1 Corinthians 5:11

5:9-13 Christians are to avoid familiar converse with all who disgrace the Christian name. Such are only fit companions for their brethren in sin, and to such company they should be left, whenever it is possible to do so. Alas, that there are many called Christians, whose conversation is more dangerous than that of heathens!

11 . I have written ] Literally, I wrote , i.e. in the former Epistle. called a brother ] i.e. as being so in name only. an extortioner ] Latin rapax , a kindred word to that used in the original. Distinct from the covetous man in that he uses force rather than fraud to deprive men of their property.

(11) But now I have written unto you . . . —i.e., “But what I meant was” that you were not to associate with a Christian guilty of these things. It may seem strange that the word “idolater” should be included in this category; for in what sense could a “brother” be a worshipper of idols? It is probable that the word “idolater” has involved in it the idea, not merely of worshipping an image, but of the sensuality which accompanied various forms of heathen worship, and of which evidently some of the Corinthian brethren were partakers. (See Ephesians 5:5 , and Colossians 3:5 , where “idolatry” is identified with a vice kindred to lasciviousness.)

1 Corinthians 5:11 . Ἀδελφὸς , a brother ) an ordinary appellation.— ὀνομαζόμενος , who is called ) A word in the middle voice [or rather, used in a middle sense , neither a favourable nor unfavourable sense].— πόρνος , a fornicator ) the crimes are here enumerated, on account of which others are to be avoided; then in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 , more are added, on account of which every man should fear for himself.[43]— μηδὲ συνεσθίειν , not so much as to eat ) not only not with such a man as a host, but not even with him at the house of a third person. The lowest degree of intercourse, which men have, when mixed up in company with one another, is to eat together . Even among the Jews, חרם , excommunication took away all intercourse in regard to eating together. We must not eat with the man, who shall be unfit to eat along with the saints in the kingdom of God, 1 Corinthians 6:10 . Let the Church of the present day take heed, in which the guests at the Lord’s table are not like children in one family, but like a number of strangers of various kinds in a large inn. [43] Μέθυσος , a drunkard ) It indicates the man who drinks large quantities of wine, although he does not break out into unbridled revellings.—V. g.

Verse 11. - But now I have written unto you. The tense used is, perhaps, the epistolary aorist, and is therefore equivalent to "but now I write to you;" otherwise the sense is, "but what I meant in my letter was," etc. The position of the words rather favours this view. St. Paul expressly tells them in 1 Corinthians 10:27 that he never intended to forbid all intercourse with heathens. They were not to be "taken out of the world," but to be free from evil ( John 17:15 ). If any man that is called a brother. The word "brother" was used before the name "Christian" was accepted by the members of the Church. Or an idolater (see 1 Corinthians 5:10 ; 1 Corinthians 10:7, 14 ). He might call himself a Christian, and yet be in reality an idolater ( Ephesians 5:5 ; Colossians 3:5 ; Galatians 5:20 ; 1 John 5:21 ). With such a one no not to eat . If the phrase be pressed, it would involve exclusion from all privileges of the body, for the Holy Communion was celebrated in connection with the agapae. But the general meaning is that of 2 Thessalonians 3:6 , "We command you... that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly." 1 Corinthians 5:11

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 Heb 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 Eph 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).

Of late there have been some disputes what eating is here intended, whether at the Lord’s table, or at our common tables. Intimacy of communion is that which undoubtedly is here signified by eating; and the apostle’s meaning is, that the members of this church should forbear any unnecessary fellowship and communion with any persons that went under the name of Christians, and yet indulged themselves in any notorious and scandalous courses of life; of which he reckoneth up several sorts. 1. Unclean persons, noted for any kind of uncleanness. 2. Covetous persons; by which he understands all such as, out of their too great love of money, either scandalously sought to add to their heap, or to detain what was others’ just due. 3. Idolaters; by which he understands such as out of fear, or to gain favour with the heathen amongst whom they lived, would frequent and perform Divine worship in the idol’s temple. 4. Railers, such as used their tongues intemperately and scandalously, to the prejudice of others’ reputation. 5. Drunkards; under which notion he comprehends all such as drank hot liquors intemperately, whether they had such an effect upon them as to deprive them of the use of their reason or not. 6. Extortioners, viz. such as, being in any place, exacted more than was their due of those that were under their power.

