6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. ~ 1 Corinthians 5:6-8
The NIV says, “Get rid of the old yeast.” In Scripture, yeast, or leaven, represents sin. In this passage, Paul is dealing with sexual immorality in the church there at Corinth. One of their members has taken his father’s wife as his own wife. Therefore, Paul instructs them to get rid of the yeast. Get the sin out of their midst because if they do not, it will infect the whole church, one by one, and soon, the whole batch will be infected with sin.
If you think about it, that is basically what is happening in the church today. We tolerate the leaven in our church because the person is a celebrity or they are a good tithe payer, and we don’t want to upset them. Or the church simply bows to the political pressures of society, ignoring God’s commands to us. But that is not Paul’s instruction to the Corinthian church. He told them straight up, get rid of the yeast that is in your presence, or it will infect your whole church.
It is the same thing that God instructed the Israelites before they entered the Promised Land. Get rid of the sin in the land. Smash their sacred altars. Breakdown their Asherah Poles. Destroy anything that is used for idol worship. If you do not get rid of all of that, it will be a snare to you. They will be like briers in your eyes. Because a little leaven leavens the whole batch.
It is the same with the new Christian. God does not expect you to get saved and then change overnight, but He does expect you to seek holiness, without which no man shall see God. That means you don’t keep making the same mistakes you made last year or even last month. You don’t use grace as an excuse for your own slackness. God understands, or I know I’m not living the way I’m supposed to, but thank God for Grace. No, God wants you to mature because His Son suffered and died so you can live a higher life.
Paul puts it this way: Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed; therefore, let us get rid of all the yeast, which represents sin, out of our lives so that we can pursue holiness. So, this Easter, make it a point to get rid of the yeast of malice and evil out of your life. Get rid of quick-temperedness, course joking, slack-talking, cussing, watching things Christians have no business watching, and whatever else that prevents your spiritual growth.
Father, help me to live the things I believe, to practice what I preach, and to be an example to those who watch. Help me to let my light so shine that others may see my good works and glorify You. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.
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