Matthew 16:1-6 “The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing
Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But
He replied to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and
threatening.’ Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the
signs of the times? An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign
will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” And
He left them and went away. And the disciples came to the other side of the sea, but they had forgotten to bring any bread. And Jesus said to them, ‘Watch out and beware
of the leaven of the Pharisees
and Sadducees.’” (NASB)
Hello,
I was reading through Matthew 16 this weekend, and had
trouble paying attention to the end of the chapter after reading verse 6. Jesus
is with His disciples after 2 events: 1) feeding over 4,000 people with seven
loaves of fish and a few small fish (chapter 5) and 2) being tested here in the
first bit of chapter 6 by the religious leaders.
Coming from the miraculous work with bread, a leaven comment
is not out of place.
Leaven, or yeast as the modern day equivalent, is a strong
ingredient. It doesn’t take much, and it spreads through the dough to have it
rise. Without the leaven, the bread dough doesn’t change as much as with the
leaven. But notice that the comment wasn’t directed at having an absence of
leaven, but rather which leaven we are folding in.
It doesn’t take much mis-aligned teaching to sway and impact
our choices – we have to watch and be careful of our sources. I think we see
this a lot today from a culture perspective. We allow a cultural or political
opinion (left or right – either direction) to start to drive our view of God
and Scripture. We need to really put a guard up for our sources of influence, and
vet them against Scripture – not our feelings or opinions.
Have a blessed day,
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