Through out the Bible there is a recurring phrase that shows up nine times in the book of Deuteronomy:

“you shall put away the evil from your midst”

And whether the Torah is referring to: false prophets (Deut 13:5), idolaters (Deut 17:7), rebellious leaders (Deut 17:12), false witnesses (Deut 19:19), career criminals (Deut 21:21), sexual immorality (Deut 22:21), or human trafficking/kidnapping (Deut 24:7), the response was the same- the evil was to be purged from among the people of the nation. There was to be no evil seen within the nation.

It is from these passages, showing the need for removing sin from within and through out the nation, that the Hebrews began to understand that there was a parallel to removing sin from their nation and removing leavening during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In addition to being commanded to eat Unleavened Bread (Ex 13:6&7), the Israelites were also commanded to remove all leavening from within their national borders:

“Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days; and there shall no leavened bread be seen with you, neither shall there be leaven seen with you in all your boarders“
Exodus 13:7

Although the individual was instructed to eat Unleavened Bread for seven days, the nation as a whole was collectively charged with removing leavening from within its national border.  This wasn’t a task that any one individual could accomplish by himself. These instructions were given to the nation as a whole to keep their nation free of sin and free of leavening.  Everyone had a responsibility to do their part. 

A good example is given in Number 25, where a plague was upon all of Israel because of the sins that were being committed with the Midianites, and because a man brought a Midianite woman into the camp in the sight of all the congregation of Israel. 

And he [Phinehas] went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.
Numbers 25: 8

Here, an individual was commended for removing open sin from within his community, to cleanse his nation. 

And because of these parallels, it was common amongst Jewish thought that the Feast of Passover represented personal self-examination, where as the Feast of Unleavened Bread represented a national cleansing of open sin. Passover was observed domestically representing judgment passing over a household.  The Feast of Unleavened Bread commemorated the entire nation leaving Egypt- representing the nation leaving sin.

Numerous Jewish writers throughout history have documented this, like the Jewish historian Philo, who was contemporaneous to the Apostles:

The feast of Passover is the purification of the soul. Each man examines himself and his household……but the Feast of Unleavened Bread is the purification of the nation, the whole people removing leaven from all their borders.
Philo, Special Laws 2.147–149

This is also echoed by Josephus:

[During Passover] every household to prepare themselves according to purity laws….
Antiquities 2.317–318

We keep a feast for seven days[Feast of Unleavened Bread], removing leaven from all our houses…it is a festival of the nation.
Antiquities 3.249

And there are numerous other older Jewish writings that confirm this such as the Mishnah, the Talmud, and rabbinic midrash.

“Just as leaven must be removed from all your borders, so must sin be removed from all Israel.”
Talmud Pesachim 7b & 30a

This concept is repeated again in the Jewish Talumud:

“Sin is searched for as leaven is searched for — in every house, in every border, in all Israel.”
Talmud Pesachim 7b

or again in the Rabbah:

Israel must remove leaven as one removes sin from the nation.
Exodus Rabbah 15:21

Leaven is the evil inclination in Israel. At Unleavened Bread Israel puts it out from their midst.
Exodus Rabbah 15:7

Even within the Qumran community in Dead Sea Scrolls of Halakhic Letter (4QMMT), they connected the Feast of unleavened bread with communal examination.

The connection between the Feast of Unleavened Bread and removal of sin on a national, not necessarily personal level, is very clear in the historical and rabbinical writings. For many Jews up and to the first century and beyond, they clearly distinguished Passover as a time of personal self-examination and spiritual retrospect- from the Feast of Unleavened Bread, where the entire nation took collective responsibility for sinful behavior in their community.

There are multiple examples in Scriptures where men of God cleansed the Nation of Israel of open sin just before or during the Spring Holy Days:

  • Hezekiah — purged and removed all the altars in Jerusalem during the Feast of Unleavened Bread (2 Chron 30:13–14)
  • Josiah — Removed the idolatrous priests, destroyed the idols, burnt the pagan altars, and cleansed the Temple just before he kept the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread (2 Chronicles 35:1, 18)
  • Ezra — the priests and Levites purified themselves while the rest of the people separated themselves from the unleanness of the nations in order to seek the Lord God of Israel. Then they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread. (Ezra 6:19-22)
  • Jesus Christ — Both John and the Synoptics place the Temple cleansing either just before or during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. (Mark 11:15–18)

In all of these cases, neither Hezekiah, Josiah, Ezra, or Christ were examining the sin in their own lives, but were removing and correcting someone else’s sin-just prior to or during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Also, as many know, the first century Church did not create new meanings to these festivals or abandon the old. Acknowledging Jesus Christ as the Passover lamb didn’t change the festival, it only magnified it. Passover was still a time of personal self examination and the Festival of Unleavened Bread was a time for a congregation to examine itself. And the writings of the Apostle Paul bring these concepts out clearly.

Many acknowledge that Paul wrote the book of 1st Corinthians during the Spring Holy Day Festival. In Chapter 11 Paul corrects the Corinthians on how the Passover ceremony was to be observed- and not observed. He states clearly in verse 28:

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.
I Cor 11:28-31 NKJV

Although the Apostle Paul is writing to the entire Corinth congregation, in these passages he deliberately switches to the singular use in the Greek, showing these are instructions to the individual. The Greek in verses 27-32 directly and deliberately focuses on the singular (individual) responsibility to examine oneself, judge oneself and eat the Passover properly. It is clear that Paul and the first century Church, like the Jews of the day, understood Passover was a time of self-examination.

But, in 1 Corinthians 5:8, Paul writes: “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven … but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” When we examine language being used here, it is obvious that “the feast” being referred to here is the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the entire congregation was to keep it.

