Knowing God through His Word … Day by Day

1 Corinthians 5:1-2:  It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

John Piper comments:

He [Paul] said, “You have become arrogant.” People in the church were actually boasting in this immorality. Now how could that be? What kind of theology would give rise to boasting in immorality? We have seen it in Paul’s letters elsewhere. It says, “Let us sin that grace may abound” (Rom. 3:8; 6:1). So it’s a theology that misunderstands the power of grace, and turns it into license. It’s a theology that misunderstands freedom and uses it as “an opportunity for the flesh” (Gal. 5:13), and says (as they were saying at Corinth) “all things are lawful for me” (1 Cor. 6:12; 10:23). And so they were boasting in their freedom and in the tolerance of grace. Pride was the basis of sinful toleration not pharisaical judgment.