Holiness Is Not Optional
Through the Letter — Study 6 of 34: 1 Corinthians 5:1-13
Paul’s tone shifts dramatically as we enter chapter 5.
The letter, so far, has addressed divisions and immaturity. Now it addresses something darker: sexual immorality that has penetrated the very fabric of the church. “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not even tolerated among pagans: a man is sleeping with his father’s wife.”
The bluntness is striking.
Not only is there sexual immorality, but there is incest. A man is in a sexual relationship with his stepmother. Whether the father is alive or dead is unclear from the text, but either way, this is a violation of the deepest social and religious boundaries.
Leviticus 18:8 explicitly forbids sexual relations with one’s stepmother. This is not an ambiguous case. This is not a matter of different cultural values. This is a clear violation of the law of God.
But what is most shocking to Paul is not that this sin exists. Sinners in the church are not surprising; the church is full of sinners. What is shocking is that the church has tolerated it.
“And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.”
The Corinthians are not mourning. They are not grieving. They are arrogant. The word for “arrogant” (physioo) literally means puffed up, inflated. This is the same word Paul has used earlier to describe the Corinthians’ spiritual pride about their gifts and their wisdom. They are so impressed with themselves, so focused on their own spirituality and maturity, that they have become blind to a grave sin in their midst. They have become so “sophisticated” in their spirituality that they have lost the simple capacity to be grieved by sin.
Craig Keener notes that, in the Greco-Roman context, sexual morality was often seen as a matter of personal preference rather than a community concern. Different philosophical schools had different views on sexuality. Some Stoics were strict; others were permissive.
It is possible that some in the Corinthian church had absorbed the idea that sexuality was a private matter, that it did not affect the church’s life together, that genuine spirituality meant rising above concern for such earthly matters. And so they had simply ignored the situation, or perhaps had even defended it as a sign of spiritual freedom.
