1 Corinthians 5:9-13

We are supposed to be an example, a light to the world for Jesus Christ and the gift of salvation that only He can give. When we sin it becomes fodder for the unbeliever to reject Christianity. Since no sin is greater than another when our divorce rates, greed, sex scandals and business cons become known to the world....Satan has a hay day. Satan would love to bring you down and he will stop at nothing to get to you if you are out and about your Father’s business. We need to confess our sins, ask for forgiveness, be aware of Satan’s schemes and put on the full armor of God as protection in order to fulfill God’s will for our lives.

Paul here corrects a misunderstanding arising out of his previous letter. He had commanded the Corinthians to withdraw themselves from sexually immoral people. In this letter, Paul explains that he was not speaking of the pagan culture around them. If they withdrew totally they would be unable to function in the world. Instead, he was talking about the immorality in their midst. They should judge the sin among themselves, while still reaching out to the lost in Corinth.

1 Corinthians 5:9-13

⁹ I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. ¹⁰ Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 

¹¹ But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner— not even to eat with such a person. 

¹² For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? ¹³ But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.”