Submitted by Curtis Tucker
Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old “yeast”…. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us. 8 So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth.
1 Corinthians 5:6-8, NLT
Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old “yeast”…. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us. 8 So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth.
1 Corinthians 5:6-8, NLT
Just a Little Sin
In this passage the Apostle Paul is writing to the believers in the Corinthian church. He compares these “good church members” with a batch of dough which has had a little yeast added to it. The yeast represents sin; sin which will take over our lives. The apostle’s warning is that followers of Christ should not be content with sin, not even a little sin. Paul encourages his readers with the idea of the transformation that takes place in us as we recognize we are no longer slaves to sin but, through Christ, we are free. We no longer have to live with the sin that threatens to control our whole lives.
I recently read an article that reminded me of this truth. The author of this article was talking about his family’s experiences after they moved from the United States to Mexico City. One of the major challenges was with the water. The tap water was not drinkable and the family had been told to not even rinse their tooth brushes with the water that came through the pipes. Charles Fishman, the article’s author, said that his wife and kids were very careful to follow that rule but he had decided it was too much trouble to pour the bottled water onto his tooth brush so he would rinse with the regular tap water.
Not only was the water not fit to drink but the water service was regularly interrupted for “maintenance.” Because of that, most of the homes in their neighborhood were equipped with their own water tanks where water was stored for flushing toilets, showering, etc during those times of service interruption. About a year into the Fishmans time in Mexico, the water service was shut-off for longer than normal and both of the home’s water tanks went dry. Eventually, Fishman was able to contact a private water company who would bring a truck out and refill the tanks. For the first time, Fishman removed the lid from one of the cisterns. It was a bright blue plastic tank and at the bottom was a thick layer of mud. As the water ran into the tank the mud swirled around inside. He suddenly thought about what he was putting into his mouth every time he brushed his teeth. He also realized why he had suffered from a constant stomachache since moving to Mexico. Of course, he changed his habit and began rinsing his tooth brush with bottled water, and within a couple of weeks, amazingly, he no longer had a stomachache.
This story reminded me of how we will sometimes resist the challenges of transformation. We take the easy, less troublesome route. We deal with the inconvenient “stomachache.” You know, the relationships that are strained, the habits that we are not proud of, our less than consistent Christian walk. Why don’t we take the lid off and see the junk we allow into our lives? Then, realize that with just some small obedient adjustments to our lives, how much better it would be. How would it feel to walk around without the “stomachache”?
