1 Corinthians 6:9–10

Context

In the first part of chapter 6, Paul rebukes the Corinthian believers for taking one another to court before secular tribunals (vv. 1–8). Following that rebuke, verses 9–10 list ten sins, including fornication, idolatry, adultery, theft, covetousness, drunkenness, reviling, and extortion. Verse 11 immediately adds, "And such were some of you," but says that they have now been washed, sanctified, and justified. Verses 12–20 address being joined to a harlot.

Interpretation

• As a warning about life before conversion: Read together with verse 11, the list is taken to describe the old life the believer has left behind and to warn against returning to it. Many denominations share the understanding that the passage does not mean that a person who commits a single one of these sins thereby falls from salvation; rather, it describes the condition of remaining in such a life without repentance.
• As an emphasis on the consistency of salvation and life: The Wesleyan tradition and some evangelicals read the passage chiefly as a warning that justification must issue in actual transformation of life.

Debates and Issues

The chief point of contention is the meaning of two words in the list: malakoi (literally "soft ones") and arsenokoitai (a compound word first attested in the Pauline epistles, which many scholars believe derives from words used in the Greek translation of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13). The New Korean Revised Version renders them as "those given to lust" (tamsaekhaneun ja) and "sodomites" (namsaekhaneun ja).

• Traditional interpretation: Most conservative denominations and the Catholic Church hold that the two words refer to both partners in same-sex sexual acts and that they apply to homosexual conduct today.
• Revisionist interpretation: Some scholars and denominations point to the possibility that these terms referred to exploitative relationships of the time, such as the prostitution of boys or relations between masters and slaves, and conclude that they are difficult to apply directly to consensual same-sex relationships.

Some English translations have combined the two words into the single term "homosexuals," which has prompted a further translation debate over the need to distinguish between orientation and conduct. For details, see Homosexuality and the Church.

Some within the church also object that sexual sins alone are emphasized, while the other sins in the list, such as covetousness, drunkenness, and reviling, receive less attention.

Related Passages

• 1 Corinthians 6:11
• Galatians 5:19–21
• Ephesians 5:5
• 1 Timothy 1:9–10