One Dead Fly Ruins a Great Meal - 1 Corinthians 5-6

 One Dead Fly Ruins a Great Meal

1 Corinthians 5:6 (ESV)

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

Most of us would not eat a food item that contained a dead fly.  Some would not even eat a food item if live flies landed upon it.   We don’t like things that are contaminated.   We like things pure.  We like pure water.  We like pure air.  We like pure clothes.  Most people don’t wear soiled clothes.    This is the point of the above text.    Paul it addressing a problem in the church at Corinth with a principal from God’s Word.   We are all familiar with leaven and baking ... maybe.   Leaven is the “yeast” we put into the bread dough to make it rise.    We don’t need to put a lot in, just a tad, a pinch, a thimble amount.    Paul, in this section, is addressing an overt sin in the church at Corinth that the rest of the members of the church were happy to ignore.   Paul wants them to realize that like a small pinch of yeast makes the bread rise, so too, a single sin can cause bring shame and contempt on the Body of Christ.   Paul might be thinking of something Solomon stated in the book of Ecclesiastes:

Ecclesiastes 10:1 (ESV)
Dead flies make the perfumer's ointment give off a stench; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.

If you found a dead fly in your perfume, would you still use it to freshen your body?   Neither should we allow a single sin in our lives to cause us to stink before God:

2 Corinthians 2:15 (ESV)
15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing,

When we allow sin in our lives or in the life of those in the church we allow a dead fly to corrupt a great meat.