tercourse or to church communion. This indefinite command Paul explains, first, by stating that he did not mean to forbid social intercourse ; and then saying he did intend to prohibit Christian fellowship with the wicked.
10. Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters ; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
N'ot altogether. This Hmits the prohibition. The apostle did not intend to prohibit all intercourse with the fornicators of this world. This would be an impossibility ; while in the world we must have more or less intercourse Tvith the men of the world. Or, the words {ov TravTws), not altogether^ may be connected with the words Iiorote^ in the sense of by no means, Comp. Rom. 3, 9. 'I by 7io means wrote to you not to asso- ciate with the wicked.' This, although perhaps the more common explanation, does not give so good a sense. It is not so much a positive denial of having so written, as a limitation of the appUcation of his command, that the apostle designs to give. The loorld means mankind as distinguished from the church. Gal. 4, 3. Eph. 2, 2. Col. 2, 8. The prohibition, such as it was, was not Hmited to any one class of the immoral ; it included all classes. The covetous; those who will have more (TrXeoi/cKTvys) ; and especially those who defraud for the sake of gain. In the Scriptures the controlling love of gain is spoken of as a sin specially heinous in the sight of God. It is called idolatry, Eph. 5, 5, because wealth becomes the object supremely loved and sought. The man, therefore, who sacri- fices duty to the acquisition of wealth ; who makes gain the great object of his pursuit, is a covetous man. He cannot be a Christian, and should not, according to the apostle, be recog- nized as such.
Or icith extortioners^ i. e. the ravenous ; those who exact what is not justly due to them, or more than is justly due. The sin is not confined to exactions by force or open robbery, but to all undue exactions. The man who takes advantage of another's poverty, or of his necessities, to secure exorbitant gain, is an extortioner. Or with idolaters^ those who either professedly worship false gods, or who do what, in its own nature, and in the common judgment of men, amounts to such worship. This is said to be the earliest known instance of the use of the word etSwAoXarpr/s ; it is never used in the LXX,