Watch Out For "Leavening Influences"

Notes for the Ekklesia Meeting
Sundays @ 10:00 a.m. Info: (651) 283-0568 www.dtminc.org Today’s Date: May 15, 2005
Watch Out For "Leavening Influences"
by Dan Trygg

"’Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’ 12 Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Matthew 16:11b,12

Last time we looked at Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman, from the middle of chapter 15. Remem-ber that the Lord had been trying to secure some time alone with His disciples. His popularity had become so great that He could not go anywhere without being recognized. Once people knew He was nearby, they brought their sick and demonized to Him for healing. The demand for His attention was intense, so that it was often difficult to even get a break for a meal.

In an attempt to find privacy, Jesus had crossed over to the east side of the Sea of Galilee, but people ran around the north end of the lake to meet Him when He came ashore. That was the setting for feeding the 5,000 men, plus women and children. Then, He sent the disciples back across the lake, and came walking on the water in the middle of the night. Upon reaching the other shore, a crowd once again formed, and they were inundated for requests for healing. Next, Jesus tried to leave the Jewish territories and journeyed west to the Mediterranean Sea, and went up the coast to the region of Tyre and Sidon, some two or three day’s journey distant. He tried to remain in obscurity, but even there He was recognized, and the Canaanite woman sought Him out. Apparently, this came to the attention of others, for He left there and came back to the area of the Sea of Galilee, this time proceeding down the eastern side to the region of the Decapolis. This was also a predominately gentile area, a league of ten cities, where, again, His fame should have been a little less well established. (The city of Gadara was one of these cities, where the people had actually asked Him to leave after the demons He had cast out of a man had destroyed a herd of pigs [8:28-32].)

In spite of these efforts, however, He could not escape notice once again. Great multitudes of people came, bringing their sick with them. Matthew lists the varieties of their afflictions: "the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others". Once again, "they put them at his feet, and he healed them, so that the crowd wondered, when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they [i.e., these gentiles] glorified the God of Israel" (15:30,31). This healing and teaching ministry went on for three entire days, and no one took the time to even eat. This was the occasion of another miracle of food multiplication, this time involving a group of 4,000 men (plus women and children). Seven loaves and a few small fish were multiplied so that everyone was satisfied, and seven hamper-sized containers of left-over fragments were collected afterwards (15:32-38).

After this miracle, He crossed over to the western side of the Sea of Galilee, to the region of Magadan (or, Magdala). Shortly after arriving, some Pharisees and Sadducees approached them, asking for a sign from heaven to show them He was sent from God. Obviously, they had come because His fame had become so great, and they were fearful as to His intentions, and what would happen if He proclaimed Himself to be a king. They were afraid that this would cause the Romans to clamp down their already oppressive grip upon the nation, and they would likely lose many of their freedoms, if not their positions of recognition and importance.

For these two groups to be in league together for any purpose was very unusual. They were usually very critical of one another, and were at opposite ends of the religious and political spectrum. Pharisees tended to be hyper-religious legalists, keeping both OT laws and religious traditions and rituals. They tended to be middle class merchants and tradesmen who were recognized and respected among the common people in the synagogues.

Sadducees, however, were more secular. They were from the wealthy priestly and Levitical families who had accumulated land holdings near Jerusalem. They tended to reject the religious legalism and ritual of the Pharisees, which were based upon human tradition. They held strictly to the Mosaic laws, especially regarding the ceremonial rites of the Temple, where their basis of recognition and authority was. They did not believe in angels or demons, and they found the devotional intensity of the Pharisees to be distasteful. They were religious formalists, who felt that one’s love for God should be private and somewhat dispassionate. Politically, they were opportunistic.

Jesus was unwilling to play their game. Obviously, if they were truly interested in finding out if He were from God, they could come to hear Him preach and they could observe the miraculous signs which He performed before the multitudes. Certainly they heard the many reports of His activities. They, however, had no honest desire to find out the truth. The truth was in conflict with their expectations and their self-interest. They were more interested in finding some way to criticize Him. Had He performed some sign for them, they undoubtedly would have tried to turn it into a provocation against the Roman authority.

