Living in Sincerity and in Truth [1 Corinthians 5]
6Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? 7Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. 8Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
After five chapters of reminding them of the truth of the gospel, he now exhorts them about sin that is in their midst. There is a man living in sexual immorality among them and instead of being filled with grief and removing this man from among them, they are inflated with pride.
Why is it so important to remove the one staying in a lifestyle of sin and to remove the pride we have? Because sinful attitudes are like yeast. They permeate the whole lump of dough. I know you have seen this happen. After spending time with someone who is grumbling and critical about the church leadership or her husband, don't you find yourself feeling similar emotions?
Why are we called to clean out the old yeast so that we may be a new batch of unleavened bread? Because:
- we are in fact unleavened. (He has made us holy and blameless.)
- For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. (His sacrifice paid for that sin, so that the sin is "sent away" - forgiven.)
He is calling us to live the kingdom of God here on earth- "on earth as it is in heaven." Not with the yeast of malice and evil but in sincerity and truth.
Verna McCrillis, 11/13/2008