Watch Out For the Yeast! Matthew 16:5-12

 The Yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees

5 When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread.

St. Mark adds that they had only one loaf they brought with them, though after the last feeding they had lots of leftovers.  

6 “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

In Judaism leaven was always seen as a picture of sin and corruption.  

"So it was with the doctrines of the Pharisees. They were insinuating, artful, plausible. They concealed the real tendency of their doctrines; they instilled them secretly into the mind, until they pervaded all the faculties like leaven." (Barnes)

7 They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.”

The disciples are confused and not sure why Jesus is referring to the Sadducees and the Pharisees.  

"This was a strange concern after Jesus had, in the recent past, miraculously fed both crowds exceeding 5,000 and 4,000 people. The disciples didn’t understand Jesus at all here and His use of leaven as a metaphor." Guzik

8 Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread?

The disciples were still taking Jesus literally and not able to understand the meaning beneath his words.  After the feeding of the 5,000. it is hard to believe they are still focused on how much bread they need.  Jesus knew what they were thinking.   He knew that they were still struggling to believe even after the miracle he had just performed.  

 9 Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? 10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? 

Now he verbalizes what he is thinking.  "Have you forgot what was so lately done, namely, the feeding five thousand men, besides women and children, with five loaves and two fishes, when ye took up, after all were filled and satisfied, no less than twelve baskets of fragments? And can you, after this, distrust my power in the care of you? Have I fed so many with so small a quantity of food? and am I not able to feed twelve of you, though you have but one loaf? Why all these anxious thoughts and carnal reasonings?"  (Gill)

11 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.” 

"That you should be so senseless and void of thought, after such instances, as to imagine, that I concerned myself about what bread you brought with you; one would think you could not but know,that I spake it not to you concerning bread, taken in a literal sense; but must be thought to speak figuratively and mystically, and to have an higher sense and meaning, when I said to you," (Gill)

12 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.

Finally, the disciples are able to make the connection between the yeast and the real essence of what Jesus is trying to teach them.  Jesus is trying to teach them about the false teaching of the Pharisees, which though subtle, is totally corrosive. The problem is that it is all based on the Law, which can't change a human heart.  

Not only did the Pharisees teaching have no power, but their own hypocrisy was revealed as they were not able to meet the standards of their own teaching.  They tied heavy loads on others that they themselves were not able to carry.  

This is such an important concept because today much of what we hear is Pharisaical in nature.  We should do this, and we should do that if we are a true Christian.  But yet it has no power.  The only power we have is in the gospel.  In the gospel, Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves.  As we realize this, God gives us the power to respond through the power of the Holy Spirit.  

What type of teaching do we hear today in the Church that mirrors the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees?  Why do you think the disciples were so slow to understand?  How can what God has provided for you in the past, help you to trust in what he can provide you what you need today?