What is Leaven and is it bad? How will Leaven affect our worship?
The apostle Paul used the analogy of leaven in making bread. He used it in relation to how it would affect our worship. He called it the leaven of malice and evil. Is that a fair assessment of the definition of leaven?
1 Corinthians 5:6-8… Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little leaven ferments the whole batch of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new unleavened batch, as indeed you are. For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us observe the feast, not with old leaven or with the leaven of malice (G2549 depravity) and evil (G4189 wickedness), but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
The apostle Paul was pointing out the fact that there was sexual immorality going on within the Corinthian congregation. They as a group were allowing this sin to exist among them, and it was affecting their worship before God. Can we now define what leaven is based on this Scripture we reviewed? No, not really, we need more information.
When we look at the words in the Strong concordance the first one being #G2549 the word depravity or badness can be used. In the case of the word #G4189 it can be translated as malice or wickedness.
We can start to see that the word leaven has a negative connotation to it. Let us see how the Christ used the word leaven and try to extrapolate the definition for it.
Matthew 16:11-12…Why is it you do not understand that when I told you, ‘Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees,’ it wasn’t about bread?” Then they understood that he had not told them to beware of the leaven in the bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Christ used the word leaven to describe the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees. It is true that Christ had to set straight the ways of God to his people because the Pharisees and Sadducees had corrupted the ways of God by means of their faulty teachings. So, the leaven represented corruptive teaching that influenced the people of God in a negative way.
Let us look at one more Bible account with respects to answering the question to what is leaven.
Luke 12:1-2… Meanwhile, a crowd of many thousands came together, so that they were trampling on one another. He began to say to his disciples first, “Be on your guard against the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy (G5272 deceit). There is nothing covered that will not be uncovered, nothing hidden that will not be made known.
The Bible writer Luke calls out leaven as a pharisaic teaching which is hypocrisy. The Oxford dictionary defines hypocrisy as someone “claiming to have a moral standard or belief, but their behavior does not conform to their pretense or works.”
Once again looking at Strong’s concordance it associates this word #G5272 with deceit.
Now after reviewing these scriptural references to the word leaven, we now can start to define it as something that is pervasive. It has a negative corruptive influence on our worship. It affects our beliefs and behavior in understanding the ways of God. So, leaven is a corruptive teaching and influence that affects our relationship with God.
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