When God called Israel out of Egypt, He commanded them to observe the seven Days of Unleavened Bread, a festival that the New Testament confirms Christians are to keep. Paul instructs us to keep the feast, not with old leaven or the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Throughout the New Testament, leaven symbolizes sin and corruption, as Jesus warns to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Paul also notes that a little leaven leavens the whole lump, emphasizing the danger of sin spreading. The purpose of keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread is to remind us of our need to remove sin from our lives. Paul advises using this feast to purge out the old leaven, urging examination of attitudes and removal of sins from both personal lives and the congregation. He reminds us that the Passover commemorates the death of Christ, who died for our forgiveness, and though we are unleavened through repentance and justification by faith in His sacrifice, allowing leaven to return requires us to get rid of it. Deleavening our homes symbolizes purging sin from our lives, a lifetime process not fully complete until we are transformed into spirit at resurrection. As long as we remain flesh and blood, absolute perfection eludes us, and we cannot completely free ourselves from sin. This ongoing struggle to overcome human nature and adopt God's nature is sanctification, yet we must continually strive to conform to the image of Jesus Christ. Observing the Feast of Unleavened Bread yearly reminds us that we are not perfect and that our lives involve constant warfare against sin. When deleavening our homes, we find that no matter how hard we try, we cannot locate every tiny crumb, illustrating the deceitful nature of sin and the need to constantly examine ourselves to purge it out. Removing sin is hard work, and the Days of Unleavened Bread annually reinforce this battle all Christians must wage. The object lesson of deleavening our homes retains great meaning and purpose for us, as the symbolism of putting sin out of our lives will not be fully realized until we are changed, inherit the Kingdom of God, and become like Him who cannot sin.

The Parable of the Leaven states that the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened. Leaven carries a negative implication everywhere in the Bible except this parable. Leaven is a symbol of corruption with a tendency to multiply and spread throughout. The woman represents a false system of beliefs and practices. The woman takes the leaven and hides it in a covert manner. The phrase three measures of meal refers to a grain offering that represents service and devotion to fellowman. The false system makes a concerted and covert effort to corrupt the true church through false doctrine aimed at how people treat each other. Leaven is defined as malice and wickedness. Leaven is a persuasion that does not come from God. Leaven is hypocrisy in religion. Leaven is secularism or the use of religion for political purposes. Leaven is the doctrine of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The parable warns that the false system will corrupt the church's teachings regarding personal relationships. This corruption produces distrust, offense, marriage problems, disunity, selfishness, gossip, rumor, tale-bearing, judging and condemning, comparing, and wrath.

Unleavened bread symbolizes both pilgrimage and judgment as well as corruption. As a symbol of pilgrimage it is associated with the Exodus. The Israelites rushing to leave Egypt took their dough before it was leavened having their kneading bowls bound up in their clothes and on their shoulders. The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a reminder of Israel's pilgrim character. It commemorates the hurried departure and rescue from Egypt and the continuing process of the Lord's deliverance of the Israelites to the Promised Land. The Days of Unleavened Bread might seem to some to have a slightly negative aspect because of deleavening which involves removing something we tend to enjoy from our lives. We must give up something for these seven days. The apostle Paul pointed out in I Corinthians 5:6-8 that the Corinthian church should have known how God would judge and discipline the perverse situation in their midst. By using the Exodus model and linking it to behavior that demonstrates new life in Christ Paul connects the ideas of pilgrimage and influence. Christian pilgrims are to live in ways in which the old leaven is nonexistent. He mentions in Galatians 5:9 a little leaven leavens the whole lump which reflects his concern about the Corinthian brothers' tolerance of blatant sin at that time. Now in God's plan of salvation the seven-day period symbolizes the beginning of judgment on the church emphasizing that we are pilgrims whose true citizenship is in heaven. We are called to lay aside every weight and all traces of old leaven and walk with sincerity and truth.