1 Corinthians 5:6-13 “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? (7) Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us. … (11) But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner--not even to eat with such a person. (12) For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? (13) But those who are outside God judges. Therefore "Put away from yourselves the evil person.”
The Holy Spirit teaches us in the above quoted passage of scripture that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. In other words He is explaining to us that just as leaven spreads throughout the dough, so it is that sin can also spread throughout the body. In context He is specifically talking about sin in believers being able to impact the lives of other believers. The reason that can happen is because we are all from the same lump of dough so to speak, for we are all part of the same body of Christ. Unbelievers are not part of our lump of dough however, which is why their sin cannot affect us. I want you to notice from this passage that the Holy Spirit counsels us to cut ties with believers that are leading lifestyles of practiced sin, and He counsels us to not even share a meal with them. The reason He says that is because sin can be likened to a virus, and unless it is quarantined, that sin virus can spread throughout the body. I have experienced an incident along this line. A while ago I was at a breakfast meeting, and we were praying around the table for various things. There was someone at our table that I had never met before, and this person had been introduced to me as a brother in the Lord. Someone at our table asked me to pray for this person to just bless them. Foolishly I agreed and bowed my head to pray, but nothing came out. It was as if there was a hold on my tongue. There was silence around the table as everyone waited for me to pray, but try as I might I could not pray. Eventually, when it started to get a bit embarrassing because of the silence, I managed to just ask the Lord to reveal His will to this person and quickly closed my prayer on that point. I later found out that this person was living as a homosexual. I realized then just why the Holy Spirit would not allow me to pray for this individual to bless them, because if I had tried to bless them I would have been praying contrary to the will of God and that would have had a negative impact on my life. And so we can clearly see from this section that we are not to lay hands hastily on any believer, and it is always prudent to ask the individual if they have any unconfessed sin in their lives before we pray for them.
Michael E.B. Maher
Comentarios