1 Corinthians 5:7-8 - Removin' The Old Yeast

 

1 Corinthians 5:7-8

 

NKJV

Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

 

NLT

Get rid of the old “yeast” by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us. So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth.

 

I’m not going into the detail of the context of these verses, you can catch up here 1 Corinthians 5:6 - Hammer & Heart Part Deux.  It’s important for sure. But I’m thinking about a different take on this, something personal.

 

I had a pastor friend of mine tell me one time that there’s nothing new, all pastors steal pieces and parts of other sermons…so I’m sure this is nothing new!

 

Using this thought of removing the “old yeast”, I’m struck by how much old yeast I have in my life. That’s right…there are things in my life that flat out don’t have a place in a believer.  Those very things can show up and lead me into things I shouldn’t be involved in.  As I grow in Christ, there are things that I used to think were no big deal…but now are a big deal.  I want nothing more than Christ to show up in me, so I have to remove the “old yeast” (those things that distract and drag me down) from my life.  Sounds pretty easy, doesn’t it? But even though I’m a new creation, this bag of flesh I live in has been trained really well to live in this world. So to remove the old yeast, I have to capture my thoughts.  I have to make sure that I’m leading with Jesus and not me in all things.

 

I do that by living with my whole life pointed toward God; by being in God’s word every chance I get; and by loving others the way Jesus loved me (as close to that as I can get, anyway!) Easy right? No, it’s not.  It takes effort and grit and try to remove those old habits. It takes trusting God in everything.

 

Remove the old yeast from your life or it’ll put you in places you never thought you’d go and leave you there longer than you ever thought you would stay.

 

Removin’ the yeast,

cej

1 Corinthians 5:6 - Hammer & Heart Part Deux

 

1 Corinthians 5:6

 

NKJV

Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

 

NLT

Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough? 

 

This verse continues the story of the “tolerance” of the church at Corinth. Read this chapter from the start if you need an update, but in short…there was a man living in open sin with his father’s wife, something even the pagans were hesitant to do.  Apparently, he was unrepentant in his sexual immortality. To be clear, sexual immortality is anything that is outside of what God created in marriage between a man and a woman. This man was outside of God’s intention.

 

All that said, I want to focus on a couple of things.  First, the folks at Corinth were bragging about how tolerant they were.  “look at us, we see the world is changing.  God’s word doesn’t apply to this situation because the world is different.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?  Our world, and some churches, will tell us that times have changed and what was considered a sin, is no longer sin and that we should embrace it.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8).  That means that despite how our world changes, God’s plan for us is still the same.  That what God called sin 6,000 years ago…is still sin today. God is intolerant of sin, but He still wants people to come to the saving grace of Jesus Christ.  We should be the same.

 

Second, if we allow unrepentant sin in fellow believers to go unchallenged…it can destroy the whole church. Leaven was used in making bread. A bit of risen, aged dough from the previous batch would be stored away as the starting point for the next batch of dough. Working this tiny piece into a new batch introduced leavening agents which would spread to every piece of the new material. If the leaven was bad, the bacteria in it would quickly spread to the rest of the dough, making the bread worthless. So, how can we tell if someone is living in unrepentant sin?  We can’t unless they show it to us.  Our reaction should be one of sorrow when we see this. How can we help bring this brother, or sister, back into a relationship with God?

 

We could probably put on our self-righteous garments pretty easily when we start this process. I would warn you to get the plank out of your eye before even broaching this with someone.  Don’t  be a hypocrite. I hope we approach this with the same mercy that we would want applied to us.  We should be prepared to judge at the same level we would want to be judged.  Approach it with love and kindness…and truth, always with the truth of God.

 

Mercy, love, and truth,

cej

1 Corinthians 5:5 - Not Police, But...

1 Corinthians 5:5

 NKJV

 deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

 NLT 

Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved on the day the Lord returns. 

 Seems pretty harsh…to hand someone over to satan, doesn’t it? To be clear, this is about an unrepentant man who was living in open sin in the Corinth church. Still seems pretty harsh…but… 

 At first go, nobody likes to be disciplined…nobody! I was not a fan of the spankin’s and such that came from my parents when I was youngster. At the time I considered them unfair and just too much. In my later years (and when I had kids of my own) I understood the value of what my parents were trying to do. They wanted me to understand that there were consequences to my actions. That I could not just act any old way I wanted to…do bad things, get punished. I can tell you that I was never punished unjustly, my folks were fair. 

I think about this verse and the fact that this man was being cast out and handed over to satan; God didn’t want him to be cast out, his choice to stay in his sin got him cast out. One bad apple can ruin the whole basket is the concept that I see here. 

 Bibleref.net says, “Details aside, this verse clearly supports three crucial purposes of church discipline. First, it is necessary in order to convict and correct others so they aren't fooled about their spiritual state (1 Corinthians 10:12). Second, it is necessary for the spiritual health of the other believers (Jude 1:12; Galatians 2:4). Third, it is necessary to prevent the unbelieving world from having legitimate reasons to criticize the body of Christ (1 Peter 2:12; 2 Peter 2:1–2; Galatians 2:14). 

 Choices we make have consequences, that’s for sure. At some point, God is going to give us over to the world so that our flesh will be destroyed, because He loves us, if we continue in our sin (talkin’ to believers here). I don’t believe this is anything that God wants to do, He’d much rather we love Him and follow His truth over everything else. But people…. 

 We need each other because we are so capable of sin. We are no longer the old man, but we still live in this body that has been trained well in the ways of the world. Be involved in your church; have Christian friends that you go do stuff with; worship together (MEN, SING WHEN YOU WORSHIP…your family is watching). I pray that you have someone in your life that pulls you back from the edge with the truth of Jesus Christ. 

“Church discipline is not a group of ‘pious policemen’ out to catch a criminal. Rather, it is a group of brokenhearted brothers and sisters seeking to restore an erring member of the family.” (Wiersbe) 

 Not police, but… 

cej

1 Corinthians 5:4 - The Power in the Meeting

 

1 Corinthians 5:4

 

NKJV

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

 

NLT

in the name of the Lord Jesus. You must call a meeting of the church. I will be present with you in spirit, and so will the power of our Lord Jesus.

 

Earlier in this chapter, Paul is gettin’ after the church at Corinth for basically saying that an open sin by one of the brothers was ok. He said that he’d already judged the one who’d done the deed.

The Living Word (Bible) is best understood in context, but God can also take pieces (individual verses) of it and speak truth to us.  For me, he does it here. While I get what is being talked about here, the removal of an unrepentant brother; I also am struck by the last part after Paul says when you must call a meeting.

It says, when you are gathered together with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ…How bout dat!?!?  Mathew 18:20 says where two or more are gathered in my name there I am. Ecclesiastes 4:12 tells us that three strands are not easily broken. There is strength to be gained when believers gather. There is strength to be gained because we can encourage each other to pursue Jesus.  Hebrews 10:25 tells us to meet together; to not forsake it. How can we grow in our relationship with Christ if we’re not going to be around brothers and sisters in Christ? Yes, God supplies the growth…but you never know who He is going to be speaking through.  Meet together and do it with the power of Jesus!

 

In a meeting,

cej