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. (1 Corinthians 5:6-7)
In a previous post we began to look at the verse immediately before this passage and discussed one reason given there for the exercise of church discipline, to save the soul of the one under discipline. But the scripture continues in these two verses to give us a second motive for church discipline, to protect the church.
Paul says here that tolerating sin, and boasting of our “grace” in tolerating the unrepentant sinner, threatens the health of the whole church. He uses the analogy of bread.
We love bread in our home, especially the home-baked kind. We especially love homemade sourdough. What is amazing is that you can use only a tiny bit of the sourdough culture to leaven (and rise) a large loaf. All it takes is time.
You mix the culture in with flour and water to “feed” the yeast. The leavening starts slow, but as time passes, the yeast grows and multiplies. The more it multiplies, the faster the loaf rises.
Sin acts the same way. If we tolerate it, entertain it, feed it like yeast, it grows and multiplies. People will see that they can live in sin without consequences in the church, assuming that by extension God accepts it. The sin then spreads, grows, and multiplies, leavening the whole congregation, in essence, eating their souls.
It may start small, almost unnoticed, and it may not seem to be spreading or growing, but it is, and it will speed up and get out of control if it is not dealt with.
Paul says we “really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” This means that Jesus, by his atoning death has really removed the yeast of sin from our lives. And so Paul exhorts us to act like who we are. “Remove that old leaven of sin. Be who you really are, who Christ has made you to be!”
The exercise of church discipline is intended to save the soul of the sinner, and to protect the souls of the other members of the body.
With these two motives for discipline, why would we not use this gift God has given his church?
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