1 Corinthians 5:9-13

It is not up to us to judge the world that is God’s job. It is up to us to let them know how much He loves them and wants them to be saved!

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.”

⁶ But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us. 

2 Thessalonians 3:6

¹⁵ I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. 

John 17:15