1 Corinthians 5:1-13
Key Verse 5:7 “Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”
1. What disturbing report about the Corinthian Christians did Paul receive? (1) What had God told his people about this kind of sin? (cf. Leviticus 18:8) How should they have handled this? (2) What does their failure to do this show about them?
2. Why did Paul pass judgment on this man even though he said in Chapter 4:5, “Judge nothing before the appointed time”? (3) Why did Paul ask the church as a whole to hand the man over to Satan? (4-5)
3. How did Paul rebuke them, and what does the analogy of the yeast show about the seriousness of one person’s sin within the Christian fellowship? (6; cf. Matthew 13:33)
4. What does it mean to “get rid of the old yeast”? (7a; cf. Exodus 12:15) How could they become “the new batch without yeast”? (7b-8) What does it mean to “keep the Festival…with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth”? (8; cf. Exodus 12:14)
5. How had they misunderstood Paul’s previous instructions? (9-10) What did he really mean? (11; cf. John 17:15) How should a Christian deal with immoral people outside the church and inside the church? (11-13)