NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Part II

Verses 5-6: Jesus and His followers then sailed across the lake. But His followers forgot to bring along any bread. So Jesus said to the followers, “Be careful! Guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.”

It is very generous for Matthew to say that the disciples “forgot” to bring any bread along. By all accounts, we could say they were irresponsible and careless for not remembering to bring bread with them. But again, without a doubt, Jesus knew of their failure to think ahead, so instead of chastising them before the boat left shore, He chose this occasion to guide them into deeper spiritual insights.

After the disciples realized that provisions for this trip were not taken care of, there is a good possibility that they began to point fingers at one another as to who forgot what. As the boat sailed along, you can imagine their animated bickering as their Master looked on, perhaps shaking His head. So, while in the process of figuring out what to do, suddenly Jesus interrupted their conversation with these words about the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. I’m sure they looked at one another in surprise because now they had to figure out what He meant.

The main point the disciples missed concerning the connection between Jesus’ warning about the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees had nothing to do with the bread, it had to do with what had just happened before they set sail. They so quickly forgot that Jesus had just been confronted by these religious leaders and demanded a sign from heaven that He was the Messiah. Instead, Jesus gave them the sign of Jonah’s three days in the belly of the monster fish. Their demand for Him to prove Himself as the One sent from God was the yeast Jesus was talking about. Any small amount of the doubt, distrust, or disbelief of the Pharisees and Sadducees getting into the minds of the disciples could put the purpose for His whole ministry into danger.

Origen in his remarks on this faux pas by the disciples offers this comment: “The bread that they had before they crossed the lake was no longer of any use to them when they reached the other side. They needed one kind of bread before they crossed and a different kind afterward. They forgot to take any loaves with them because they were careless about carrying bread. The disciples of Jesus had also crossed to another side. They had passed from the material to the spiritual, from the sensory to the intellectual. This is why Jesus said to them after the crossing, be careful and be on your guard.”¹ In other words, they had not yet made the connection between the bread from the earth and the bread from heaven.

Origen continues: “The Pharisees and Sadducees offered a different dough of teaching, a truly ancient yeast-restricted to the bare letter of the law and therefore not free from evil. Jesus does not want His disciples to eat of it any longer. Instead, He mixed a new spiritual dough when He Himself offered to any who would abandon the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees and come to Him, the living bread which came down from heaven and gives life to the world.² Anyone intending no longer to use the yeast and dough of the Pharisees and Sadducees’ teaching must first ‘be careful.’ He must ‘be on guard’ that he will not use the old yeast either accidentally or due to shortages. So Jesus tells His disciples first, ‘be careful,’ and second, ‘be on your guard.’”³ How true today when we use men’s thinking to understand the things of God instead of using God’s thinking to understand the things of men.

But preacher Chrysostom has a different perspective on what’s involved here. He writes: “Why did Jesus not say plainly, ‘Beware of their teaching?’ His purpose is rather to remind them of what had just been done—the feeding of the multitude—for He knew they had already forgotten its significance. But Christ did not immediately admonish them. Rather, He took their own thoughtlessness as the occasion for reproof. Remember that He had not reproved them when they had earlier said, ‘Where are we to get bread enough in the desert to feed so great a crowd?’ It seemed better now to say to them what He says here. He did not want to rush hastily on to another miracle. He did not admonish them before the multitude, nor did He seek to elevate Himself in their eyes. He might have been much harsher with them after their forgetfulness following the miracle of the loaves. All of these considerations gave His reproof a greater meaning.”⁴

On this subject, early church Bishop Hilary had this to say: “The apostles are ordered to watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. They are warned not to be involved in the disputes of the Jews. The works of the law are now to be viewed in the light of faith. They are forewarned that they, into whose time and age the Truth had appeared incarnate, should judge nothing except those things that lie in the hope of the truth that is revealed. They are warned against allowing the doctrine of the Pharisees, who are unaware of Christ, to corrupt the effectiveness of the truth of the Gospel.”⁵

It amazes me how many “Christless” sermons are preached from pulpits and through Christian media today. It’s as though the speakers expect the listeners to already have a working knowledge of the “Jesus Element” in their lecture. When this happens, the message becomes mere words of men speaking for God, not the voice of God speaking through men. The yeast factor then becomes what man makes out of the Gospel, not what the Gospel makes out of the man. And just like yeast, it doesn’t take much to influence the whole message and turn what is the profoundness of God into the philosophy of men.

