Unleavened Bread or Eating With Dirty Hands
Matthew 15:1-11 Then some pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!
Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'Honor you father and mother' and "Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' he is not to 'honor his father and mother' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'"
Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen and understand. What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.'"
Matthew 16:5-12 When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread. "Be careful," Jesus said to them. "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees."
They discussed this among themselves and said, "It is because we didn't bring any bread."
Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, "You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don't you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? How is it you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees" Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
When Jesus walked the earth, He often went head to head with the religious leaders of His day. Religious leaders have not changed much in the 2,000 plus years since then. They are only men who need to put potatoes on the table as all men do and religion is their means of making a living. This is the basic temptation that takes them away from pointing others to Christ and instead toward religion. Jesus removes our need for religion by bringing us into a right relationship with God (thereby, making religion a practice that flows from Christ living in us rather than works designed to lift us to God) and also makes us independent of religious leaders. This is the deception of the devil, that church attendance, tithing to pay ministers and build buildings, and working tirelessly to build the ministry of a man as we listen to his direction and are careful to follow all of his rules and teachings are what is required of those who profess Jesus. This is a type of obedience but it is not living a spiritual life under the personal leading of the Holy Spirit. These are not bad things, in and of themselves, but if they are in opposition to what the Spirit is directing you to do personally then to forsake that direction in order to obey a religious leader is sin. When that leader has forsaken his calling and fallen to the temptation of maintaining his livelihood or even fallen to the greater temptation of gaining wealth and power for himself or his organization, he is deep in sin already and our compliance with him only adds to the burden of sin he has chosen to bear. If our leaders are caught up in this sin and their teachings become a leavening of the scriptures, meaning that they teach good things with a wrong spirit, then we must be faithful to test the spirits and then do as they teach us to do but not with the same spirit that they teach them by. This is the leaven of the Pharisees and it is still working in the house of God today.
There is also a leavening of the believer that takes hold of hearts who have a desire to be elevated above their current circumstances or station in life. This leaven, this wrong heart attitude, makes us vulnerable to the leaven that taints the faith of our leaders. It allows us to believe that we can earn God's blessings and have all that we want in the world when we are careful to do as our church, our 'spiritual' leaders teach us to do. Our wrong desire causes to begin to believe that if we are there every time the church doors are open, if we give above and beyond to the church out of our material wealth, and if all of our free time is spent working the programs of our church, then surely, God's blessings will be ours in this life and their will also be crowns for us in Heaven. This leaven of the believer is the same yeast that puffs up those who mislead us, it is the leaven of self.
Jesus teaches us that if we want to live then we must lose our life. We must take up our cross and follow Him. It is when we seek to save our life that we lose it. When we begin to fear that we will not have what we need to eat or to wear and stop trusting God to provide those things for us, then we have taken the first step away from walking by faith and have instead, begun to walk by sight. It is then that the traditions of men begin to make sense to us. They are practical and, surely, they will produce, through our correct handling of them, what we need to survive. The principles of God are good principles and will make even the life of a nonbeliever better but when a believer trades walking according to the Spirit for Biblical principles only then He has already stepped away from his or her calling in Christ. There is no eternal life in following principles and when God's personal leading is taken out of the picture then what follows is the traditions of men taught as the oracles of God. Rules, and rules, and more rules on what to wear, what to read, what to watch, who to befriend, who to turn your back on, all based upon the Word of God but with a spirit that is far from Him. The spirit of man's traditions is that of a futile attempt to make the things of man eternal apart from God. The spirit that gives the traditions of men their power is a spirit of man's dependence upon other men that are viewed to be greater than the common man. When we begin to fear our circumstance instead of fearing God and trusting Him to provide, we are made prey to those who make of themselves to be special holy men with the answers that can protect us in life. Their teachings may well make our temporary, earthly life somewhat better but that temporary safety and security comes with bondage to those whom we have given power over us.
A believer who has fallen into this trap has fallen into a very dark place. It is a place that causes Satan to rejoice for he knows that as long as we are in bondage to religious leaders and their traditions, our lives will be largely ineffectual for Christ. How better to defeat a Christian than to keep him or her in a place where their faults are continually pointed to and labeled as their failing of God and giving them the responsibility of righting the matter through correct choosing. How better to keep others from coming to Christ than to keep those who know Him in a world of their own making, kept separate from those sinners that need only Jesus to be free from their sin. How better to hide the Light that has come into the world than to surround those who are of that Light with darkness by convincing them that they are responsible for keeping themselves free of sin through their own works. How better to keep these sinners saved by Grace from living by that same Power that saved them than to replace faithfulness to God with faithfulness to the institutionalized church. How better to return such a one to a state similar to the one from which he or she was saved than to replace the personal leading of the Holy Spirit with leading of men, special in the sight of men, and their traditions.
