sin is like yeast

1 Corinthians 5:6–8 (NIV) — 6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

The image here is that of the Passover Supper. If you have participated in a Passover Seder, such as held by the Bunker Hill Methodist Church, or even if you just read about it in the bible (Exodus 12), then you know the importance of getting rid of leaven for the full seven days of the festival. One of the requirements was, and is, that no leaven is to be anywhere on their property.

Leaven is a picture of sin. It is small but powerful. It works slowly and secretly, spreading and puffing up the dough. Can you recall the last time you or someone you knew made bread, rolls or anything that required yeast? Can you recall the process, the kneading, the rising, the proofing, and the time it took? Now picture that dough as the church and the yeast as sin. Can you see how sin, if left alone, can work through and change the whole church?

Get rid of the old yeast. In the immediate context he is talking about the man who is sleeping with his step-mother. But in verse 8 what other leaven does he talk about that should be gotten rid of? What other leaven do churches allow to flourish? Is there leaven in your church, or in your own life that is being allowed to grow and flourish? What can you do about it?

Paul says we should be unleavened with sincerity and truth. Do you see sincerity and truth in churches around you? What about in your church? What about in you? What can you do about that?