1 Corinthians 5
Rebecca Lightfoot
In chapter 5 of 1Corinthians,after warning the people of spiritual immaturity and the arrogance that comes with it,Paul tells the people that this immaturity & arrogance allows the “little leaven”(1Cor5:6) into our lives that infects the “whole lump”/our whole heart/life/mind to the point that we will eventually find sin of some kind becoming more and more a source of hardening our hearts for Christ!When Paul lists these sins n verse 11(“sexual immorality or greed,or is an idolater,reviled,drunkard,or swindler”),we must peel the onion back of these to glean the wisdom and discernment that God’s Spirit yearns for us to have relative to our own lives & our personal relationship with HIM.Yes,Paul is giving us these verses to protect the larger body of believers from those within the church that are hardened by sin.But there is another purpose of protecting us individually/personally from allowing the leaven of sin to knead itself into our own heart/mind/life.He is telling us to be aware of these things creeping into our heart/mind/life!A quick read of these things can leave me with a false sense of “being ok”.But when I dig into what these things mean when dissected to the core of what they describe,I can see “fine grains of leaven” these things can start out as in my heart/mind/life.In our times of the Internet,visual reality,virtual reality,etc.,what we allow our eyes & mind to “partake of” defines sexual immorality in ways that were unknown at the time Paul wrote,but can be as dangerous to our hearts/minds/lives as the actual physical act of sexual immorality!Maybe even more dangerous because of the way we can more easily “hide” this version of sexual immorality from the outside world,thereby enabling it’s virus to do more damage to our “whole lump”/whole life.The same thing is true for the other things in this list!We need to dig into the root of each of these,so we can see what other “unseen” viruses are waging war inside...those that we are covering up the same way the people in Corinth were-by going to church,Sunday school,tithing,teaching,pastoring,checking of the performance boxes...and still allowing their hearts/minds/lives to b contaminated with “a little leaven” of bits of greed/selfishness;arrogant reviling/criticizing in ways that make us feel better about ourselves;drunkenness on anything that numbs our heart/mind/life to TRUTH;&swindling/any kind of deception for personal gain.Dear Lord,when I dig deeper into what this list of sins really address as warning signs for my heart/mind/life,I realize how much more of Your HELP I need in being aware of these things in my life,and removing these grains of “leaven” from my heart/mind/life.Lord Jesus,help me with this...give me Your Courage for this...& may Your Spirit freely move in my life to remove the grains of “leaven” from my heart/mind/life.