1 Corinthians 5:6-8

6. Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast-as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

NIV

Looking at that same passage of scripture from the Living Bible and it so states;

1 Cor 5:6-8

6. What a terrible thing it is that you are boasting about your purity and yet you let this sort of thing go on. Don't you realize that if even one person is allowed to go on sinning, soon all will be affected? 7. Remove this evil cancer-this wicked person-from among you, so that you can stay pure. Christ, God's Lamb, has been slain for us. 8So let us feast upon him and grow strong in the Christian life, leaving entirely behind us the cancerous old life with all its hatreds and wickedness. Let us feast instead upon the pure bread of honor and sincerity and truth.

TLB

LEAVEN is not a valid reference

LEAVEN. A substance added to dough to cause it to rise, from Lat. levamen, that is, "that which rises," from lavere, "to raise."

Terms. The Heb. term se'or occurs only five times in Scripture, in four of which (

Exodus 12:15

15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. NIV

Exodus 12:19

19 For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is an alien or native-born. NIV

Exodus 13:7

7 Eat unleavened bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast in it is to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere within your borders. NIV

Leviticus 2:11

11 "`Every grain offering you bring to the LORD must be made without yeast, for you are not to burn any yeast or honey in an offering made to the LORD by fire. NIV

Why was no yeast allowed in the grain offerings to the Lord? Yeast is a bacterial fungus or mold and is, therefore, an appropriate symbol for sin. It grows in bread dough just as sin grows in life. A little yeast will affect the whole loaf, just as a little sin can ruin a whole life.

Yeast is translated "leaven" and in the fifth (Deut 16:3) "leavened bread."

Deuteronomy 16:3

3. Do not eat it with bread made with yeast, but for seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left Egypt in haste--so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt. NIV

The NIV translates "yeast" in each of these references. This probably denotes the small portion of dough left from the preceding baking that had fermented and turned acidic. Its distinctive meaning is fermented or leavened mass. The Heb. expression massa, "sweet," means without leaven (Lev 10:12); thus the Heb. terms for the meaning of fermented or sour. The Gk. term is zume and has the same latitude of meaning as the general Heb. words for leaven.

Preparation. In early times, leaven was made from fine white bran kneaded with mold or with the meal of certain plants such as fitch or vetch, or from barley mixed with water and then allowed to stand until it turned sour. In later times it was made from bread flour kneaded without salt and kept until it passed into a state of fermentation.

Levitical Regulations. The Mosaic Law strictly forbade the use of leaven in the priestly ritual (Lev 2:11). Typically, this signified that the offering was to be a type of purity, and leaven, which causes disintegration and corruption, symbolized evil and the energy of sin. To the Hebrew mind, whatever was in a decayed state suggested the idea of uncleanness and corruption. Amos (Amos 4:5), in the light of the prohibitions of the law, ironically commands the Jews of his day to "offer a thank offering also from that which is leavened." In two instances, however, the law permits its use-with the offering of the new loaves presented at Pentecost (Lev 23:17) and in connection with the peace offering (7:13). The reason for the exception at Pentecost is that the two wave loaves of fine flour typify the NT church brought into being by the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4; 1 Cor 12:12-13). The two wave loaves typifying the church contain leaven because there is evil in the church; but it is to be carefully noted that the loaves with leaven were baked; that is, the manifested evil in the Body of Christ, the church, was judged in the death of Christ. Leaven, then, is symbolic or typical of evil, always having this implication in the OT (cf. Gen 19:3; Ex 12:8,15-20,34,39). In the NT its symbolic meaning is also clear. It is "malice and wickedness" as contrasted with "sincerity and truth" (1 Cor 5:6-8). It represents evil doctrine (Matt 16:12) in its threefold manifestation of Phariseeism, Sadduceeism, and Herodianism (16:6; 8:15). Religious externalism constituted the leaven of the Pharisees (Matt 23:14,16,28), while a skeptical attitude toward the supernatural was the leaven of the Sadducees (22:23,29), and the spirit of worldly compromise was the leaven of the Herodians (22:16-21; 3:6). The parable of the leaven "which a woman took, and hid in three pecks of meal, until it was all leavened" (Matt 13:34) is in agreement with the unvarying scriptural meaning of leaven.

M.F.U.

2 Cor 4:8; 2 Cor 4:9; 2 Cor 4:10; 2 Cor 4:11; 2 Cor 4:12

2 Corinthians 4:8

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

[Thlibomenoi (NT:2346) all' (NT:235) ou (NT:3756) stenochooroumenoi (NT:4729)] `BEING hard pressed, yet not reduced, to inextricable straits' (nominative to "we have," 2 Cor 4:7).

[On every side]-Greek, `in every respect' (cf. 2 Cor 4:10, "always"). This verse expresses inward distresses, next verse outward distresses (2 Cor 7:5). The first clause in each member of the series implies the earthiness of the vessels, the second clause the excellency of the power.

[Perplexed, but not in despair], [aporoumenoi (NT:639) ouk (NT:3756) exaporoumenoi (NT:1820)]-`not utterly perplexed.' As perplexity refers to the future, so "troubled" or `hard pressed' refers to the present.

2 Corinthians 4:9

Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

[Not forsaken]-by God and man. Jesus was forsaken by both: so much do His sufferings exceed those of His people (Matt 27:46). Literally, left behind, as in a race, [enkataleipomenoi (NT:1459)].

[Cast down]-or `struck down:' not only "persecuted"-i.e., chased as a deer or bird (1 Sam 26:20)-but actually struck down as with a dart (Heb 11:35-38). The [pantote (NT:3842)] "always" in this verse means, `throughout the whole time;' in 2 Cor 4:11 the Greek [aei (NT:104)] is different, and means, `at every time, when the occasion occurs.'

2 Corinthians 4:10

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

[Bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus]-i.e., having Jesus' ('Aleph (') A B C Delta G, Vulgate, omit "the Lord") continual dying re-enacted in my body: having in it the marks of His sufferings (2 Cor 1:5), I bear about, wheresoever I go, an image of the Saviour, whose sojourn in the flesh was a continual dying, of which the consummation was His crucifixion (2 Cor 4:11; 1:5: cf. 1 Cor 15:31). Paul was exposed to more dangers than are recorded in Acts (cf. 2 Cor 7:5; 11:26). [Nekroosin (NT:3500)] "The dying" is literally, `the being made a corpse.' Such Paul regarded his body, yet a corpse which shares in the life-giving resurrection-power of Christ.

[That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body]-rather, `may be.' "Jesus" is often repeated, as Paul, amidst sufferings, peculiarly felt its sweetness. In 2 Cor 4:11 the same words occur, with the variation, "in our mortal flesh." The fact of a corpse-like body being sustained amidst such trials manifests that "the (resurrection) life also," as well as the dying "of Jesus," exists in us (Phil 3:10). I thus bear about in my own person an image of the risen and living, as well as of the suffering Saviour. The "our" is added here to "body," though not in the beginning of the verse. `For the body is ours not so much in death as in life' (Bengel).

2 Corinthians 4:11

For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

[We which live]-in the power of Christ's "life" in us, in our whole man, body as well as spirit (Rom 8:10-11; note, 2 Cor 4:10: cf. 2 Cor 5:15). Paul regards his preservation amidst so many exposures to "death," by which Stephen and James were cut off, as a standing miracle (2 Cor 11:23).

[Delivered unto]-not by chance: by the ordering of Providence, who shows `the excellency of His power' (2 Cor 4:7) in delivering unto DEATH His living saints, that He may manifest LIFE also in their dying flesh. "Flesh," the very element of decay (not merely their "body"), is by Him made to manifest life.

2 Corinthians 4:12

So then death worketh in us, but life in you.

The "death" of Christ, manifested in the continual `perishing of our outward man' (2 Cor 4:16), works in us, and is the means of working spiritual "life" in you. The life whereof we witness (note, 2 Cor 4:11; 1:6-7) in our dying flesh extends beyond ourselves, by our very dying, to you.