It is {1} reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.

(1) They are greatly to be reprehended who by allowing wickedness, set forth the Church of God to be mocked and scorned by infidels.

People's New Testament

5:1 Impurity in the Church

SUMMARY OF I CORINTHIANS 5:

The Incestuous Person. The Discipline Commanded. The Old Leaven to Be Purged Out. Heinous Offenders Not to Be Recognized Socially in the Church.

There is fornication among you. Licentiousness was one of the besetting sins of the Gentiles at this time. Purity of life was almost unknown. So far was unchastity from being held in disrepute that temples were everywhere dedicated to Aphrodite (Venus), and in Corinth at the time when Paul wrote there stood one with a thousand priestesses, harlots, a gigantic brothel in the name of religion. It is not wonderful that time was required to cleanse the church, formed of converts from these heathen, from impurity.

Not so much as named among the Gentiles. There was in the church a still worse case than the Gentiles would condone; a man had taken, probably after the death of his father, his father's wife, his own step-mother. This sort of incest was condemned by Greeks and Romans (Cicero, Oratio pro Cluentio ).

Wesley's Notes

5:1 Fornication - The original word implies criminal conversation of any kind whatever. His father's wife - While his father was alive.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 5

1Co 5:1-13. The Incestuous Person at Corinth: The Corinthians Reproved for Connivance, and Warned to Purge Out the Bad Leaven. Qualification of His Former Command as to Association with Sinners of the World.

1. commonly-rather, "actually" [Alford]. Absolutely [Bengel]. "It is reported," implies, that the Corinthians, though they "wrote" (1Co 7:1) to Paul on other points, gave him no information on those things which bore against themselves. These latter matters reached the apostle indirectly (1Co 1:11).

so much as named-The oldest manuscripts and authorities omit "named": "Fornication of such a gross kind as (exists) not even among the heathen, so that one (of you) hath (in concubinage) his father's wife," that is, his stepmother, while his father is still alive (2Co 7:12; compare Le 18:8). She was perhaps a heathen, for which reason he does not direct his rebuke against her (compare 1Co 5:12, 13). Alford thinks "have" means have in marriage: but the connection is called "fornication," and neither Christian nor Gentile law would have sanctioned such a marriage, however Corinth's notorious profligacy might wink at the concubinage.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:1-8 The apostle notices a flagrant abuse, winked at by the Corinthians. Party spirit, and a false notion of Christian liberty, seem to have saved the offender from censure. Grievous indeed is it that crimes should sometimes be committed by professors of the gospel, of which even heathens would be ashamed. Spiritual pride and false doctrines tend to bring in, and to spread such scandals. How dreadful the effects of sin! The devil reigns where Christ does not. And a man is in his kingdom, and under his power, when not in Christ. The bad example of a man of influence is very mischievous; it spreads far and wide. Corrupt principles and examples, if not corrected, would hurt the whole church. Believers must have new hearts, and lead new lives. Their common conversation and religious deeds must be holy. So far is the sacrifice of Christ our Passover for us, from rendering personal and public holiness unnecessary, that it furnishes powerful reasons and motives for it. Without holiness we can neither live by faith in him, nor join in his ordinances with comfort and profit.