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

The hermeneutical importance of this last observation is that the list, of which the terms crucial to our subject are a part, is cited to exemplify types of unjust/unrighteous persons who will not inherit the kingdom of heaven (6:9, 10). Whatever the terms malakoi and arsenokoitai might mean, their function in this letter is the same as that of the other terms of the list: to exemplify unjust/unrighteous persons--persons different from the holy believers and outside the kingdom of God. Peter Zaas (1988) correctly stressed the close relation of the lists to the situation of the letter and discussed their rhetorical function.

Homosexuals at Corinth?

Within this general and more immediate context of the letter occurs a list of persons (1 Cor 6:9b-10) that contains two terms at the heart of our investigation, terms that have often been cited as evidence that the Bible condemns homosexuals and homosexual behavior. The words so understood are malakoi and arsenokoitai. They are quite rare and their meanings, very problematic. Several observations are in order here.

First, the terms (both masculine) are part of a larger list of persons declared to be excluded from the kingdom of God (6:9b-10). This list, in turn, is similar to, and expands upon, two previous lists of immoral persons presented in chapter 5. A comparison of the lists indicates that they are similar in some respects and different in others.

The shortest of the three is that of 5:10. It mentions four types of "immoral" persons inhabiting human society outside the believing community: pornois, ("immoral persons"? "prostitutes"? clients of a prostitute? perpetrators of incest?), greedy persons (pleonektais), robbers (harpaxin), and idolaters (eidololatrais). This list, says Paul, illustrates types of immoral outsiders of whom he was not speaking in his earlier letter (5:9a, 11a) when he encouraged the Corinthians "not to associate with immoral persons (pornois)" (5:9). Avoidance of such persons out there in society, he said, would have been impossible from a practical point of view (5:10b). Furthermore, judging outsiders is not the task of believers but rather the job of God (5:12-13a).

In that earlier letter (described in 5:11) he in fact discouraged association and dining with certain types of fellow believers; namely a "brother" who was either a pornos, a greedy person (pleonektes), an idolater (eidololatres), a reviler (loidoros), a drunkard/boozer (methyos), or a robber (harpax). It is believers within the community whose conduct was and is Paul's concern (5:12a), and he now commands the Corinthians to "drive out," excommunicate, the evil person (poneron; cf. "evil," 5:8) from their midst (5:13b), that is, the male committing the porneia of incest mentioned in 5:1-8 and already targeted for exclusion (5:2, 5, 7-8). Thus the "immoral persons" mentioned in 5:10 were nonbelieving outsiders, not believing insiders. The list of 5:11, on the other hand, concerns immoral types of fellow believers. Nevertheless, the lists mention the same types of immoral persons, except that the longer list of 5:11 adds "reviler and drunkard."