March 24 – Good leaven – 1 Cor 5:8

 March 24 – Good leaven – 1 Cor 5:8

 

8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth

 

     Paul then continues and uses an analogy familiar to his Jewish audience.  The Passover is the most sacred festival in the Jewish calendar because it is the time that the Jews were released from the tyranny of the Egyptians.  The first born the land were slain by the angel of death but the Jewish families were spared because of the blood of the lamb put on the doorposts and lintels. 

      Paul calls his readers to celebrate the full benefits of this act of salvation where Jesus Christ allowed by body to be broken and his blood to be shed for our salvation.  He then asks them to throw off the shackles of malice and wickedness and put on sincerity and truth.  Allow our lives to be leavened by the new and not by the old.  Remember all things have passed away and all things are becoming new.  Forget the past and embrace the future in Christ.