SCRIPTURE
Paul addresses the Corinthians as "the church of God which is at Corinth," using the word ekklÍsia with the same ambiguity our word "church" has. In fact, the New Testament does not distinguish verbally between the church as local and the church as universal. But the problems at Corinth are local, howeve1¡ aptly they may serve as paradigms of more universal issues in the church at large, and the context of their solution is an interesting mode! of the interaction between local responsibility and apostolic authority. Rather thau survey the varions issues dealt with in 1 C01inthians, let us consider a single example which is a representative one, not because the solution is utterly clear, but because it is characteristically complex. The passage in question is 1 Cor 5, the directive for the expulsion of the incestuous man. Paul has heard the report that a member of the Corinthian community is living in an incestuous relationship which even pagans would not tolerate. The Apostle is indignant, but the real object of his indignation-and this point is often overlooked-is the complacency of the community which is actually arrogant about its ability to tolerate such an aberration, no doubt as part cf its misguided notion that Christian¡ liberty is absolute li cense: "All things are lawful for me" (1 Cor 6 :12). Paul reacts decisive! y: in defense of the community's own integrity, the incestuous man must be banished from the community so that he may finally be saved as a result of having realized through punishment the gravity of his wrong. It is not the precise nature of this "excommunication" which interests us here, but rather the authority which determines it. The passage is a notoriously difficult one to punctuate since it contains severa! modifying phrases that might be taken with severa! of the actions in the process. Again, it is not vital to our purpose here to argue the case, and we may regard the following rendering as at !east a probable one: "For my part, though I am absent in body, I am present in spirit, and my judgment upon the man who did this thing is already given, as if I were indeed present: you ali being assemblee] in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus over us, this man is to be consigned to Satan for the destruction of the