- Likely a case of rape/nonconsensual relationship. NRSVue "living with" sort of neuters the concept of "γυναῖκά τινα τοῦ πατρὸς ἔχειν" HAS his father's wife
- Also verse 2, “He who has done this.” Not that Paul’s anger is clearly on the dude.
- What does it mean to be present in spirit? Is it the idea of authority because of his founding position? Is there something more supernatural going on here? Not clear.
- Intriguingly, Satan here is shown to be the destroyer of the flesh, not the lord of hell or in charge of postmortem judgment or punishment. A person is handed over to Satan so that they suffer bodily in this life. But their spirit ultimately is saved in the day of the Lord (the second coming, the full arrival of God’s kingdom)
- Spiritual liberty is not a license to allow abusive relationships to continue.
- Here we are confronted with the classic so-called “paradox of tolerance.” Shouldn’t Christian communities be non-judgmental? Places where we allow anyone to be welcome. Clearly, for Paul, the answer is no. If the Christian community is to be a place of true community and freedom, then that necessarily means you cannot tolerate those who would destroy other people’s freedom.
- Paul uses the metaphor of passover, in which you empty your house of yeast. The church gathering is a continual celebration of the new passover, i.e., Jesus. And therefore the church gathering is meant to be a place where that which us corrupt cannot be tolerated. (This was taken quite seriously in the early church. There was often a curtain or physical barrier between those who were allowed to participate in communion and those who were seekers or God-fearers or possibly interested in Christianity but had not yet gone through the rites of baptism and catechesis. This was in part because communion could be seen as a capital offense against the empire.
And it was also taking this seriously that those who had not yet repented of their corruption should not partake of communion. Now this obviously conflicts with the table's view of an open table, that there's nothing that can keep us from Christ's table, which is ultimately where I fall down personally.
But I also understand why the early church felt the need for this fencing of the table and why Paul is using this Passover metaphor and trying to communicate that the ecclesia should not be confused for a whatever-makes-you-feel-good-is-cool kind of community. Getting this part right will help us make sense of Paul's later instructions around sexuality.
Because I am not one who believes that Paul was a sexual regressive who wanted to make sure that nobody was having a good time. Rather, Paul is working to protect folks who are most likely to be harmed through the abuse of sexual power.