📖WEB · 1 Corinthians 5:12
What does 1 Corinthians 5:12 mean?
"For what do I have to do with also judging those who are outside? Don’t you judge those who are within?"
— 1 Corinthians 5:12 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
I wrote to you in my letter to have no company with sexual sinners;
yet not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world, or with the covetous and extortionists, or with idolaters; for then you would have to leave the world.
But as it is, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortionist. Don’t even eat with such a person.
For what do I have to do with also judging those who are outside? Don’t you judge those who are within?
But those who are outside, God judges. “Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.”
Explanation
Paul is asking a pointed rhetorical question in the middle of a passage dealing with a serious moral problem in the Corinthian church. Earlier in chapter 5, Paul had learned that a man in the congregation was engaged in an ongoing sexual relationship with his father's wife, and the church, instead of dealing with it, was tolerating it—even boasting, perhaps, about their broad-mindedness. Paul instructs them to remove this man from their fellowship until the matter is addressed. In verse 12, he clarifies the scope of that instruction: he is not calling the church to judge or police the morality of unbelievers outside the church, but rather to hold accountable those within the church who claim to follow Christ.
The letter was written by the apostle Paul to the church in Corinth, a congregation he had founded, located in a Greek city known for its diverse population and its permissive sexual culture, including widespread involvement in temple prostitution and general moral looseness. The Corinthian believers seem to have misunderstood Paul's earlier teaching (referenced in verse 9-10) about avoiding immoral people, mistakenly thinking Paul meant they should have no contact with immoral people in the world at large. Paul corrects this misunderstanding: that kind of total separation from the world is neither possible nor his intent, since Christians inevitably interact with unbelievers who don't share their values. What matters is the internal integrity and discipline of the church community itself.
Theologically, this verse establishes an important distinction between the church's responsibility toward its own members and its posture to
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