1Cor 5:9-12 | JFB | STEP | 9. I wrote ... in an epistle-- rather, "in the Epistle": a former one not now extant. That Paul does not refer to the present letter is proved by the fact that no direction "not to company with fornicators" occurs in the previous part of it; also the words, "in an (or, the) epistle," could not have been added if he meant, "I have just written" ( ). "His letters" (plural; not applying to merely one) confirm this. also refers to our first Epistle, just as here a former letter is referred to by the same phrase. Paul probably wrote a former brief reply to inquiries of the Corinthians: our first Epistle, as it enters more fully into the same subject, has superseded the former, which the Holy Spirit did not design for the guidance of the Church in general, and which therefore has not been preserved. See my Introduction.

‏ 1 Corinthians 5:9-12

9. I wrote ... in an epistle--rather, "in the Epistle": a former one not now extant. That Paul does not refer to the present letter is proved by the fact that no direction "not to company with fornicators" occurs in the previous part of it; also the words, "in an (or, the) epistle," could not have been added if he meant, "I have just written" (2Co 10:10). "His letters" (plural; not applying to merely one) confirm this. 2Co 7:8 also refers to our first Epistle, just as here a former letter is referred to by the same phrase. Paul probably wrote a former brief reply to inquiries of the Corinthians: our first Epistle, as it enters more fully into the same subject, has superseded the former, which the Holy Spirit did not design for the guidance of the Church in general, and which therefore has not been preserved. See my Introduction.

10. Limitation of the prohibition alluded to in 1Co 5:9. As in dissolute Corinth to "company with no fornicators," &c., would be almost to company with none in the (unbelieving) world; ye need not utterly ("altogether") forego intercourse with fornicators, &c., of the unbelieving world (compare 1Co 10:27; Joh 17:15; 1Jo 5:18, 19). As "fornicators" sin against themselves, so "extortioners" against their neighbors, and "idolaters" against God. The attempt to get "out of the world," in violation of God's will that believers should remain in it but keep themselves from its evil, led to monasticism and its consequent evils.

11. But now--"Now" does not express time, but "the case being so," namely, that to avoid fornicators, &c., of the world, you would have to leave the world altogether, which would be absurd. So "now" is used in He 11:16. Thus we avoid making the apostle now retract a command which he had before given.

I have written--that is, my meaning in the letter I wrote was "not to keep company," &c.

a brother--contrasted with a "fornicator ... of the world" (1Co 5:10). There is less danger in associating with open worldlings than with carnal professors. Here, as in Ep 5:3, 5, "covetousness" is joined with "fornication": the common fount of both being "the fierce and ever fiercer longing of the creature, which has turned from God, to fill itself with the inferior objects of sense" [Trench, Greek Synonyms of the New Testament]. Hence "idolatry" is associated with them: and the covetous man is termed an "idolater" (Nu 25:1, 2). The Corinthians did not fall into open idolatry, but ate things offered to idols, so making a compromise with the heathen; just as they connived at fornication. Thus this verse prepares for the precepts in 1Co 8:4, &c. Compare the similar case of fornication, combined with a similar idolatrous compromise, after the pattern of Israel with the Midianites (Re 2:14).

no not to eat--not to sit at the same table with such; whether at the love-feasts (agapæ) or in private intercourse, much more at the Lord's table: at the last, too often now the guests "are not as children in one family, but like a heterogeneous crowd of strangers in an inn" [Bengel] (compare Ga 2:12; 2Jo 10, 11).

12. what have I to do--You might have easily understood that my concern is not with unbelievers outside the Church, but that I referred to those within it.

also--Implying, Those within give me enough to do without those outside.

do not ye, &c.--Ye judge your fellow citizens, not strangers: much more should I [Bengel]. Rather, Is it not your duty to judge them that are within? God shall judge them that are without: do you look at home [Grotius]. God is the Judge of the salvation of the heathen, not we (Ro 2:12-16). Paul here gives an anticipatory censure of their going to law with saints before heathen tribunals, instead of judging such causes among themselves within.