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Podcast: The Bible as Literature
Episode: The Problem Within
Description: At first glance, St. Paul's admonition in 1 Corinthians 5, that the faithful are not to associate with immoral people, seems to imply that the church should safeguard its purity by avoiding association people outside the community. No interpretation of 1 Corinthians could be further from the truth. On the contrary, when Paul speaks of immoral people in chapter 5, he is referring to people within the church. To borrow a line from Mark's gospel, "there is nothing outside a man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the...