1 Corinthians 5:6-13 Leavened or Unleavened Dough?
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: February 10, 2020 1 Corinthians 5:6-13
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
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. 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. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
(Understanding the Text) Paul uses the Passover analogy to point out that the church of Corinth needed to disfellowship the man living with his stepmother and also to show that they needed to stop bragging about which Christian leader that they are associated with. Every year before the Passover, the Jews would make a production out of getting rid of all the leaven in the house. They would clean everything to make sure that there was none left at all. Paul says that this is what the church in Corinth should do. He points out that one member’s sin will have an effect on the whole congregation just like leaven spreads throughout the dough. However, the one member’s sin is not Paul’s sole warning. He is just as concerned about the sin of pride that has spread throughout the church.
Paul says that the leaven in his example symbolizes malice and evil. Evil would be anything that breaks God’s law, but malice is an attitude of meanness towards other people. Critical, self-aggrandizing attitudes will spread evil among the congregation. Satan is constantly tempting us to lower our estimate of our brothers and sisters in Christ. He is constantly pushing us to think that we are better than them and that they have low abilities, bad attitudes, and don’t have the level of connection to God that we have. That may be true, but it is not up to us to judge what we can’t see. We are only to judge the outward actions and love the person out of the inward malice. The person who was to be judged was to be excluded from the congregation while he committed open breaking of the law of God, but the inward malice needed to be addressed also by soul searching and repentance.
Paul says that the old leaven of malice and evil needed to be replaced with sincerity and truth. When we are malicious, we become two-faced, showing a pleasant demeanor to the face while being critical behind the back. Paul says that we need to sincerely love people. We are to look upon them through the truth of love rather than the lies of malice. Truth is Jesus. This means seeing other people through His eyes. It is seeing ourselves through His eyes.
Then Paul says that the Corinthians have misunderstood his previous message. He had told them not to associate with sexually immoral people. They must have taken that to be away from the world. He tells them that he is not speaking about non-Christians, only Christians who are practicing sexual immorality. Paul says that if we tried not to associate with the sexually impure non-Christians, we would have to avoid all contact with everybody since the sexually impure are all around us in the world. Then he makes an interesting statement. He says that he only judges within the church while God judges the world at large.
Paul gives a list of sinners that the church should not socialize with: those “guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler.” Thus, we should disfellowship those practicing open sexual immorality, those whose greed has led them to open sin, idolaters, people who revile others, people who are constantly getting drunk, and people who cheat others. Paul says that leaving people with these sins in our social and spiritual group will spread corruption like leaven spreading through bread. We should maintain our distance from them, not even eating with them.
(Revelation of God) Paul shows us that God is concerned with two aspects of the church–the inward facing social groups and the outward facing social groups. Jesus said that He wanted His followers to be one with each other as the Father and the Son were one. Thus, they were to be close in ways that are not possible between a believer and a non-believer. That kind of intimacy means that attitudes and behavior will become contagious. Thus, God advises us to not maintain that kind of intimate contact with people who are rejecting Him and openly, brazenly sinning. On the other hand, God wants us to reach out to the world with the knowledge of salvation. In this kind of relationship, we are not likely to become infected with sin because we know that these people are not followers of God, and thus, they do not have attitudes and actions that we will unthinkingly imitate. They are not the same kind of threat to God’s followers that a fellow believer who is backsliding would pose.
(Application / Prayer) My application for myself is that tolerance is a great attitude, but only so far. After that point, it hurts us and is a tool that Satan uses to bring us down. We should never take that risk with our brothers- and sisters-in-Christ. This precaution is out of love of others in our group. However, we should never take our judgment outside of the group. Only God can decide what to do about the sinful lives of those who are not Christians. Help me to clearly see the limits that I should live within and to never cause one of my brothers and sisters to stumble.