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A New Kind of Festival

Daily Reflection / Produced by The High Calling
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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 5:8

In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul deals with practical situations in the life of the Corinthian church. The first concerns a man who is “living in sin with his stepmother” (5:1). This unnamed man believed that his behavior was just fine, even though he was a Christian. And the Corinthian believers backed him up, believing that such behavior was within the realm of Christian freedom. Paul’s response was definitive. The man should be removed from the Corinthian church. Yet, this exclusion was not meant merely to punish the offender, but also to help him turn his life around (5:5).

Why was Paul so strict in this situation? In addition to being concerned about the sinful man’s ultimate redemption, the apostle knew that openly sinful behavior without repentance impacts the whole church. Like yeast, sin “spreads through the whole batch of dough” (5:6). Thus, just as the Jews got rid of food with yeast during their celebration of the Passover, so Christians cleanse their fellowship of sin. “Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us,” Paul writes. “So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth” (5:7-8).

The “festival” of which Paul speaks is not some special religious ceremony. Rather, he uses this language to depict the Christian life. We live each day in the joyous freedom of Christ’s sacrifice for us. Yet this does not mean we should freely sin. Rather, we seek, by God’s grace, to get rid of “the old bread of wickedness and evil” and to feast upon “the new bread of sincerity and truth.” Openness, honesty, integrity, and genuineness are to be at the center of our celebration of new life in Christ.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: Have you known people whose lives are characterized by sincerity and truth? How might you live differently today if you celebrated your freedom in Christ by being a person of sincerity and truth?

PRAYER: Dear Lord, in a day when tolerance is prized to such a great extent, it is jarring to listen to Paul’s response to the man who persisted in sexual sin. We would tend, I think, not to want to make a fuss, not to want to hurt his feelings. Of course, sometimes we go in the other direction, becoming people of graceless judgment and condemnation. How hard it is to find the balance between righteousness and mercy!

Help your church, Lord, to be a place of such grace that we risk offending in order to help people find wholeness in life. May we be, indeed, people of sincerity and truth. Give us courage to stand for what is right, even in a culture that would see us as narrow and judgmental.

At the same time, Lord, may we be people who speak the truth in love, who are committed to the redemption of all people, and who receive your grace by being gracious to others. May we celebrate who we are in Christ by being people of truth and sincerity, people of righteousness and love. Amen.

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