Jesus said to them, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Matthew 16:6 ESV¹

Read Matthew 16:5-12 & Mark 8:14-21

Have you noticed, as humans, we tend to live in the extremes? Like the pendulum of a clock, we swing from one thing to another. It is difficult for us to find balance in all the areas of our lives simultaneously. If we do ever achieve equilibrium, we soon realize it is impossible to sustain. This truth reminds me of something Jesus told His disciples.

“When the disciples … had forgotten to bring any bread, Jesus said to them, ‘Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’ And they began discussing it among themselves, saying, ‘We brought no bread.’ But Jesus, aware of this, said, ‘O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’ 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 16:5-12).

In Mark’s rendition of this account, “[Jesus] cautioned [the disciples], saying, ‘Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod’” (Mark 8:15). The rulers over the Jews went by the name, Herod; the Herods had groupies who called themselves Herodians. The Sadducees and the Herodians had much in common when it came to that which Jesus was cautioning His followers.

Elsewhere, Jesus included the scribes, along with the Pharisees, as a group of which to beware. “‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach but do not practice’” (Matthew 23:2-3).

Who were these people about whom Jesus warned His followers?

“At the time of Jesus, there were certain groups—the Pharisees, the Herodians, and the Sadducees—that held positions of authority and power over the people. Other groups were the Sanhedrin, the scribes, and lawyers. Each of these groups held power in either religious or political matters.”²

“The Pharisees were an influential religious sect within Judaism in the time of Christ and the early church. They were known for their emphasis on personal piety (the word Pharisee comes from a Hebrew word meaning “separated”), their acceptance of oral tradition in addition to the written Law, and their teaching that all Jews should observe all 600-plus laws in the Torah, including the rituals concerning ceremonial purification … The Pharisees were mostly middle-class businessmen and leaders of the synagogues. Though they were a minority in the Sanhedrin [the ruling council] and held a minority number of positions as priests, they seemed to control the decision-making of the Sanhedrin because they had popular support among the people.”³

“The Sadducees were a religiopolitical group that held a great deal of power among the Jews in Israel … The Sadducees, sometimes historically called “Zadokites” or “Tzedukim,” are thought by some to have been founded by a man named Zadok (or Tsadok) in the second century BC. Another school of thought is that the word Sadducee is related to the Hebrew word sadaq (“to be righteous”). The Sadducees were an aristocratic class connected with everything going on in the temple in Jerusalem. They tended to be wealthy and held powerful positions, including that of chief priests and high priest, and they held the majority of the 70 seats of … the Sanhedrin … Not all priests were Sadducees, but many of them were.”⁴  

“The Herodians held political power, and most scholars believe that they were a political party that supported King Herod Antipas, the Roman Empire’s ruler over much of the land of the Jews from 4 B.C. to A.D. 39. The Herodians favored submitting to the Herods, and therefore to Rome, for political expediency.”²

“Scribes in ancient Israel were learned men whose business was to study the Law, transcribe it, and write commentaries on it. They were also hired on occasions when the need for a written document arose or when an interpretation of a legal point was needed …The scribes took their job of preserving Scripture very seriously; they would copy and recopy the Bible meticulously, even counting letters and spaces to ensure each copy was correct … In the New Testament era, scribes were often associated with the sect of the Pharisees, although not all Pharisees were scribes (Matthew 5:20; 12:38). They were teachers of the people (Mark 1:22) and interpreters of the Law; [therefore, they were sometimes referred to as lawyers]. They were widely respected by the community because of their knowledge, dedication, and outward appearance of Law-keeping.”⁵

What does leaven have to do with it?

“In the Bible, leaven is almost always symbolic of sin. Like leaven that permeates the whole lump of dough, sin will spread in a person, a church, or a nation, eventually overwhelming and bringing its participants into its bondage and eventually to death.”⁶

Immediately following The Passover, the Israelites celebrated The Feast of Unleavened Bread. The LORD commanded, “‘Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day, you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever.  In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.  For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places, you shall eat unleavened bread’” (Exodus 12:15-20). Just as The Passover was intended to direct one’s attention to the coming Savior, The Feast of Unleavened Breaded pointed to a time when people would be free from the bondage of sin.

Paul reminded the Corinthians of this when he chastised, “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8).

When He warned His disciples to, “’watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees’” (Matthew 16:6), He was alerting them to something potentially sinful within these groups, something which, if not intentionally rejected, could contaminate their faith.

What about these religious and political leaders did Jesus want His followers to beware?

From a human perspective, one would have expected Jesus to applaud these leaders, especially for their concentration on holiness and their commitment to peace, but Jesus did not. These religious and political leaders had some serious flaws which negatively influenced those under their care. Jesus warned His followers of these potentially dangerous traps. Because Jesus did not cater to the scribes and Pharisees or the Sadducees and Herodians, He often had strained encounters with them.

