A Truly Unleavened Lump

Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are.
1 Corinthians 5:6-7

The Corinthian church was suffering from a serious condition—and didn’t realize it.

Moral laxness, like yeast in a batch of dough, was threatening to permeate the entire assembly—a radical condition calling for an equally radical solution, as G. Campbell Morgan explains.

WALK WITH G. CAMPBELL MORGAN
“The whole body of Christ is affected by the sin of one member.

“The church’s life is weaker if one in the fellowship continues in sin. The church’s testimony to those outside is weakened by that fact.

“Thus, we have no right to refuse to exercise the discipline of love in the case of anyone who, to our knowledge, has flagrantly sinned.

“The law which the apostle states here is that the leaven [yeast] is to be purged. Leaven communicates itself, spreads its own corrupting force wherever it goes.

“A little leaven—one man sinning and permitted to remain within the fellowship of the church—will spread, first unconsciously and insidiously, but most surely throughout the whole church.

“There is no more difficult or delicate thing awaiting us in our church fellowship than the matter of discipline.

“May God give us of his Spirit that we may dare to deal with sin and refuse to give it harbor or refuge within our fellowship.”

WALK CLOSER TO GOD
Surgery is never pleasant. But when the choice is between difficult, delicate discipline and a body whose strength is sapped by sin, which course would you choose?

Better yet, don’t wait until surgery is called for. Deal with sin promptly, personally, Biblically (see Matthew 18:15-17). It’s much less painful than surgery for all involved.