Verses 7-8: His followers discussed what He meant by this. They wondered, “Did Jesus say this because we forgot to bring bread?” Jesus was aware that they were discussing this. So He asked them, “Why are you talking about not having bread? Your faith is so small.”

Here it is quite obvious that the disciples were not listening to Jesus on a spiritual plateau but on an earthly level. Believe it or not, today’s believers often view Scripture the same way. When it talks about riches, they think of earthly wealth, not spiritual resources. When the Bible speaks of blessings, they more often than not think of man’s flattery rather than God’s favor. And when the Word of God talks about winning the victory, they rejoice in their accomplishment for God rather than God’s triumph for them.

Church theologian Origen made this note on what occurred here. He writes: “After Jesus said this, the disciples thought to themselves, ‘If we had bread, then we wouldn’t need the yeast from the Pharisees and Sadducees, but since we don’t have bread, we are at risk of taking their yeast. The Savior does not want us to return to their instruction, so He told us ‘be careful and be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’”² I would be more inclined to think, that rather than the disciples having the foresight to see Jesus’ reference to yeast here as having anything to do with the philosophical influence that the Pharisees or Sadducees may have on their bread, they more likely were thinking they should not borrow bread from anyone who was a Pharisee. That’s why Jesus does not reiterate their failure to bring bread, but about their faith in Him to provide.

Origen then goes on to say: “But Jesus, seeing into their hearts and hearing their inner arguments, reproves them as the Shepherd of the heart because they did not understand nor remember the bread which they had received from Him. Because of what they had received, even when they appeared to lack bread, they did not need the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”³ Again this venerable teacher is giving the disciples more credit for perceiving our Lord’s intentions than what they deserve. This reasoning is clear by what the Master then has to say in the next verse. The bread represents that which feed humans in order for them to live while yeast is the ingredient in bread that causes it to take shape and determines its texture. He was giving them the bread they needed, but He wanted to make sure that when it came time for them to make bread, which is the Good News, that they not allow it to be influenced by the thinking of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Again, let’s remind ourselves of what “yeast” the Pharisees and Sadducees had that could affect their message to the lost sheep of Israel and the Gentiles. Basically, the Pharisees believed that in addition to the written Torah, accepted as having been dictated by God to Moses, there exists a verbal Torah, consisting of the collection of spoken laws, interpretations, and traditions transmitted verbally by God to Moses and then kept alive through memorization. Furthermore, that these verbal teachings had precedence over the written law. As for the Sadducees, they accepted the written Torah but did not believe in resurrection, spirits, or angels. But our Lord made it clear that the written Word was from God as well as the spoken Word which He was bringing to them. However, the written Word applied to the Old Agreement, while His spoken Word was the basis for the New Agreement.

Then Chrysostom concentrates on the disciples having such little faith. He writes: “Note how intense is Jesus’ displeasure. Nowhere else does He appear to have rebuked them so harshly. How does He do this? He is challenging their prejudices about food laws. Already He had said, ‘Are you still without understanding?’⁴ Now in this place, with a strong rebuke He says, ‘O men of little faith.’”⁵ In my years of ministry I’ve met fellow ministers who confessed that many times they would reach Friday or even Saturday without any idea or inspiration for their sermons on Sunday. So they habitually reached for something they preached over and over. I tried to share with them that if they really believe that their calling is from God, then they need to trust Him to guide them to find the bread needed. But they would have to keep asking, seeking, and knocking in order to find where it was stored.

