1 Corinthians 5:8
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.
Paul is drawing upon the Festival of Unleavened Bread, part of the Passover celebration. The Jews remove leaven from the home in preparation for the Passover meal. Leaven (a rising agent like yeast) penetrates dough and causes it to rise in preparation for baking. The old leaven that was still a part of the life of the Corinthian church was malice and evil. These are broad and inclusive terms, which incorporate the problem of the immoral man. But they also could include the deeper heart problem of the Corinthians. Why did Paul choose these terms? That is a curious issue. Malice and evil are characteristics of sin that has gone unchecked. Why did Paul talk about the leavened bread in terms of sincerity and truth? The Corinthians have to be honest with themselves and with God. They have to see through the haze of culture and see themselves as sinners in desperate need of forgiveness and cleansing. Entire sanctification requires sincerity as we embrace the truth of who we are before God, like Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 6, and as who we can become in Christ. Paul is offering the Corinthians the way out of the pit they were digging for themselves.
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