Instead, Jesus turned their challenge against them by pointing out their spiritual blindness. Why is it that what was obvious to everyone else was not recognizable to them? He used the common ability to predict the weather, based upon the color of the sky, to show that they had enough intelligence to recognize natural phenomena. Why then did they not discern "the signs of the times"? This statement implies that there were already enough signs available for them to come to a conclusion regarding Him and the validity of His mission. Why did they not grasp the obvious? In the gospel of John He had identified their problem as being self-focused instead of God-focused, "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another, and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?" (5:44).

Here, in Matthew 16, He comes right out and says "an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign" (vs. 4). He told them that no sign would be given them, except the sign of Jonah. Then He turned and went away from there. (This reference to the "sign of Jonah" had been referred to before. He challenged them with this in Matthew 12, when they had previously asked Him for a sign. Clearly, from His comments there [vss. 39-41], this was a reference to the resurrection, though from the vantage point of being on the other side of that event, it would have made no sense at all. The resurrection is the premier sign validating both Jesus’ identity and His ministry. Cf. Acts 17:30,31; I Cor. 15:12-19.)

Apparently, this encounter with them was enough cause for Jesus and the disciples to get back in their boat and go again across the Sea of Galilee to the eastern shore. In their preparations, which may have been hasty, the disciples had not thought to purchase bread. Once they were out on the water, Jesus, still ruminating over the conflict with these religious leaders, voiced His thoughts by giving a word of warning to the disciples, "Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

The disciples, however, did not follow His line of reasoning. They were more focused on simply the natural and earthly things of everyday life. They had not come to see things from a spiritual point of view. Furthermore they did not fully see themselves as leaders in training, ones who would some day have to deal with the likes of the Pharisees and Sadducees on their own. They weren’t expecting to receive advice for the future. They began to discuss among themselves what it was that He was saying. Someone thought that because Jesus had mentioned "leaven", He must have been talking about bread, and noticed that they had forgotten to bring any.

Overhearing this, Jesus chided them as being "men of little faith", pointing out the lessons they should have learned from the multiplication of loaves and fishes that He had miraculously multiplied for thousands of people on two occasions. "How many baskets of leftover fragments did you take up after we fed the 5,000?" "How many hampers (large baskets) did you take up after we fed the 4000?" "Why would you think I would be concerned about bread? But pay attention to the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." After this prodding they realized that He was talking about the doctrines or beliefs of these religious groups.

What does this mean? What was Jesus getting at? Why should the disciples "watch" and "pay close attention to" the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees? Because, as the word picture implies, these teachings have a way of spreading through and permeating a group of well intended people, pulling them either to the extreme of religious legalism, or to the other extreme of compromise with the world and a dead formalistic religion. Neither alternative is acceptable to God, but there is an attraction to each that will divert some people, if not clearly confronted or exposed.

On the one hand, there is a part of our humanity which can be attracted by religious activity and the performance of rituals and traditions. It can give us a sense that we are performing well, and therefore we are more acceptable to God. This can begin very subtly, but can grow to become more and more demanding and extreme. Soon, like the Pharisees, we are so focused on doing our religious duties that we lose sight of the larger picture of true relationship with God and love toward others. We can easily get caught up in pride and self-righteousness. Thinking to be godly, we actually drive others away from God by our arrogance and self-importance.

On the other hand, we can, as the Sadducees, fall into a trap of thinking we can decide what is right. We judge the Scriptures by our reason, or by our own understanding. We can begin to compromise in little ways, thinking that if we just go to church we are better than most. We can justify ourselves all the more if we give large gifts to the church, even though we practice dishonesty or injustice in our business enterprises. If we think that wealth implies a blessing from God, we may wrongly assume that we have His favor, when in reality we are storing up wrath for the day of judgment by the inequitable ways we treat others.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were just human beings pulled into deception. We need to "watch" lest we, or others in our group should be lured off into either of these errors. We are made of the same stuff as they, and can be pulled into deception of these, or other, varieties. The Bible makes clear that we need to watch out for one another. There are shepherds, yes, but we all must be responsible to be on the watch for each other (Heb. 3:12,13; 12:15). As disciples, we are also being trained to teach and work with others, so let us not be oblivious to the Master’s counsel. If we truly believe that we are going to learn to encourage and help others, we will be more attentive to practical advice from those leading us. Learn how they think. Watch what they do. Imitate what is good (Heb. 13:7).