Perrydox.com is devoted to the pursuit of truth, whether plain or paradoxical, whether simple or sublime, or simply absurd yet absolute.
1 Corinthians 5 – Do Not Eat
One study method that is helpful is to list both strengths and weaknesses of your position. Here are the weaknesses of mine: 1) most resources disagree with me; 2) it easily can be understood as eating a common meal. Those two have to make me pause and I try to be honest with myself and the text. Then again, sometimes what appears obvious is not such as Paul saying, “”for Christ did not send me to baptize” (1.17). Here are the strengths that I see: IMMEDIATE CONTEXT: 1) There is an emphasis in 1 Cor 5 on the assembly (v.5) and communion is an assembly action therefore if this man is excluded from the assembly then that would include eating communion together; 2) the original communion took place along with the Passover and the Passover is mentioned in 1 Cor 5 in a spiritual sense; 3) Jesus is our Passover and His body and blood are the communion; 4) the only eating specifically defined in 1 Cor 5 is a spiritual meal (i.e., Passover); 5) We are to observe the feast of our passover with purity (v.8) which excludes the unrepentant sinner; 6) Eating is not specially mentioned in vv.9-10 in dealing with unbelievers while eating is mentioned before in reference to the the passover and “do not eat;” (7) Paul closes with a reference to capital punishment (Dt 17.7) which is earlier referred to in 5.5 as destroying his flesh which in the church is spiritual and not physical therefore the judgment is also spiritual which is not eating the spiritual meal; 8) the association with the world is physical but the association with the church is spiritual, therefore the not eating also is a spiritual meal; CORINTHIAN CONTEXT: 9) there is a great emphasis in 1 Corinthians on the Lord’s Supper (10.14-21; 11..17-33) and both deal with the proper understanding of eating so it appears the Corinthians needed instruction on the Lord’s Supper and that would include unrepentant Christians; NT CONTEXT: 10) I do not understand why Paul would tell the church to do as the Pharisees did and not as Christ did. Matthew 9:9-11. So when Jesus said to treat these people like tax collectors, did He mean to treat them like He treated tax collectors or like the Pharisees treated tax collectors? Like the Pharisees, we isolate ourselves socially from them when Jesus spent more time with them to convert them. There is a difference between separating spiritually and socially.
Comments