Why Were The Corinthians Proud Of Immorality? (1 Cor 5)
- Ron Cantor
- 1 hour ago
- 6 min read
I recently figured out something that has always bothered me about the dude in 1 Corinthians 5.
Why were the Corinthians proud that he was sleeping with his stepmother?
If you’ve ever read 1 Corinthians 5 and felt confused, you’re not alone. Paul is furious with the Corinthians for tolerating a man who “has his father’s wife,” (v. 1) and he even accuses them of being proud about it. Many interpreters suggest that the Corinthians misunderstood Paul’s teaching on grace and freedom from the law, assuming that “all things are lawful” meant moral boundaries no longer mattered. That idea just never held water with me.
Recently, I came across another explanation, in a dialogue with someone online, that makes far more sense. And I found that it is strongly supported by history and scholarship.
The Roman “Dominus” System
In Roman culture, the father—the paterfamilias—was the absolute head of the household. His legal power, called patria potestas, extended over everyone in his domus (“household”): his wife, adult sons, daughters, daughters-in-law, slaves, and dependents. Adult sons owned nothing until their father either died or formally released them.
The father, called the dominus (lord or master), had the power of life and death over his household. This hierarchy shaped not only family life but also the Roman Empire itself. Emperors were hailed as pater patriae—“father of the fatherland.”
This structure blurred moral lines. Roman law allowed the dominus to use slaves and concubines sexually, and while taking a son’s wife was frowned upon, there was little legal recourse. Authority was absolute. Abuse was rampant.
What Was Happening in Corinth?
This Roman background explains why the Corinthians might have seen the man’s behavior not as shameful, but as bold. Rather than exercising freedom in Messiah, he was making a power move against his father—a kind of social coup.
Imagine a wealthy, influential family. Perhaps the father was harsh and controlling, the kind of man who refused to release his son to independence, or maybe even committed sexual abuse against his children or daughters-in-law. Look at the atrocious things that people will do in a society that will put you in jail and add your name to a sex offender registry for such crimes, and imagine what people are capable of when it is legal. The son’s act of taking his father’s wife would have been a shocking way to declare himself the new master of the house.
In Roman society:
• Men married later in life, often in their thirties or forties.
• Women married young, often in their teens.
• Remarriage was common, especially for widowers.
So the stepmother was likely near the son’s age, not the father’s. His relationship with her would have symbolized dominance more than passion—a claim of inheritance and authority.
Scripture shows similar power plays as acts of insurrection:
• Absalom publicly slept with David’s concubines as an act of defiance (2 Samuel 16:21–22).
• Reuben lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, forfeiting his birthright (Genesis 35:22, 1 Chr 5:1–2). Rubin took Rachel’s maidservant after her death, which is seen as an act of defiance against his father’s authority in defense of his mother, Leah, the rejected wife.
• Adonijah, Solomon’s brother, requested Abishag, his father’s nurse (and as such, part of David’s harem), and Solomon saw it as a bid for the throne (1 Kings 2:13 25) and had him killed.
The man in Corinth was following the same script of power and pride.
Back to Torah
The Torah is explicit: “You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness” (Leviticus 18:8).
Paul adopts his morality from Moses, not pagan principles or Roman rules. Yet even pagan Rome condemned such behavior. Paul says the sin was “of a kind that does not occur even among pagans” (1 Corinthians 5:1).
In 18 BCE, Emperor Augustus passed the Lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis, a law meant to restore virtue to Roman life. This law explicitly forbade relations with one’s stepmother and punished such acts as incestum.
So Paul’s outrage isn’t exaggerated. The man violated both Torah and Roman law. Even if the Corinthians admired his defiance against an oppressive father, his act broke both divine and civil boundaries.
Paul warns that sexual sin spreads like yeast: “A little leaven leavens the whole lump” (1 Corinthians 5:6). In the next chapter, he calls sexual immorality a sin “against one’s own body”—as the believer’s body belongs to the Messiah and is a temple of God. “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor 6:19–20).
Quick summary before we finish:
• The paterfamilias system created oppressive household structures and normalized exploitation.
• Acts of sexual dominance—such as taking a father’s concubine—functioned as political symbols of usurpation in both ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts.
• The Corinthian man was likely asserting social dominance rather than simply indulging lust.
• Roman society regarded such relationships as scandalous, primarily as violations of household hierarchy rather than purely moral depravity, even though they were illegal under Augustus’s moral reforms of 18 BCE.
• Paul’s condemnation, however, arises from Jewish holiness ethics, not Roman notions of hierarchy; he saw the act as a defilement of the Messianic community.
Paul’s Response
Paul’s command to “deliver such a one to Satan” was a spiritual and social sentence. In a culture obsessed with status, this was a public stripping of honor. The man who tried to exalt himself as lord of the household was symbolically dethroned.
For Paul, the church was not a reflection of Roman hierarchy but of the Kingdom of God. In Rome, power and privilege ruled; in the body of Messiah, holiness and humility reigned. This mindset even crept into ancient Israel, as the Jewish disciples, the very ones chosen by the Father to spread the message of the gospel, fought for three years over who would be the greatest—ignoring Jesus’s words about being a servant and his example in actions such as washing their feet.
The True Lesson
The scandal in Corinth was not only about sexual immorality—it was about power, pride, and misplaced honor. The man’s sin mirrored the arrogance of Absalom and the ambition of Rome’s elite.
Paul, grounded in Torah and transformed by grace, saw through the façade. What looked like courage was rebellion. What seemed like freedom was immorality.
The Corinthian man tried to make himself the new dominus of his father’s house. But Paul reminded the church that there is only one true Lord, and His authority is not seized through pride or dominance—it’s received through repentance and humility.
We sometimes see a similar dynamic play out in a modern church as we do in the Roman Dominus system, when you might have an autocratic pastor and the younger associate who rises up against his authority. Neither leaders are healthy.
Many years ago, I, along with many others, was caught up in a high-profile church split. Similar to the Corinthian situation, there was an autocratic senior leader and the one who rebelled against him was a younger, prophetic, dynamic revolutionary. It was very confusing for everyone, just like in the Corinthian church.
The Corinthians were rooting for this guy who was challenging his dad, and in the same way, many in the situation I am referring to went with the young rebel. And at the same time, the pastor governed with near absolute authority, which may have been a Roman model but it’s not the New Testament model, where there is shared authority in humility.
When truth becomes secondary to reputation, when loyalty to a man outweighs loyalty to God, corruption takes root. That’s what Paul saw in Corinth—a community that admired strength and status more than holiness. And it’s what we must confront in our own time.
The real test of any leader, ancient or modern, isn’t how much power they hold but how they use it. Do they protect the vulnerable, or the powerful? Do they seek truth, or control?
Paul’s outrage still speaks today—not because of one man’s scandal in Corinth, but because every generation faces the same temptation: to value influence over integrity.
In the end, Paul’s response wasn’t just about discipline—it was about redemption. He wasn’t trying to destroy a sinner, but to cleanse the community so that restoration could take root. The heart of holiness is never humiliation, but healing.
