Yeast Attack

I love rich, heavy, nutritious manly bread and am repulsed by wimpy white, tasteless, empty, junk bread. But, no matter what our preference, bread can teach us plenty. In communion, we partake of Christ. The unleavened bread of Passover pictured a sinless life. Yet, leaven can also picture the kingdom of heaven multiplying. on the other hand, the leaven of false teaching also propagates dangerously.

In Matthew 16:5-12 Jesus warned his disciples sternly about the yeast of two very different groups of ancient religious leaders. What was it about their teaching that was such a problem, when they actually taught opposing doctrines? Certainly, neither of them acknowledged Jesus and his teachings. We may have a similar problem today. Many Christians give lip service to Christ, but ignore what he taught. It is so easy to be diverted from digesting Christ to something else. The Christian market place is full of tangents and side tracks for those who are bored with Christ and have itching ears.

Many Christians who want to stay faithful are concerned that they do not have enough depth of knowledge, wisdom or discernment to know what is a false teaching and what is not. How do we sort through the incessant variety of Christian publications and media available to us today, and not get led astray? We do not have to become professional theologians in order to sort out the mess.

In Jesus' teaching to the disciples about avoiding the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, he gave a simple key: remember the feeding of the two large crowds, the 5,000 and the 4,000. That was only physical food, but symbolic of the source of our true food, Jesus. When we get misled and confused, the best thing to do is to have faith that Jesus will also supply our spiritual food when we ask. That means that we also regularly digest the spiritual food that he has supplied. The more fully immersed we are in the life and teachings of the Master, the more easily we can discern between what is significant and what is an irrelevant distraction.