“The Pharisees accepted the written Word as inspired by God. At the time of Christ’s earthly ministry, this would have been what we now call the Old Testament. Unfortunately, the Pharisees gave equal authority to oral tradition, saying the traditions went all the way back to Moses. Evolving over the centuries, the Pharisaic traditions had the effect of adding to God’s Word … The Gospels abound with examples of the Pharisees treating their traditions as equal to God’s Word (Matthew 9:14; 15:1–9; 23:5; 23:16, 23; Luke 11:42). Jesus applied the condemnation of Isaiah 29:13 to the Pharisees, saying, “Their teachings are merely human rules” (Mark 7:7) … Many of the Pharisees’ doctrines put them at odds with the Sadducees; however, the two groups managed to set aside their differences on one occasion—the trial of Jesus Christ. To accomplish the demise of Jesus, the Sadducees and Pharisees united (Mark 14:53; 15:1; John 11:48–50).”³

Likewise,

“The scribes went beyond interpretation of Scripture … and added many man-made traditions to what God had said. They became professionals at spelling out the letter of the Law while ignoring the spirit behind it. Things became so bad that the regulations and traditions the scribes added to the Law were considered more important than the Law itself. This led to many confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees and scribes. At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shocked His audience by declaring that the righteousness of the scribes was not enough to get anyone to heaven (Matthew 5:20). A large portion of Jesus’ sermon then dealt with what the people had been taught (by the scribes) and what God actually wanted (Matthew 5:21–48). Toward the end of Jesus’ ministry, He thoroughly condemned the scribes for their hypocrisy (Matthew 23). They knew the Law, and they taught it to others, but they did not obey it.”⁵

“The Sadducees worked hard to keep the peace by agreeing with the decisions of Rome (Israel at the time was under Roman control), and they seemed to be more concerned with politics than religion … The Sadducees preserved the authority of the written Word of God, especially the books of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy). While they could be commended for this, they definitely were not perfect in their doctrinal views. [Several of the] Sadducean beliefs …  contradict[ed] Scripture … Because the Sadducees were basically a political party rather than a religious sect, they were unconcerned with Jesus until they became afraid He might bring unwanted Roman attention. At that point, the Sadducees joined with the Pharisees and conspired to put Christ to death (John 11:48–50; Mark 14:53; 15:1).”⁴

The Sadducees had much in common with the Herodians.

“[The] support of Herod compromised Jewish independence in the minds of the Pharisees, making it difficult for the Herodians and Pharisees to unite and agree on anything. But one thing did unite them—opposing Jesus. Herod himself wanted Jesus dead (Luke 13:31), and the Pharisees had already hatched plots against Him (John 11:53), so they joined efforts to achieve their common goal … Mark 3:6 and Matthew 22:16 … Jesus had been doing miracles, which caused some of the people to believe in Him for salvation, and that threatened the power and position of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Herodians … Many scholars believe that the Herodians looked to Herod as a messiah, a savior of sorts who would put the Jewish land in favor with the Roman Empire and bring blessings to them. Jesus’ presentation of Himself as the Messiah was a threat to the Herodians’ attempt to make Herod the influential political power in the land.”²

How does all of this apply to us today?

Religion and politics haven’t changed all that much from the first century. Just as He did with His followers during His time on Earth, through this account, Jesus is still warning us today to:

Beware of anything or anyone who demands obedience to requirements which God never made.

“The scribes’ original aim was in earnest—to know and preserve the Law and encourage others to keep it. But things turned horribly wrong when man-made traditions overshadowed God’s Word and a pretense of holiness replaced a life of true godliness. The scribes, whose stated goal was to preserve the Word, actually nullified it by the traditions they handed down (Mark 7:13) … The lesson every Christian can learn from the hypocrisy of the scribes is that God wants more than outward acts of righteousness. He wants an inward change of heart that is constantly yielding in love and obedience to Christ.”⁵

“The apostle Paul was trained as a Pharisee, and his credentials in that group were sterling … But Paul found that his performance of the Law could not produce true righteousness. After he placed his trust in Christ’s finished work on the cross, he desired to ‘be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith’ (Philippians 3:9). No one, not even the strictest Pharisee, is justified by keeping the Law (Galatians 3:11).”³

The trouble with following a rules-based religion is that one can never know for sure if he/she good enough. The truth is that no one is ever perfect enough to earn eternal salvation. That is why Jesus came and died. If you have been counting on your good deeds to get you into Heaven, turn from this lie and trust in Jesus’ finished work on the cross. “For our sake [God] made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Being clothed in Jesus’ righteousness is the only way to gain entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Beware of anything that, in the name of tolerance, contradicts the Word of God.