But different from Chapter 11 of Corinthians, in Chapter 5 we see no instructions for individual self examination, but a collective responsibility to remove sin from the congregation. And in EVERY case where the word ‘you’ is used (Greek humin) in Chapter 5, it is in the plural form- similar to the Texan vernacular “all yall”. Nowhere, other than referring to the one individual who was sinning, do we see the singular use of any Greek word.

And this focus on a Congregational duty to remove sin becomes even more pronounced in verse 6 and 7:

Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened.
I Cor 5:6 & 7 NKJV

Not only is this another clear reference to the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but once again, the Greek here is all in the plural usage. The words ‘your’,’you know’, ‘purge’, ‘you may’, and ‘you are’ are all in a plural, collective usage, not individual or singular.

And the solution to this problem was given to the congregation in verse 2: “he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.” This wasn’t a case where an individual was being corrected for letting him live in his spare bedroom, this was a clear instruction to have him removed from the congregation. No sin was to be seen within your borders.

Also, the analogy of “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” fits clearly in the framework of sin infecting a collective, not an individual. Yet many churches of God have interpreted Paul’s statement into a kind of personal moral proverb: “If you let a little sin in your life, soon you’ll be totally consumed by sin.” And while that statement might be possible in a general sense, it is not what Paul is teaching in 1 Corinthians 5.

To illustrate the absurdity of applying Paul’s statement strictly to “personal sins,” one only needs to push the logic out to its end. If a man lies about what time he clocked in at work, does that automatically mean he will soon become a compulsive thief, a con-man, or a master criminal? Hardly. If someone stares too long at a beautiful woman, does that inevitably evolve into running a brothel? Obviously not. Christians should avoid these sins, of course—but Paul’s analogy of leaven swelling a lump of dough is not describing a private spiral into wickedness, but the rapid spread of tolerated sin through a community.

Leaven spreads horizontally—through dough that is connected, in contact, and part of a larger lump. Paul uses leaven not to describe the private growth of temptation inside one person, but to describe how sin multiplies when a group refuses to stop it.

Throughout Scripture, this is exactly how leaven imagery functions. It spreads outward into what it touches. It permeates a community. It symbolizes corruption that moves through a body, not merely inside an individual life.

This is why Paul’s commands in chapter 5 are plural. He is instructing a congregation, not an individual Christian. The danger is not that the immoral man will morally infect “himself,” but that his behavior—if tolerated—will rapidly influence everyone else.

Anyone who has observed how fashion styles, fads, or trends spread rapidly in schools, Universities, churches, or any human institution knows this principle easily applies to sin. Tolerated sin spreads exponentially.

It acts exactly like leaven.

Christian marriage counselors and sociologists have long documented that when a community quietly tolerates an adultery within its ranks, the rate of adultery in that group can increase rapidly within a short time. The Barna Research Group notes that church environments which fail to confront marital infidelity have significantly higher divorce rates than churches that address it immediately.

Like leaven, openly tolerated sin spreads through the congregation, not because everyone wanted to commit the sin—but because the community refused to draw a line. When a congregation tolerates open sin, it multiplies.

Sociological data is extraordinarily consistent on this point.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton announced his “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, effectively normalizing open homosexuality. At the time, Gallup polling showed only about 2% of Americans openly identifying as LGBT.

By 2021—after two decades of public affirmation of homosexuality—Gallup reported that number had risen to 7.1%, with the percentage among Millennials and Gen Z skyrocketing. At this time 10.5% of Millennials and 20.8% of Gen Z identify as LGBT- a 350% increase nationally. When you tolerate open sin, or remain silent about it, it multiplies exponentially.

This is exactly what leavening does.

We see the exact same pattern with the explosion of transvestites.  On May 13, 2016, the Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, from the Obama Administration, gave a speech publicly announcing that a woman who identifies as a man is a man and a man, who identifies as a woman is a woman, and should be protected by the law.  Through out the remainder of the year, multiple speeches were given publicly by the Obama Administration supporting transvestites. The Biden administration, as well during his tenure, gave scores of speeches showing support for this lifestyle to be a protected class. When that original speech was made by Loretta Lynch, the number of people identifying as transgender in the U.S. was estimated at 0.3%. By 2022, according to UCLA’s Williams Institute, that number had risen to 1.6%, with the rate among teenagers jumping to 5% or higher in some districts. Today nationally it stands at over 3%.

This represents a 1000% increase, almost overnight.

The effect is clear.  Once a sin was normalized and openly tollerated by the community, it spreads exponentially.  Open sin spreads like leavening.

When the Apostle Paul made the statement “a little leaven leavens the whole lump”, this wasn’t hyperbole.  This was a fact of life.  When you tolerate open sin in a community, that sin will spread like a disease. 

Just as the apostle Paul made it clear in I Corinthians 11 that we need to examine ourselves before taking the Passover, the same principle applies to the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  This is the same realization that Hezekiah, Josiah, Ezra, and Jesus Christ came to:  Before I can properly keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, I am responsible for removing open sin from my community and from my borders.  The reason Christ overturned the money changers was because the Feast of Unleavened Bread was approaching. How we implement this today is not easy, since that we are strangers and pilgrims in a land we do not control, but the meaning of the Festival has not changed.

However, just as the church membership in Corinth lived under Roman rule, they were still scolded for tolerating open sin in their midst. The instructions to remove sin from the congregation were not sent to the leadership alone, like in the pastoral epistles, but given to the entire congregation as a requirement for keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And just as a little leavening leavens the whole lump, a little sin will leaven the whole Church.