Dear Hope family,

Thought for the Week

God & Evil.

1 Corinthians 5v6 “Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast.”  (NIV)

The presence of evil in our world is our number one problem. It is manifest in a whole manner of ways around us. God knows this and God is going to get rid of all evil when he finally throws Satan and his demons into the fire. We know that God made the way for this victory in Christ’s death and resurrection.

In the Bible, evil is sometimes symbolised as yeast. For example, in Exodus 12, the Israelites are to celebrate the Passover for 7 days with “bread made without yeast”. Then in the New Testament, Jesus uses this imagery when he tells the disciples “I am not talking to you about bread”, but “guard against the yeast of the Pharisees”: then Paul, in the passage above follows on with, “not with … the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread made without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.” The message of the yeast analogy is that evil easily spreads through what is otherwise good and so spoils the whole.

And so, the yeast analogy is a call to get rid of evil in our own lives and in the life of the church just as God is going to get rid of evil on that final day. We are called to be disciplined and determined, and so bring God’s certain future into today’s human fragility.

Of course this is only possible as God “pours out his love in our hearts” (Romans 5v5) and as we are “filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5v18). Changing the analogy, it is easier to get rid of darkness with light than with anything else!

Lord, fill us with your light.

With love and blessing,

Roland