No kingdom of God for softies? or, what was Paul really saying? 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 in context

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Spring, 2004 by John H. Elliott

Chapter five opens with mention of a case of incest (5:1), a type of porneia condemned even by Gentiles, Paul notes. Thus the pornoi referred to a bit later (5:9, 10) could be understood as perpetrators of incest. On the other hand, since they appear here in 5:9 and 5:10, as in 6:9-10, in traditional lists of various types of immoral persons, the term pornoi might have the more general sense of "sexually immoral persons" or "fornicators." In any case, Paul's chief concern in 5:1-12 was to denounce this act of incest within the Corinthian community because it undermined the moral and social integrity of the believing community as a whole. The believers are urged to "remove him from among you" (5:2) and to "purge the evil one from your midst" (5:13). The OT prohibition of incest appears in Deuteronomy 22:30 (HT: 23:1; cf. 27:20; Lev 18:8; 20:11). But the excommunicating injunction, "purge the evil one from your midst," was employed repeatedly in Deuteronomic legislation in relation not only to incest but to a variety of community-threatening acts (13:6, 17:7, 19:19, 22:24; 24:7).

Thus, in regard to 1 Corinthians 5:1-11 and the case of incest within the community, this instance of porneia was seen by Paul as something that could contaminate the entire community (as leaven "contaminates" a lump of dough). From this perspective, therefore, the perpetrator had to be expelled (5:2, 13) and delivered to Satan with the goal of freeing the community of this contaminating "malice and evil" (5:8) and of seeking his ultimate repentance and salvation (5:5). Ethically, Paul's strategy for dealing with this situation assumes (1) a group of believing insiders demarcated from immoral outsiders (5:12); (2) an infecting and polluting power of porneia capable of corrupting the entire community (as leaven does a lump of dough); (3) the cultural (Israelite) association of leaven with malice and evil (5:8) and the Christian identification of Jesus Christ as paschal lamb (associated with unleavened bread, 5:7); and (4) the effectiveness of social excommunication as a controlling discipline for maintaining ideological and social cohesion. These assumptions regarding the necessary demarcation of believing, holy insiders from nonbelieving, unholy outsiders and concerning the infectious and contaminating power of immorality and unholiness inform all of 5:1-6:20 and its ethical strategy and in fact the letter as a whole.

The exhortation of chapter 6 is related thematically to that of chapter 5 and was likewise guided by these assumptions. What relates the issues of litigation (6:1-8), conduct barring admission to the kingdom of God (6:9-11), and intercourse with prostitutes (6:12-20) to the preceding case of incest is a similar social problem and a similar Pauline response inspired by a similar set of assumptions: (1) the unacceptable association of holy insiders (6:1, 11, 19) with "unjust/unrighteous" outsiders (6:1), including prostitutes (6:16), and the illogical submission of the holy ones to inferior outsiders' legal judgment (6:1-8); (2) discord within the community (6:1-8) and the pollution affecting the entire Body of Christ through members' association with prostitutes (6:15-20; cf. 6:11); and (3) a libertine (6:12, 13) and arrogant (cf. 5:2, 6) attitude of certain Corinthians that "all things are lawful" (6:12; cf. also 10:23 in regard to eating idol meat and brotherly scandal), a slogan apparently implying that for the believers there are no moral norms or principles or sanctions now governing moral conduct and no reasons for distinguishing members of the Christ community from others.