Little Compromises

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

Have you noticed that when an organization starts changing for the worse, that as you examine the history of the organization there were small changes in the wrong direction before it fell. It is not the most recent decisions that made the difference. There was a series of small changes that preceded the current ones that had already set the stage for the collapse.

It is these small changes in the wrong direction that doomed the project. My father worked for Radiant Projector Screen Company as their Vice President for Sales in their final years. Their screens hung in almost every classroom in the country. If you had a portable pull-up screen for home movies or slides, it was probably from this company.

Radiant had a good business, but they wanted more. The president decided to rapidly expand the company by immediately adding personal video recorders to their portfolio. They had never sold electronics, and now the president put all the resources of the company on the line for a risky venture. He lost and so did the company.

The president made the decision without much consultation with his leadership team. The consumers that would purchase this new video equipment were not the same customers who purchased the projection screens. They didn’t know how to reach this new customer group. They made a huge change without the expertise.

Our text speaks about how the church at Corinth was making a change to their makeup that struck at the core of who they were as a people. They had accepted a sinful practice as being the new normal contrary to Scripture. I am sure they would have said they were “adapting to the times.”

I look around the church in America and I see a thousand changes like this. Small compromises, seemingly insignificant changes in light of the larger culture. But these changes begin to gut the heart of the Gospel.

Remember, the Gospel is about change, change from the old sinful patterns and behaviors to new ones. And this whole process is propelled by the work of the Holy Spirit in us as individuals and as a body of believers. And sexual sins are almost always near the top of the Scriptures lists of sins.

So when we accept sinful behaviors, even with good motives, we are introducing change at a fundamental level. For the church I think the compromise began when we made divorce the new normal. We began to accept it as an inevitable part of culture. And in order to reach those who have been divorced, we had to soften our tone, our words, our Biblical stance to it.

But that small compromise began to work through every aspect of the church. Now some churches don’t stand for anything. Instead they have fallen for everything. No practice is taboo, even those that are specifically and repeatedly condemned in Scripture.