1 Corinthians 5:9,10 - I wrote to you

5:9

The chapter closes with Paul addressing a misunderstanding that arisen earlier. It seems that Paul had written to them earlier giving advice either on handling those guilty of sexual immorality in general, or perhaps in relation to the specific issue noted earlier in this chapter. He had told them “not to associate with sexually immoral people”. I think we can take this as being those who persisted in sexual immorality and refused to see anything wrong with it, not those who repented of such sins.

5:10

The problem was that the church had taken it as referring to the immoral people of the world, rather than those in the church. That was not what Paul meant, and he points out that if he had meant that then the church would have to cut themselves off completely from the world. Now there are one or two communities that do actually try to do that. These verses would seem to counsel against that. Note also, that Paul expands this to the “immoral, greedy, swindlers and idolaters”. In view of this misunderstanding, the church probably rejected the instruction on the grounds that it was utterly impractical, which on the basis of their misunderstanding it certainly was.