“Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough?” 1 Corinthians 5:6 NIV

I opened the refrigerator door and was met by a foul odor. How could this happen? I am usually so careful about making sure to manage the food and keep things clean.  I had to search for the culprit.  I found it… tucked behind some cheese … a bowl of refried beans gone bad. It looked ok, they just smelt to high heaven.  I had overlooked them for too long.

In God’s infinite wisdom, He made our sense of smell sensitive to foul odors.  That’s how you know something is bad, it stinks.  I’m sure you have experienced a foul smell a time or two. It’s not pleasant.

In the scripture above, Paul is admonishing the church in Corinth about their boasting.  He says that a little goes a long way to destroy.  That’s pure wisdom.  He is using leaven or yeast to make his point.

What is leaven, you ask?  The Bible Dictionary says, “Small portion of fermented dough used to ferment other dough and often symbolizing a corruptive influence.”  Plainly speaking, it represents sin.  Even a little yeast will work its way through the whole batch. We can’t be having that!

In 1 Corinthians 5:8 Paul says, “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.” What a beautiful picture those words paint.

I was once told that sincere referred to pottery in Biblical times. The vessel was only as sincere as the clay used to form it. If there were impurities in the clay and a crack formed, the potter used a wax to fill them. Wax wouldn’t last very long and the pot would leak. It’s the same in our character. If we allow these impurities, cracks are going to form, and there isn’t enough wax to hold us together!

I come back to that moment when I opened the refrigerator door and was hit with that foul odor. I immediately recognized something was not good.  Sin stinks. But is our sense of sin smell heightened to recognize it?  Something seemingly so normal, can in fact, start to be sinful.  That is when our sin sensor should be able to recognize the smell it brings with it.

Heavenly Father, Thank You for making us with a sensitive sense of smell.  Let us be sensitive to any foulness in our lives and help us to remove it before it damages our sincerity.

For Today:  Put your spiritual sense of smell in high gear.  Is there anything in your walk that stinks?    What yeast are you allowing in your life? What impurities are cracking your pottery?