1 Corinthians 5:2 – healthy resistance

And you are puffed up, and mourn not rather, that the one who commits this act may be taken away from your midst.

Not the man who deceived his father with his wife, is questioned in this chapter. At most, his behaviour is illustrative for the ecclesia in Corinth: it showed a lack of honour for the Father. However, Paul doesn’t point his words to him, but to the Corinthians who approved his behaviour with pride. A behaviour that even in a harbour town as Corinth was outrageous.

By the attitude of the Corinthians the evildoer could go on in the ecclesia undisturbedly. Paul doesn’t insist to take away his membership of the church. Something like that didn’t even exist and doesn’t also go along with the principle of the ecclesia. The members are surely baptized by one spirit into one body (12: 13). Nobody can undo that.

Paul doesn’t say (as displayed in most translations) that the Corinthians should be removed from their midst. No, he appeals them to change their attitude. Would one be sad about the behaviour of the man, he would disappear himself out of their midst. For germs don’t flourish in a healthy body. That is not an organisational measure, but an organic fact!

Delen: