S118P4 – Loaded statements: Paul

1 Cor. 5:6‭-‬8

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

For the first four chapters of this letter, Paul is admonishing the church in Corinth for its bad behavior.  The people had allowed divisions to develop between them because one professed allegiance to one teacher and another to a different teacher.  They also had allowed sexual sin to enter their community, but it was even worse than the practices of the Gentiles.  It was like Paul was receiving one bit of bad news after another.  They had made idols out of their leaders, they had begun to worship their own flesh, and these sins brought division to their members.  We might take this passage to mean that the brothers and sisters in Corinth had to remove from themselves their individual iniquities, but it says much more than that. 

The verses that follow this passage are clear.  No member of the Church is to fellowship with any members who have determined to live a life of sin.  Paul is not speaking of those who are merely deceived and have gone astray in foolishness.  He is speaking of those who have decided that sinful living is the right way for them to live.  This is simply defiance of God’s precepts.  Remember that Paul, who is like a father to this group, has been absent while being imprisoned.  It is like the cat being away, and now the mice will play.  The issue is not simply that a strong leadership figure it not present.  The greater concern is that his absence has opened the door for this kind of behavior.  Had they been disciplined in their faith, his absence would not have triggered such sinful practices. 

There are two types of leaven that can poison us.  The first is the sin that the believer allows to grow within himself or herself.  It feeds the flesh and slowly kills the spirit.  The second is the sin that the Church allows to grow within her members.  It causes division and stifles the work of the bride.  Both kinds of leaven must be purged, but the second is more difficult to address correctly and without judgment.  Paul had the discernment to know whom he should call out and why.  That is the kind of leadership we need at a time when the Church is so willing to compromise to appeal to the world.  Father, show us the leaven that we must remove from ourselves, and give us the wisdom to remove it from the Church correctly.