An important part of our diet is bread, there are many different types ,soda bread wheaten bread,plain bread,pan bread,it is all bread. Many people make their own bread, in bread making machines, part of the ingrediants to bread is yeast,it causes the bread to rise. In the Jewish religion at passover they are to clear out any leaven [ yeast] in their homes, why?,it is symbolic of sin. W Barclay points out ,the Jews identified fermentation with putrefaction, and so leaven stood for a corrupting influence. In 1 Corinthians 5 v 6-7 the apostle tells the Christians how a little piece of leaven effects the whole lump of dough, and thats the way it is with sin, if sin is not dealt with, it will effect ,the whole church ,and the individual Christians life.So he exhorts them to purge out,or to get rid of those sinful practices ,that if left, will have serious consequences. Paul is exhorting the church to exercise discipline,often churches shut their eyes to sin in their midst, but as we see in Revelation 2/3 the Lord of the church will not.We must treat sin with the same seriousness as God does , but a note of caution as W Barclay put it,/Discipline must never be vengeful, it must always be curative and prophylactic.
A prayer...../Holy God grant us grace to lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, in Jesus name we ask this Amen/
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