What Does 1 Corinthians 5:11 Mean?
But now I have written to you not to mix together with anyone named a brother, if he is a trader of bodies, or one who holds more, or a servant of images, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a snatcher, and not even to eat together with such a one.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.THE KEY
The table is not neutral here: eating together is a concrete form of the mixing this verse refuses.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks now with a hard boundary: a person bearing the name “brother” and marked by sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, abusive speech, drunkenness, or exploitation is not to be kept in close company. Even sharing a meal is named as part of that refusal. The name does not make the conduct disappear or require the community to enact fellowship as though nothing is wrong.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a brother-title obligates the community to continue ordinary fellowship regardless of the person’s conduct is undone here.
THE ROOT
συναναμίγνυσθαι
synanamignysthai
GROWS FROM
μίγνυμι
mignymi
Mix, mingle.
“mix together with” in this verse is synanamignysthai. The Greek verb pictures association as mixing together. The refusal of company is therefore a refusal of shared life, and the closing meal makes that boundary concrete.
ALSO GROWS
mignymi: To mix or mingle.
μίγνυμι
This is the seed verb under the association language: relations are pictured as mixing, not merely occupying the same space.
synanamignymi: To mix together with; to associate closely.
συναναμίγνυμι
This expanded form appears as “company with” in 1 Corinthians 5:9 and “have no company with” in 2 Thessalonians 3:14; here the verse makes the boundary unmistakable by naming a meal.
ὀνομαζόμενος
onomazomenos
GROWS FROM
ὄνομα
onoma
Name, designation.
The Greek says a person is “named a brother,” putting a claimed identity beside the life described in the verse. The name matters, but it does not make the listed conduct weightless.
ALSO GROWS
onoma: Name, designation.
ὄνομα
“Brother” is the name the person bears, so the verse directly examines the identity carried by that name.
onomazō: To name or call.
ὀνομάζω
This verb gives the form translated “called,” making the brotherhood an identity openly named.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats close association and shared tables as real forms of participation that carry meaning.
The one who walks with the wise becomes wise; the one who grazes beside the dull is broken.You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot share in the Lord's table and the table of demons.And if anyone does not hear and respond to our word through this letter, mark that man, and do not mingle with him, so that he may turn inward.THE THREAD
I wrote to you in a letter not to mix together with the traders of bodies.“Company with” is the same Greek verb as “keep company” here. Verse 9 first names fornicators; verse 11 extends the boundary to someone bearing the brother-name while marked by the other listed conduct, and makes its closeness concrete with “no not to eat.”
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us