Let us do as Jesus says and eschew the leaven of the Pharisees and of the religious leaders of our own time. Let's not forsake gathering together with other believers but also let us not allow that group of believers and the men they choose as leaders to place themselves between us and God. No matter how intelligent or charismatic a leader may be, let us not forget that he is only a man and not the mediator between us and our Heavenly Father. God may bless us through him but we are not dependent upon him to reach God. God has reached us through Jesus and nothing can ever again separate us from His love. We have been washed of all our sin by the shed blood of Jesus; our sin is covered and God no longer sees it. Jesus tells us to come and eat His flesh and drink His blood for this is spiritual food indeed. It will not pass through us as other food giving us only temporary sustenance but will actually, produce Jesus in us and make us like Him. We are invited to this feast of faith, a feast of unleavened bread, with our hands yet dirty with sin that no outward washing can remove; for when this feasting upon Jesus is over, our hands will be made permanently clean from the inside out and we will never be defiled again by anything that comes out of us. We will no longer sin. This is the manifestation of the eternal life that we receive only from Jesus in the moment that we first begin to believe in Him. There is no principle of conduct or rule to follow, Biblical or otherwise, that can replace this gift of faith in Jesus. There is no power like the Power of God in Christ.
Jesus lives in us and sin no longer has the power to defile us. Walk according to the Spirit, be free from sin, go where ever He directs you to go and fear not! Walk according to the Spirit and see the Laws of God fulfilled through your life. Come to Him in the trust and innocence of a child, dirty hands and all; and be sustained forever and ever more, eternally, upon the unleavened bread of faith. Amen.
Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'Honor you father and mother' and "Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' he is not to 'honor his father and mother' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'"
Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen and understand. What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.'"
Matthew 16:5-12 When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread. "Be careful," Jesus said to them. "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees."
They discussed this among themselves and said, "It is because we didn't bring any bread."
Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, "You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don't you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? How is it you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees" Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
When Jesus walked the earth, He often went head to head with the religious leaders of His day. Religious leaders have not changed much in the 2,000 plus years since then. They are only men who need to put potatoes on the table as all men do and religion is their means of making a living. This is the basic temptation that takes them away from pointing others to Christ and instead toward religion. Jesus removes our need for religion by bringing us into a right relationship with God (thereby, making religion a practice that flows from Christ living in us rather than works designed to lift us to God) and also makes us independent of religious leaders. This is the deception of the devil, that church attendance, tithing to pay ministers and build buildings, and working tirelessly to build the ministry of a man as we listen to his direction and are careful to follow all of his rules and teachings are what is required of those who profess Jesus. This is a type of obedience but it is not living a spiritual life under the personal leading of the Holy Spirit. These are not bad things, in and of themselves, but if they are in opposition to what the Spirit is directing you to do personally then to forsake that direction in order to obey a religious leader is sin. When that leader has forsaken his calling and fallen to the temptation of maintaining his livelihood or even fallen to the greater temptation of gaining wealth and power for himself or his organization, he is deep in sin already and our compliance with him only adds to the burden of sin he has chosen to bear. If our leaders are caught up in this sin and their teachings become a leavening of the scriptures, meaning that they teach good things with a wrong spirit, then we must be faithful to test the spirits and then do as they teach us to do but not with the same spirit that they teach them by. This is the leaven of the Pharisees and it is still working in the house of God today.
There is also a leavening of the believer that takes hold of hearts who have a desire to be elevated above their current circumstances or station in life. This leaven, this wrong heart attitude, makes us vulnerable to the leaven that taints the faith of our leaders. It allows us to believe that we can earn God's blessings and have all that we want in the world when we are careful to do as our church, our 'spiritual' leaders teach us to do. Our wrong desire causes to begin to believe that if we are there every time the church doors are open, if we give above and beyond to the church out of our material wealth, and if all of our free time is spent working the programs of our church, then surely, God's blessings will be ours in this life and their will also be crowns for us in Heaven. This leaven of the believer is the same yeast that puffs up those who mislead us, it is the leaven of self.