To facilitate this, I shared with them that since the Old Testament was written thousands of years ago, God only sent one upgrade and that was through His Son.⁶ After that, God had no intention to send any further updates or upgrades every few months or years, so we must accept that what is already in God’s Word will be all He intends to say on that subject until the end. As such, then we should look at what nutrition our flock needs in order for them to be sustained and grow in the spirit and the knowledge of Christ. This we can easily ascertain by looking at our calendar to see if any special days or holidays are coming up; to look at our creed of faith to see what doctrines they need to be reminded of and have explained more fully. Also, what characteristics and works of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit need to be given new light for the trinity to be appreciated more by the believer. By selecting any one of these, we are exercising faith that as we read and study, the Spirit of God will guide us to the truths He wants us to expound on.

Verses 9-10: Don’t you understand what I’m saying? Remember the five flatbreads that fed the 5,000 people and the many baskets you filled with the bread that was left over? And remember the seven flatbreads that fed the 4,000 people and the many baskets you filled that time?”

This is where we can clearly see that the disciples of Jesus were still so trapped in their material and physical world that they could not see a spiritual truth when revealed to them. Jesus now seems upset with them because they failed to recognize that if He could feed 5,000 with five loaves and 4,000 with seven loaves why would He fret over how much bread was available. This definitely confirms beyond doubt the existence of two miracles in which Christ fed multitudes with a minimum amount of food. Some speculate that these stories are two versions of the same incident, but here Christ clearly debunks such conjecture.

As Chrysostom points out: “Leniency is not always a good thing. Christ sometimes allows the disciples freedom for their opinions. At other times He reproves them. By this variable nurturing He provides for their salvation. Note how at the same time His reproof is strong and yet mild. For all but excusing Himself to them for His severe reproofs to them, He says, ‘Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? Or the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?’ He specifies the numbers and the fragments, so as to bring them to a clear recollection of what had just happened and making them more attentive to the future.”⁷

But we must also add, there was more to this than just the summation of these two events. To Jews, even to this day, numbers have special meanings. One Roman Catholic scholar has suggested that at the first feeding, the 12 baskets of leftovers represents the 12 tribes of Israel and therefore the bread of the first covenant. But there were also 12 disciples and as such it could have also represented the bread for the last covenant. Then we have the 7 baskets that were collected on the third day, which is taken as the bread that would be dispensed after our Lord’s resurrection and the number 7 represents fullness, perfection or completion.⁸ Yet, others see a different application. The twelve baskets were representative of that 12,000 who were actually fed the first time when you add women and children, and the seven baskets represent the 7,000 fed the second time when you make the same calculation.

Jesus’ disciples were uneducated fishermen, so it is quite unlikely that Jesus would try and embarrass them by speaking in academic terms. In simple language, we can see where fishermen might be able to reason that no matter how small or large the net, on any given day you may catch more fish than on other days. It all depends on the conditions when the net is thrown overboard. But all of this becomes less important when the keyword in Jesus’ admonishment is “remember,” and that’s what fueled the important phrase, “don’t you understand.” The number one thought here then is that there will always be sufficient spiritual bread to feed those hungry for God’s message. So the concern is not the bread, but what goes into the bread.

Verse 11: So how could you think that I am concerned about bread? I am telling you to be careful and guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

How clear and well expressed is our Savior’s concern that the bread He wanted fed to those hungry for salvation not be influenced by the doctrines and philosophy of the Pharisees and Sadducees. That would certainly affect how He would be presented as the Living Word and the Risen Savior. It would no longer be “what did men say,” but “what did the Word say.” And there would be no doubt about His being bodily raised from death by the One who sent Him, instead of teaching that it was their hope that He was still alive in their memories instead of in their hearts that would keep them going.

The venerable early church scholar Origen had this to say about how believers should understand this teaching of Jesus on bread as representing His message. He writes: “Some were distracted by the use of bread and yeast. In order to clarify and enlighten them in a still symbolic way that He was not speaking about literal bread but about yeast as representing teaching, Jesus adds, ‘How is it that you do not understand that I was not talking to you about bread? Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’ Even though He still had not exposed the literal meaning of His words but continued as before, the disciples would have understood the Savior as referring to the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees as leaven.”⁹