Thu, 31 August, 2006: Today’s Bible readings.
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.
The church at Corinth was boasting of how tolerant they were of sin within the church. Paul calls them to account for this.
What do we learn from this?
A church must deal with the open, flagrant sin among its members. If a member of a church is someone living in disobedience to God’s word, a church must act to discipline that person. The sinning person is like leaven that will spread throughout the entire church body.
If a church refuses to address the sin of its members, it is encouraging more people to disobey. The result will be more sin from more members of the church.
This is also true in our own lives. If we tolerate sin in our own conduct, it will lead to more sin. If we harbor a secret area where we cherish our own private sin, we will begin to sin in other areas as well. Sin grows, and takes over whatever body it inhabits, like leaven.
Paul warns us that sin spreads, and therefore we must work to rid ourselves and our churches of any known sin.
Where is Christ in this passage?
We will not fully succeed in ridding our selves or our churches of sin. No matter how successful we are, until we die, we won’t reach moral perfection. We will still continue to sin in our words, thoughts and deeds.
Throughout our Christian lives here on earth, we will continue to need a Savior for our sins. We will need the work of Jesus Christ applied to us by faith. In and of ourselves, we will do nothing other than increase our guilt before God, and so we need Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins. He alone can save us from the sin that we commit. Otherwise, we would be destroyed for the guilt of our sins.
