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1 Corinthians

About this book
Chapter 5

1 It is actually reported that sexual immorality exists among you, the kind of immorality that is not permitted even among the Gentiles, so that someone is cohabiting with his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you have been deeply sorrowful instead and removed the one who did this from among you? 3 For even though I am absent physically, I am present in spirit. And I have already judged the one who did this, just as though I were present. 4 When you gather together in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I am with you in spirit, along with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.⁠ 6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast affects the whole batch of dough?⁠ 7 Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough—you are, in fact, without yeast. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 So then, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of vice and evil, but with the bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth. 9 I wrote you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.⁠ 10 In no way did I mean the immoral people of this world, or the greedy and swindlers and idolaters, since you would then have to go out of the world. 11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who calls himself a Christian who is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or verbally abusive, or a drunkard, or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person. 12 For what do I have to do with judging those outside? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 But God will judge those outside. Remove the evil person from among you.

Texts in conversation

Compare Exodus 12:15 and 1 Corinthians 5:5

Hebrew Bible · New Testament

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Summary

In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul draws on Exodus 12, where leaven is removed before Passover. He reshapes this into a picture of removing sin from the community, connecting the cleansing of the home with excluding those who threaten the group.

Passages

Exodus 12:15

Hebrew Bible
14 “‘This day will become a memorial for you, and you will celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—you will celebrate it perpetually as a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. Surely on the first day you must put away yeast from your houses because anyone who eats bread made with yeast from the first day to the seventh day will be cut off from Israel. 16 “‘On the first day there will be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there will be a holy convocation for you. You must do no work of any kind on them, only what every person will eat—that alone may be prepared for you. 17 So you will keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because on this very day I brought your regiments out from the land of Egypt, and so you must keep this day perpetually as a lasting ordinance. 18 In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, you will eat bread made without yeast until the twenty-first day of the month in the evening. 19 For seven days yeast must not be found in your houses, for whoever eats what is made with yeast—that person will be cut off from the community of Israel, whether a resident foreigner or one born in the land. 20 You will not eat anything made with yeast; in all the places where you live you must eat bread made without yeast.’”
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

1 Corinthians 5:5

New Testament
3 For even though I am absent physically, I am present in spirit. And I have already judged the one who did this, just as though I were present. 4 When you gather together in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I am with you in spirit, along with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. 6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast affects the whole batch of dough? 7 Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough—you are, in fact, without yeast. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 So then, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of vice and evil, but with the bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.
55–57 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Corinthians

References

"... In chapter 5, Paul condemns the sexual misconduct plaguing the church in Corinth (here, specifically, a case of incest) with a brief mystagogical allusion to Passover and to the cleansing of leaven, which is equated with sin (5:6–8). Just as the Jews must cleanse their homes of all leaven before celebrating the feast of Passover, so the Corinthian Christian community must cleanse itself of sin in order to celebrate the festival of Christ, the Paschal Lamb—perhaps an allusion to the Eucharistic celebration of the Corinthian community. The severity of the punishment prescribed in the book of Exodus for eating leavened bread during the feast — being cut off from Israel (see Exodus 12:15, 19) — helps explain the harsh penalty of excommunication that Paul imposes upon the culprit (asking the community to “deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,” 5:5) ..."
André Villeneuve, “Anthropic Temple and Nuptial Symbolism in First Corinthians,” Letter & Spirit 10 (2015): 155–171.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Exodus 12:15 and 1 Corinthians 5:5

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