Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

1 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 6, your boasting is not good.

Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

We're looking at 1st Corinthians 5, 4 and 5, and how excommunicating someone from the church for

unrepentant sin is good for that person. The hope is they would see the seriousness of sin and be

drawn back to Christ. But this is not just good for that person. This is also good for the church. So the whole picture here in

verse six is a little leaven. Leaven's the whole lump. So the whole picture is like with bread,

if you have a little bit of bad in the leaven there, It can affect the whole lump. Maybe another picture similar to this

could be like a bottle of water, like one drop of poison. Is it that big a deal? It's just one drop

and a whole bottle.

Well, I wouldn't drink the bottle.

I don't think you would either.

Like a little bit makes a big difference.

And that's the picture that Paul is saying here is when you allow unrepentant sin in the church. You don't address that.

You don't confront that lovingly and graciously.

Maybe we'll talk about that a little bit more in one of these verses,

like the process for going about this.

But if you don't do that,

then unrepentant sin just grows in the church and starts to affect all kinds of other people

and has all kinds of other tentacles that are unhealthy for the church. And we want to make sure to guard

the holiness of the church for the good of the

brothers and sisters in the church. Like that's what Paul is saying. You're for the good of the church.

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