Daily Devotional

A Ministry of the Kerwin Baptist Church

August 07, 2019

by Pastor Hawtree

BIBLE READING: I Corinthians 5

6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

“YOUR GLORYING IS NOT GOOD”
It never is. The Bible has a lot to say and many examples of the danger of promoting “self”. The fact that the Bible deals with this on many occasions makes it clear to us that this is something that we all struggle with. It is something that is a characteristic of our old flesh. Putting our self first is something that will cause many problems in our Christian walk. It just “is not good”.

Paul says here that it only takes a little bit of this pride to do a whole lot of damage. Paul uses the illustration of leaven. Leaven is something that is added to dough to help make bread rise. It has strong roots in the Jewish culture. All the way back to when Moses and the children of Israel were trying to get out of the bondage of Egypt, when God freed them, they did not have time to put leaven, or yeast, in their bread because they had to exit Egypt quickly. So, every Passover, they are careful to eat unleavened bread, eliminate all yeast, as a reminder of how God freed their people from bondage. So, Paul is making the point here that even if you eliminate most of the yeast, just a little bit can ruin the entire batch. So, even just a little pride that is allowed to stay in our life can cause as much problem as a lot of pride.

Paul then gives us the example that Jesus, God in flesh, continued to humble Himself. If anyone had the right to glory, it would’ve been Jesus. But Jesus, “being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross”. (Philippians 2:8)

So Paul gives us:
THE EXCLAMATION (6a)
THE EXPLANATION (6b-7a)
THE EXAMPLE (7b)
THE ENCOURAGEMENT (8)

Paul encourages us to keep the feast. This means to look at our life and try to remove any of that leavening agent. See if there is any pride and get rid of it. Sounds like we have a busy day!