But yet by this interpretation the argument is not lost against eating with such at the table of the Lord, which is no more necessary communion with them, than civil eating is; for neither hath God spread that table for any such, neither ought any church to endure any such persons in its communion: nor are any Christians bound for ever to abide in the communion of that church, which shall wilfully neglect the purging out of such old leaven. Admitting this precept prohibitive of a civil intimacy with scandalous persons, though they be called brethren, it holds a fortiori, as a stronger argument against religious communion with such, in ordinances to which, apparently, they have no proximate right.

1 Corinthians 5:11 . νῦν δὲ ἔγραψα , “But now I have written”—in contrast to the Εγραψα … ἐν τῇ ἐπιστ . of 1 Corinthians 5:9 : “If any one doubted the purport of the former letter, it shall be impossible to mistake my meaning now ”. The logical (not temporal) sense of νῦν (or νυνί ) is preferred by some interpreters: “But now— after this, as things now appear —(you must understand that) I wrote,” etc., this ἔγραψα thus repeating the former. Νυνὶ δὲ bears the like emphatic temporal sense in 2 Corinthians 8:11 , Ephesians 2:13 .— ἐάν τις ἀδελφὸς ὀνομαζόμενος , “if any one bearing the name of brother ”—the point of the amended rule, which P. in writing before had apparently left to the common-sense of his readers, but is compelled to make explicit. So the μὴ συναναμίγνυσθαι clearly signifies not to hold fraternal, friendly commerce with vicious men: cf. 1 Corinthians 15:33 . Such a one may be “named,” but is not, “a brother”; cf. Revelation 3:1 .—Among the kinds of sinners proscribed P. now inserts the λοίδορος (see note on 1 Corinthians 4:12 ), the “railer,” “reviler”—the foul-mouthed abuser of others; and the μέθυσος , “drunkard”—a word bearing in earlier Gr[871] a comic sense, tipsy , afterwards seriously used (Lt[872]): these sins are companions; cf. 1 Corinthians 6:10 .— τῷ τοιούτῳ μηδὲ συνεσθίειν : “with him that is such (I bid you) not even to eat”. The inf[873] is pr [874]—of usage, practice; cf.

Galatians 2:12 . “Eating together is a sign of friendliness; business transactions are not. If the ref[875] be restricted to Christian fellowship ( sc. the Agapé), the emphatic not even is out of place” (Ed[876]). To forbid intercourse to this extent implies expulsion from the Church, and more; cf. 2 Thessalonians 3:14 f. (milder treatment), Matthew 18:17 . That it should be possible for an actual “idolater”—not merely one who “sits in an idol’s house” ( 1 Corinthians 8:10 ) as a place indifferent, or who still in some sort believes in its power ( 1 Corinthians 8:7 )—to be in the Church is evidence of the laxity of Cor[877] Christianity. That this was really the case, and that some Cor[878], perhaps of philosophical, semi-pantheistic tendencies, wished to combine the worship of the heathen temple with that of the Christian Church, appears likely from 1 Corinthians 10:14-22 ; the same syncretism is found in India now; cf. the case of Naaman, 2 Kings 5:17 f. [871] Greek, or Grotius’ Annotationes in N.T.[872] J. B. Lightfoot’s (posthumous) Notes on Epp. of St. Paul (1895). [873] infinitive mood. [874] present tense. [875] reference. [876] T. C. Edwards’ Commentary on the First Ep. to the Corinthians .2 [877] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians. [878] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.