2026-2027 PW/Horizons Bible Study
United Through Christ, Bound to Each Other
Lesson Three: I Corinthians, Chapters Five and Six
How do Christians build unity when divisions run rampant? This is Paul’s task in writing to the Corinthian Christian fellowship.
In I Corinthians, Paul addresses one issue after another troubling the community of faith. He has already addressed misunderstandings about Christian leadership and the standards we use to judge leaders. In Chapters Five and Six, Paul addresses behaviors that dehumanize people and harm the church.
Corinth was a young, diverse, wealthy city, established in 44 B.C. by Julius Caesar as a Roman colony. The population was made up of people of status, upwardly mobile freed slaves, poor people and slaves. A wide disparity existed between the rich and the poor. Prostitution was legal. Married women were expected to be chaste to ensure their husbands had biological heirs.
Paul begins Chapter Five of Corinthians with an astonished exclamation that the Corinthian church accepts a man living with his stepmother. We assume the man’s father is dead or has divorced the woman. Paul is horrified at behavior that, in that time, was considered incest. Even the pagans would find the notion repulsive, and such a relationship might cause the church to be judged harshly by non-Christians.
Paul admonishes the church to expel the man from the fellowship. His presence is seen as a corrupting influence. As with clergy sexual misconduct, there would be division and loss of trust. The man’s continued presence may influence others to live in ways that are antithetical to the gospel.
Paul’s admonition seems harsh to us, since we believe we are all sinners in need of God’s mercy. But the Corinthian Christians are not distinguishing Christian behaviors from those of the culture around them, where greed, idolatry and sexual immorality are part of the status quo.
There were those in the Corinthian fellowship who said, “All things are permitted to me” (6:12) as a way of justifying the man’s behavior as well as justifying those who engage in prostitution. You can hear them saying, “It is not against the law, and I am not hurting anyone else.” Paul counters, “But not all things are beneficial” for individuals and the fabric of the community.
Paul seeks to help the Corinthians form a mutually supportive church that acts as if it has been sanctified by Christ and through which non-believers can see transformed, Christ-like lives of love. Paul’s understanding of a people changed by Christ is that they live in a new reality in which we are all equally God’s children, clothed with Christ, so that there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female but all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:27-28)
At the beginning of Chapter Six, Paul addresses Christians who are taking other Christians to court. Wealthy people arbitrated the Corinthian courts for wealthy people, and the rich dragged people to court. The poor were never given a fair chance. As Douglas A. Campbell, a professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, tells us in “Paul Wrote I Corinthians to a Community in the Middle of a Culture War,” the top 1% had clawed their way upward and were “highly competitive, aggressive, tough people who sat on those beneath them and fended off their rivals ruthlessly.” This type of person is unlikely to seek justice for the poor or treat others as siblings in Christ.
Paul laments that when they take each other to court, those who do not know God decide the dispute. Paul asks, “Isn’t there one person among you who is wise, who has enough common sense to settle matters with fairness and justice?” Having wise church leaders decide disagreements would mean issues were not decided by status or wealth.
The Corinthians face enormous challenges, which Paul addresses by showing how a Christ-like community functions: each person and the community are valued, and Christian love is patient, kind, hopeful, keeps no record of wrongdoing, and is generous.
