I Corinthians 5:6
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Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven works through the whole batch of dough?
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Your glorying in your own attainments and those of your favorite teachers (Co1 3:21; Co1 4:19; Co1 5:2), while all the while ye connive at such a scandal, is quite unseemly. a little leaven leaveth . . . whole lump-- (Gal 5:9), namely, with present complicity in the guilt, and the danger of future contagion (Co1 15:33; Ti2 2:17).
Open source ↗In this chapter the apostle, I. Blames them for their indulgence in the case of the incestuous person, and orders him to be excommunicated, and delivered to Satan (Co1 5:1-6). II. He exhorts them to Christian purity, by purging out the old leaven (Co1 5:7, Co1 5:8). And, III. Directs them to shun even the common conversation of Christians who were guilty of any notorious and flagitious wickedness (Co1 5:9 to the end).
Open source ↗5:6-7 Yeast was often a symbol of sin (cp. Matt 16:6, 12; Mark 8:15; Luke 12:1; Gal 5:9). Jews ceremonially cleansed their homes of yeast before the annual Passover meal (Exod 12:19; 13:7). • Get rid of . . . this wicked person: Sin, if unaddressed, could spread throughout the church, just as yeast spreads throughout a batch of dough.
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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A little leaven works through the whole batch of dough.
Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good character.”
As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil.
And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been stricken with grief and have removed from your fellowship the man who did this?
Therefore, stop boasting in men. All things are yours,
It is like leaven that a woman took and mixed into three measures of flour, until all of it was leavened.”
and the talk of such men will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus,
He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and mixed into three measures of flour, until all of it was leavened.”