By no means does 1 Corinthians 5:11 only deal with abuse, nor does it directly speak on every category of abuse, much less every possible example within each category. This verse also refers to sins like greed, idolatry, and voluntary drunkenness, with Paul insisting that Christians not even eat with someone who calls themself a spiritual brother (or sister) while practicing these and other miscellaneous wrongs. How does this verse relate to abuse? Among the kinds of people he cautions against even having a meal with, he brings up revilers, as the ESV and NKJV put it, or slanderers, as the NIV calls them. In overt view here is a verbally abusive person who engages in this type of sin on an ongoing basis while claiming in some way to be aligned with God. Whether they are not even a Christian or are only partially faltering, Paul's encouragement for how to react to them is the same.
And if verbal abuse like slander or unjust/malicious insults is immoral enough to warrant basically excommunicating someone until they repent, physical abuse would be even more worthy of this reaction. Furthermore, if people who unrepentantly abuse others can be legitimately shunned to the point of not even eating with them, an abusive spouse would be no exception; of course this passage by extension allows separation within marriage or termination of a marriage over not just slander/reviling, but also any of the other misdeeds listed. The core idea of 1 Corinthians 5:11 also would at at least allow the same for any worse form of mistreatment or other sin. With as seemingly random as many New Testament ethical declarations are, it might appear to some readers as if only the listed sins are applicable to what Paul urges us to do. This is not so.
Any truths about religious or moral concepts, including which ones are even possible and what would or would not be true if these concepts are/were true, are grounded in logical necessity. This is in part why God would not need to address every single possible instance of abuse in Mosaic Law. Reason already requires that if one form of abuse entitles someone to depart from or shun the abuser, then at a minimum, so would any other form of abuse in the same category or worse.
Exodus 21:26-27, for instance, says as much about physical mistreatment: even male and female slaves must be emancipated for physical abuse, such as permanent injury to an eye or tooth. These verses still apply in their ethical principle to relationships between modern employers and employees and spouses (in both directions, not just with male abuse of women). So too would 1 Corinthians 5:11 for various logical reasons relate to far more than just verbal abuse and just ostracism in a specific local church congregation. Like many parts of Yahweh's revelation in the Torah, 1 Corinthians 5:11 by extension addresses more than the kinds of abuse literally mentioned.
It is more overt in one sense that the moral prescriptions of the Torah often take the form of case laws that illustrate how to handle a very precise situation. There are other possible physical or mental disabilities than blindness and deafness, the examples Leviticus 19:14 provides when condemning the exploitation of the disabled. Again, there are far more possible injuries, with some forms of physical abuse leaving no injury of either a temporary or permanent sort, than the loss of a tooth or damage to an eye, which Exodus 21:26-27 uses as examples of injuries that an abusive master or mistress must let their slaves go free for. Weapons and other objects besides iron instruments, stones, and wooden items can be used as tools of murder, though Numbers 35:16-18 only mentions these specific categories. In the same way, there are sins worse than some mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5:11, with it following logically that physically mistreating someone is worse than merely speaking to them with undue harshness or of them with slanderous words if the latter is wicked.
Between Exodus 21:10-11, 26-27, Deuteronomy 23:15-16, 1 Corinthians 7:15, and 1 Corinthians 5:11, the passage of main focus in this post, the Bible is quite clear that all people have the moral right to flee or separate from abusers of all kinds; some of these verses even specifically address men, women, and slaves as abuse victims, whom some would fallaciously think deserve what Biblically amounts to mistreatment because of one aspect of their identity or another (gender, class). Using various examples which themselves would necessitate other unspoken examples, these verses individually and together reinforce that if someone is mistreated, even verbally, they do not themselves err by departing from the abusive party for their own protection.
However, 1 Corinthians 5:11 goes beyond just authorizing separation from abusive people on their victim's part. Other parties are likewise free (and encouraged by Paul) to separate from an abuser to distance themselves from the latter's evil or pressure them to change for the better, and 1 Corinthians 5:11 also clearly addresses shunning someone for other sins. If someone claims to be a Christian, other Christians do not sin by refusing to so much as speak or eat with someone who disregards the truth (though of immediate focus in the verse is the truth about their moral failure and hypocrisy).
Would this mean that any sin warrants cutting them off relationally, at least to the extent of not voluntarily interacting with them in a mutually cordial way? Would this mean that divorce is permissible in all such cases, including those far beyond the exact sins of drunkenness, idolatry, verbal abuse, and so on as addressed in 1 Corinthians 5:11 along with anything adjacent but worse (physical as opposed to verbal abuse) or separately addressed by example as grounds for divorce (Exodus 21:10-11, 1 Corinthians 7:15, etc.)? Absolutely. Mercy is always by nature optional, unless someone seeks it in genuine repentance, and it would be merciful to interact with a flagrant sinner as if they are not in failures of their own doing.
And Deuteronomy 24:1 literally allows divorce in any case of the other spouse's moral failure. I will again point out that if it was not for this verse, two things would necessitate that divorce for even amoral displeasure would be nonsinful according to the Bible: 1) the lack of condemnation of such divorce anywhere else in the Torah and 2) Deuteronomy 21:10-14 treating a divorce as legitimate simply because one spouse is not pleased with the other. Only the clarification in Deuteronomy 24:1 that nonspecific moral indecency must have occurred points to the requirement of a moral failure for legitimate divorce.
Otherwise, the clear Torah doctrine of divorce would be that it is fine to end a marriage as long as you are no longer pleased enough with your spouse to stay married, even if they did not commit a wrong. Either way, 1 Corinthians 5:11 is clear. Those who believe or claim themselves to be Christians can be ostracized for unrepentantly sinning, with there being no exception for how one spouse is permitted to treat the other. Since this ostracism is valid, this same separation is fine even if the one being distanced from is one's marriage partner. The inverse is also independently true. If divorcing a spouse is not evil when they profess or think themselves to be on the side of reason and morality yet habitually sin, including when it comes to verbal abuse or worse, then of course it would be fine to end or suspend a relationship with acquaintances or biological family members whom one cannot choose as one can a spouse.
Sin is always severe simply because it is evil, and abuse is a specially egregious class of sin, although not everything people might feel or believe is abusive necessarily is. Personal whims, societal expectations, intuition (including conscience), and persuasion are all of no authority. Yet, abuse of the lowest category, that of words, is blatantly affirmed by Paul to be basis enough to not even eat with someone who would profess themselves as aligned with God or Christ. Spouses and one's own father or mother are not exempt on the receiving end.
See, even at a superficial level, the New Testament absolutely takes both sins of abuse and abuse victims seriously, though not with the same varied directness as the supposedly oppressive Torah, all while indirectly acknowledging that mistreatment other than abandonment (1 Corinthians 7:15) allows someone to divorce as do other general sins—see also the logical ramifications of 2 Corinthians 6:14-18, Ephesians 5:3-7, and 2 Timothy 3:1-5 for marriage and divorce. It is "almost" like both the Old Testament and New Testament are gravely misunderstood by those with the greatest cultural visibility!
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