Scripture: 1 Corinthians 5:6-8, “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 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.  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.”

For more than 5,000 years, humans have mixed flour and water; waited for the mixture to ferment, and used it as leavening to make dough rise. They found that by saving a bit of unused dough they could propagate their leavening to the next batch. No one knew then that within the leaven were living microorganisms. It was Louis Pasteur in the mid-nineteenth century who showed that fermentation was caused by microbes. Leavening occurs when yeast and bacteria consume carbohydrates in the flour releasing carbon dioxide gas bubbles, which cause dough to rise.

Bread in Bible times was made very simply from wheat flour, water, olive oil and salt. The leaven would have been saved from a previous batch of dough; kept aside and fed to cause

subsequent batches of dough to rise. However, even without the addition of leaven to speed the process, fermentation will occur due to the presence of naturally occurring bacteria and yeasts in the dough. In fact, if you check out the recipe for unleavened bread on www.hebrewliving.com, you will find that true unleavened bread dough must be placed in an oven within 18 minutes of the flour being moistened or it is not considered unleavened. At Passover, Jews were required to “cleanse” their homes of leaven.

In today’s scripture passage and its surrounding context, Paul is speaking to the church at Corinth about sexual immorality. Specifically, he is addressing open sexual immorality within the church rather than in the surrounding society (see 1 Corinthians 5:9-13). Not only were the offender and his supporters unrepentant, they were arrogant (5:2) and boastful (5:6) in their open sinfulness. In response, Paul commands the Corinthian church “to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” The openly unrepentant member was to be removed from fellowship with the church.

The only alternative to fellowship with Christ and his church is fellowship with Satan and his minions. Paul commanded this man be excommunicated by the church at Corinth not so they could look down their noses at the sinner removed from fellowship, but so this man’s “spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” The purpose was to bring the offender to repentance and restore him to fellowship. Sometimes love must be tough.

We all sin daily and are in continual need of God’s forgiveness (“all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23). So why did Paul respond so strongly to this reported sinfulness? We get a clue from the analogy he used. Open, unrepentant sin in the church spreads like leaven in warm, moist dough. The distinction here is that the sin in the Corinthian church was open; unrepentant; even arrogant.

So how do we apply today’s scripture to our lives? Let’s look at some key phrases:

·      “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump” (v. 7)

·      “You really are unleavened, for Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (v. 7)

·      “Therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (v. 8)

1) During this Lenten season, remember Christ’s sacrifice for us; once for all; the righteous for the unrighteous.

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.” 1 Peter 3:18

2) Repent and ask God to cleanse our hearts of the “old leaven” of malice and evil.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

3) Celebrate God’s grace and faithfulness by walking before him in sincerity and truth.

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8

Let’s pray:

Dear Father in Heaven, thank you for sending your dear son, Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, to suffer and die in our place that we might walk in right standing with you. We repent of our sins. Cleanse the “old leaven” of malice and evil from our hearts and help us to walk before you in sincerity and truth. In this Lenten season as we remember Jesus suffering and death for us, give us grateful hearts as we celebrate Christ’s resurrection victory. In His Name we pray. Amen.

Clif Baumer