1 Corinthians 5:6-8
6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?
7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
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.
In 2018, Lifeway Research published results of a study about the subject of church discipline. According to an article about that study, 55% say that their church has never practiced church discipline. Here is a pie chart:
Some pastors think discipline is
for the church.
They think it will create
in the church.
They think it will decrease
in the church.
They think it will end their
at a church.
But church discipline is
for the church.
It is good for the church because it stops sin from
(vv. 6-7a).
“Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. 17 Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have departed from the truth….” —2 Timothy 2:16-18a
“How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 12 Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” —Matthew 16:11-12
“Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. 20 But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning.” —1 Timothy 5:19-20
It is good for the church because it
the church (vv. 7b-8).
“For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel.” —Exodus 12:19
Big Idea: We practice church discipline for the
of the church.