1 Corinthians 5:6-8

1 Corinthians 5:6-8

Your boasting is not good.  Have you not known that a little leaven leavens the whole dough?  Cleanse out the old leaven in order that you all should be new dough just as you all are unleavened.  For even Christ was being made our Passover Lamb.  Therefore we should celebrate the feast not in the old leaven nor in the leaven of wickedness and sinfulness but in the unleaven of sincerity and truth.

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

In this passage, Paul is tying into a Jewish ritual.  Before Passover, Jewish tradition stipulates that all leaven was to be searched out through the house and cast out.  Thus, we inherently understand Paul’s desire to connect to Christ’s death as the Passover Lamb and Paul’s claim for us to be unleavened.  He is urging us to realize that with Christ’s death it is natural for us to become something new while casting out the old ways of humanity.

What is your leaven?  What in your life corrupted you in the past that if you are not careful will corrupt you as a new creation in Christ?

Second Thought:

Now that we understand Paul’s overall theme for these verses, let’s go back and pick up on some of the power.  A little leaven leavens the whole dough.  It doesn’t take much to corrupt something.  Ever get a small grain of sand in your shoe?  That’s incredibly frustrating!  Ever do a whole load of dishes and realize that you missed one single dish?  Ever weed a whole garden only to realize you missed a single weed?  This is Paul’s message.  We can be almost completely walking with God and have just a little amount of sinfulness throw us completely out of balance.

Why do you think it is often the little things that trip us up?  Why are we great at purging big amounts of sinful nature out of our life but genuinely bad at purging small amounts of sinfulness from our life?

Third Thought:

Now we are ready for the truth about the Corinthians.  It is easy to read these words about a little leaven corrupting the whole batch and immediately think that Paul is talking about the sexual offender.  Don’t get me wrong, in some respects he is.  The greater context is that very point.  But notice that Paul begins these verses by saying that the boasting of the Corinthians is not good.  The reason that sinfulness continues to exist within them is because in their boasting they have convinced themselves that they don’t have any sin among them.  They have convinced themselves that they have it all going on.  As they boast about how great their spirituality is, ironically they become more and more blind to the sin that does remain.  In this sense, the leaven that Paul is talking about is the pride of boasting that exists in the hearts of all the Corinthians.

Have you ever become blinded by your own boasting?  What is it about human pride that puts blinders over our eyes?  What can you do to prevent this?

Passage for Tomorrow: 1 Corinthians 5:9-13