Jesus teaches us that if we want to live then we must lose our life. We must take up our cross and follow Him. It is when we seek to save our life that we lose it. When we begin to fear that we will not have what we need to eat or to wear and stop trusting God to provide those things for us, then we have taken the first step away from walking by faith and have instead, begun to walk by sight. It is then that the traditions of men begin to make sense to us. They are practical and, surely, they will produce, through our correct handling of them, what we need to survive. The principles of God are good principles and will make even the life of a nonbeliever better but when a believer trades walking according to the Spirit for Biblical principles only then He has already stepped away from his or her calling in Christ. There is no eternal life in following principles and when God's personal leading is taken out of the picture then what follows is the traditions of men taught as the oracles of God. Rules, and rules, and more rules on what to wear, what to read, what to watch, who to befriend, who to turn your back on, all based upon the Word of God but with a spirit that is far from Him. The spirit of man's traditions is that of a futile attempt to make the things of man eternal apart from God. The spirit that gives the traditions of men their power is a spirit of man's dependence upon other men that are viewed to be greater than the common man. When we begin to fear our circumstance instead of fearing God and trusting Him to provide, we are made prey to those who make of themselves to be special holy men with the answers that can protect us in life. Their teachings may well make our temporary, earthly life somewhat better but that temporary safety and security comes with bondage to those whom we have given power over us.
A believer who has fallen into this trap has fallen into a very dark place. It is a place that causes Satan to rejoice for he knows that as long as we are in bondage to religious leaders and their traditions, our lives will be largely ineffectual for Christ. How better to defeat a Christian than to keep him or her in a place where their faults are continually pointed to and labeled as their failing of God and giving them the responsibility of righting the matter through correct choosing. How better to keep others from coming to Christ than to keep those who know Him in a world of their own making, kept separate from those sinners that need only Jesus to be free from their sin. How better to hide the Light that has come into the world than to surround those who are of that Light with darkness by convincing them that they are responsible for keeping themselves free of sin through their own works. How better to keep these sinners saved by Grace from living by that same Power that saved them than to replace faithfulness to God with faithfulness to the institutionalized church. How better to return such a one to a state similar to the one from which he or she was saved than to replace the personal leading of the Holy Spirit with leading of men, special in the sight of men, and their traditions.
Let us do as Jesus says and eschew the leaven of the Pharisees and of the religious leaders of our own time. Let's not forsake gathering together with other believers but also let us not allow that group of believers and the men they choose as leaders to place themselves between us and God. No matter how intelligent or charismatic a leader may be, let us not forget that he is only a man and not the mediator between us and our Heavenly Father. God may bless us through him but we are not dependent upon him to reach God. God has reached us through Jesus and nothing can ever again separate us from His love. We have been washed of all our sin by the shed blood of Jesus; our sin is covered and God no longer sees it. Jesus tells us to come and eat His flesh and drink His blood for this is spiritual food indeed. It will not pass through us as other food giving us only temporary sustenance but will actually, produce Jesus in us and make us like Him. We are invited to this feast of faith, a feast of unleavened bread, with our hands yet dirty with sin that no outward washing can remove; for when this feasting upon Jesus is over, our hands will be made permanently clean from the inside out and we will never be defiled again by anything that comes out of us. We will no longer sin. This is the manifestation of the eternal life that we receive only from Jesus in the moment that we first begin to believe in Him. There is no principle of conduct or rule to follow, Biblical or otherwise, that can replace this gift of faith in Jesus. There is no power like the Power of God in Christ.
Jesus lives in us and sin no longer has the power to defile us. Walk according to the Spirit, be free from sin, go where ever He directs you to go and fear not! Walk according to the Spirit and see the Laws of God fulfilled through your life. Come to Him in the trust and innocence of a child, dirty hands and all; and be sustained forever and ever more, eternally, upon the unleavened bread of faith. Amen.
2 Comments:
Wow, that is a convicting word, Joy.
I especially liked the part about how following certain 'principles' is not the same thing as being led by the Spirit. I believe we should pay respect to David when he talked about how the Law of the Lord is perfect, how it makes wise the foolish, etc. (Psalm 19), but the principles are no replacement for the real thing, Jesus.
Anything wake up call from these passages is the way the ministries of these Jews became more important in their eyes than actually following God. At my church they sometimes talk as if ministry is 'God's big solution', which Christ is the big solution. To me it reminds me of some girlfriend who says to her boyfriend, 'Well I did all these things I know you don't like ... but I was doing them for you!'.
The outward form is far less important to God than what is going on inside, but this is a rarely invoked standard.
Thanks for this post. It's definitely one of the best one's I've read. Your explanation about how religion is good if it leads people to Jesus and bad if it becomes an end in itself is very good, and it reminds me of a lot of the things I've been reading in Barth's Letter to the Romans.
Good passage selections, also.
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