B. Lack of discipline in the church chs. 5-6

The second characteristic in the Corinthian church reported to Paul that he addressed concerned a lack of discipline (cf. Gal. 5:22-23). This section of the epistle has strong connections with the first major section. The lack of disciple in the church (chs. 5-6) reflected a crisis of authority in the church (1:10-4:21). The Corinthians were arrogant and valued a worldly concept of power. This carnal attitude had produced the three problems that Paul proceeded to deal with next: incest, litigation, and prostitution in the church.

 1. Incest in the church ch. 5

First, the church had manifested a very permissive attitude toward a man in the congregation who was committing incest. Paul explained his own reaction to this situation and demanded that his readers take a different view of immorality than the one they held (vv. 1-8). Then he spoke to the larger issue of the Christian's relationship to the immoral both within and outside the church (vv. 9-13).

"What is at stake is not simply a low view of sin; rather, it is the church itself: Will it follow Paul's gospel with its ethical implications? or will it continue in its present spirituality,' one that tolerates such sin and thereby destroys God's temple in Corinth (3:16-17)? Thus Paul uses this concrete example both to assert his authority and to speak to the larger issue of sexual immorality."¹⁰⁵

"The unusual feature of 5:1-13 is the manner in which the community is addressed first and more extensively than the man involved in an incestuous relationship. The congregation is distinguished by its arrogance and boasting and its failure to mourn. At the heart of Paul's rebuke is an urgent plea for a new, communal self-understanding (5:6-8). Mixing the cultic images of unleavened bread and the Passover lamb, the text pushes the Corinthians to think of themselves differently--as an unleavened community that demonstrates honesty and dependability, as a community for whom the paschal lamb has been sacrificed. The crucified Messiah lies at the heart of the new perspective, critically needed by the readers."¹⁰⁶

 2. Litigation in the church 6:1-11

The apostle continued to deal with the general subject of discipline in the church that he began in 5:1. He proceeded to point out some other glaring instances of inconsistency that had their roots in the Corinthians' lax view of sin. Rather than looking to unsaved judges to solve their internal conflicts, they should have exercised discipline among themselves in these cases.

"In this section Paul is dealing with a problem which specially affected the Greeks. The Jews did not ordinarily go to law in the public law-courts at all; they settled things before the elders of the village or the elders of the Synagogue; to them justice was far more a thing to be settled in a family spirit than in a legal spirit. . . . The Greeks were in fact famous, or notorious, for their love of going to law."¹²⁵

". . . the congregation's root problem lies in its lack of theological depth. It shames itself by not understanding itself as an eschatological community (Do you not know that we are to judge angels?') and as a community redeemed by Christ."¹²⁶

"Paul has not finished with the theme of church discipline in regard to sexual life; see vi. 12 and chapter vii; but in v. 12 f. he had spoken of judgement [sic], and this brings to his mind another feature of Corinthian life of which he had heard . . ."¹²⁷

 3. Prostitution in the church 6:12-20

The apostle proceeded to point out the sanctity of the believer's body as the temple of the Holy Spirit. He wanted to help his readers realize the seriousness of the sins that marked them to some extent as a church.

"The Greeks always looked down on the body. There was a proverbial saying, The body is a tomb.' Epictetus said, I am a poor soul shackled to a corpse.'"¹⁴⁵

"Apparently some men within the Christian community are going to prostitutes and are arguing for the right to do so. Being people of the Spirit, they imply, has moved them to a higher plane, the realm of the spirit, where they are unaffected by behavior that has merely to do with the body. So Paul proceeds from the affirmation of v. 11 to an attack on this theological justification.

"As before, the gospel itself is at stake, not simply the resolution of an ethical question. The Corinthian pneumatics' understanding of spirituality has allowed them both a false view of freedom (everything is permissible') and of the body (God will destroy it'), from which basis they have argued that going to prostitutes is permissible because the body doesn't matter."¹⁴⁶

This is one of the more important passages in the New Testament on the human body.