Christ's blood has already made you an unleavened new lump, you are responsible to live out this identity, and as a community even more so.
Verse 5:7 is the most classic single sentence of Paul's ethics: "You are unleavened, therefore purge out the old leaven."
This pattern runs through all of Paul's moral teaching:
The logic is always: indicative (who you are) → imperative (so how you should live). It is not "earn it first and then you deserve it," but "you already are this, so live it out."
Chapter 4 says "judge nothing"; chapter 5, Paul immediately "judges" a man. This seems contradictory. The distinction is this:
| What 4:3–5 forbids | What 5:3–5 requires |
|---|---|
| Ultimate evaluation of a person's inner motives | Dealing with public sin |
| Usurping God's place to render final judgment | The church's pastoral discipline of its own members |
| "You're not spiritual enough" style judgmentalism | Pointing out "your behavior contradicts the gospel" |
In short: do not judge people's souls (that is God's business), but do address people's behavior (that is the church's responsibility).
Corinthian society prized reputation, status, and public respectability. If the church stayed silent about an obvious sexual scandal, it would not only be a breakdown of internal ethics; it would also lead the surrounding pagan city to assume that the Christian community was no different from the culture around it. Paul calls the church to deal with this not in order to shame anyone, but to protect the holiness of the community's witness and to leave open the possibility that the offender might repent and return.
Against this background, "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" is not just an abstract metaphor but a social reality: if the church dresses up serious sin as tolerance, the whole community's moral imagination will be reshaped.
Verse 5:5, "deliver to Satan for the destruction of the flesh," is one of the most difficult texts in the New Testament. There are three main interpretations:
Interpretation A: Expulsion from the church (majority view)
The church is God's domain; outside the church is Satan's domain (Ephesians 2:2; 1 John 5:19). To expel a person from the church is to push him back into Satan's jurisdiction. "The destruction of the flesh" may refer to the suffering he meets after losing the church's protection, the aim being to shock him into repentance. 1 Timothy 1:20 has a similar use: "Hymenaeus and Alexander... whom I delivered to Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme."
Interpretation B: A curse leading to physical illness
"The destruction of the flesh" (ὄλεθρος, olethros, destruction) is taken as literal bodily punishment, like the fate of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1–11). This reading has support among the church fathers (Tertullian, Chrysostom), but the difficulty is that it seems to stand in tension with the goal of "the soul being saved."
Interpretation C: The desires of the flesh being destroyed
σάρξ (sarx) here is read not as "body" but as "the flesh, the sinful nature" (as in Galatians 5:24, "have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts"). "The destruction of the flesh" = the destroying of his sinful nature; the suffering of excommunication dismantles the desires of his flesh.
Assessment: Interpretation A best fits the context. In 5:2, 5:7, and 5:13 Paul keeps speaking of "driving out," and 5:5 is the theological expression of the same thing. Paul does not spell out the precise mechanism of "the destruction of the flesh" (it could be B or C), but the outward act of expulsion from the church is clear.
In applying chapter 5, modern churches fall into two extremes:
Extreme A: Total neglect. Using "grace" and "no judging" as reasons, they refuse to address any internal problem. The result: the church's standards of holiness gradually disappear, and the "leaven" spreads unchecked.
Extreme B: Abusive control. Church discipline becomes a tool of leaders' power, used to inflict punitive exclusion on dissenters and questioners. The result: the church becomes a closed, controlling community.
The principles Paul gives in this chapter chart a narrow path between them:
In practice this means the church should have a clear process: private admonition (Matthew 18:15) → bring witnesses and admonish again (Matthew 18:16) → tell the church (Matthew 18:17) → and only then exclusion. Paul skips the earlier steps here and goes straight to the verdict because this matter is already "reported" (public), the church already knows but has refused to act, and it has reached the point that requires decisive action.