James, the half-brother of Jesus, wrote, “You adulterous people!  Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4). God is honored by peacekeeping attempts (see Matthew 5:9 & James 3:18). But straddling the fence and talking out of both sides of one’s mouth is a very different story. One cannot say he/she loves God and at the same time, be in bed with the world. This kind of duplicity is kin to spiritual adultery.

James continued, “Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over the spirit that He has made to dwell in us’?  But He gives more grace. Therefore, it says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you” (James 4:5-9).

The trouble with basing one’s beliefs on popular cultural ideas is that the finish line is always moving. Ask God to open your eyes to the ways you may have been caught up in this ever-changing tide of relativism. If He reveals anything, repent and ask Him to teach you the truths of the never-changing Word of God. God will not fail to aid you or set your feet on solid ground.

Beware of anyone who is power-hungry, willing to manipulate to hold onto power, or who looks to any man or man-made institution as a savior.

“According to most historical records, including those of Josephus, the Sadducees were rude, arrogant, power-hungry, and quick to dispute with those who disagreed with them.”⁴ Some of those who are active in the political arena today don’t differ much from the Sadducees in this area, do they? A political system is necessary and is often a beneficial part of our society. Unfortunately, the power which comes with this kind of influence can attract those who love to be in control and can taint those who initially wished to serve.

“In the future, the Bible tells us that many will be deceived by the antichrist and will view the antichrist as a “messiah.” He will be a political leader as well as a false religious leader, and he will promise peace and prosperity through his political programs. The Herodians at the time of Jesus were also focused on political goals rather than the eternal goals that Jesus proclaimed. They thought Herod might bring temporary peace politically. But Jesus came to bring us eternal salvation, by dying on the cross to pay for our sins. The lesson we learn from the error of the Herodians is that we are not to trust in man, as they trusted in Herod (Psalm 118:8). We are to put our trust in the Lord Jesus and let His will be done in our lives and on the earth.”²

Beware of anything that causes division among Believers.

The labels of the past; Pharisee, Sadducee, Jew, and Greek, and the labels of today; Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, Protestant, Catholic, Reformed, Charismatic, black, white, etc. do more than identify. They can cause disunity, distrust, and hatred. Such a disjuncture is right out of Satan’s playbook because all it succeeds in doing is drag Jesus’ Name through the mud.

James instructed those of the Early Church, “Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from Above but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from Above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:13-17).

Unity among Believers was one of the things for which Jesus prayed the night before He was crucified. “’I do not ask for these [the disciples] only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me’” (John 17:20-21).

Nowhere in the Bible, does it call for uniformity, but God’s desire for unity among His children is continually found among the pages of Scripture. True unity can only be achieved when God’s people are in tune with His Holy Spirit. Ask Jesus to reveal to you if anything in your attitudes or among your actions or words which is contributing to the disunity of His Body. If you are guilty of “griev[ing] the Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 4:30), repent and accept His help in being unified with your Brothers and Sisters.

Beware of extremism.

Essentially, in saying, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6), Jesus was warning His followers about falling for the ideas of those tending toward extremes. Extremism frequently leads to sin. The scribes’ and Pharisees’ focus on rules and appearing righteous led to much pride and hypocrisy. The Sadducees’ and Herodians’ concern over being culturally relevant and politically savvy led to compromising the truth. There are countless examples throughout history in which extremism has done more harm than good.

For longevity’s sake, it is probably better to err on the side of following rules and regulations. The Herodians disappeared with there were no more Herods. “The Sadducees ceased to exist as a group in AD 70 when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by the Romans.”⁴ Whereas, it is because of the Jewish scribes that we have the Old Testament. And “Rabbinical Judaism and modern-day synagogues owe their existence to the Pharisees’ work.”³ But this longevity, along with its rule-following origins, is only of worth in this world. Faithfully keeping a list of commandments will never be enough to get anyone into Heaven.

The good news is that “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow” (Hebrews 13:8). “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from Above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). When one trusts the unchanging Jesus for salvation, God gives him/her a Gift which helps him/her sustain a proper balance; that Gift is the Holy Spirit.

Jesus focused on only two rules: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37-39). Only Jesus knows how well any one of us is doing at loving God with all he/she has and loving others as much as he/she loves him/herself.  We can only successfully and consistently follow these two rules with the help of the Holy Spirit. It is only through Him that humans can keep out of the extremes. And it is only by receiving the Bread of Life that one can reject the “yeast” of the modern-day “Pharisees” and “Sadducees.”

 

¹ Scripture quotations marked with ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All Scriptures are taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted. To aid in understanding, I have capitalized references to God.

² https://www.gotquestions.org/Herodians.html

³ https://www.gotquestions.org/Pharisees.html

⁴ https://www.gotquestions.org/Sadducees.html

⁵ https://www.gotquestions.org/scribes-Jesus.html

⁶ https://www.gotquestions.org/unleavened-bread.html