Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Psalms 42-44
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 16:6, 8-11
Jesus: Be careful; avoid the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Jesus: You men of little faith, do you really think that I care which baker you patronize? After spending so much time with Me, do you still not understand what I mean? So you showed up without bread; why talk about it? 9-10 Don’t you remember that we fed 5,000 men with five rounds of flatbread? Don’t you remember that we fed 4,000 men with seven rounds of bread? Don’t you remember what excess, what abundance there was—how many broken pieces and crusts you collected after everyone had eaten and was sated? 11 So when I speak about leaven, I am not talking about what we will eat for dinner. I say again, avoid the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Reading so much about bread in the Bible the last several months, I started experimenting with making bread myself. I’ve done a little bit of baking off and on since I retired. It’s something I enjoy, but probably not enough to make it a real hobby. But I’ve come to understand it a little. And because I was a chemistry major in college, I get interested in the why baking soda or baking power is needed in a recipe. How does yeast work or what difference does it make when you add vinegar and soda in a red velvet cake.
I know, it’s a little weird, but that’s just who I am. All of us have a weird streak in us somewhere and that’s part of mine. So when Jesus tell the disciples to be careful and avoid the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. You have to understand a little about leavening to know what He’s talking about.
The problem today, we don’t do much baking at home, except as a hobby like me. Most of us go to the store and buy our bread or get a cake mix that just needs water and a couple of eggs and we’re done. We don’t know what else has gone into that mix to make it rise for that perfect, bouncy, delicious, moist texture. We just stir, bake and eat.
So here’s a little lesson on leavening. First, leavening doesn’t have to be yeast, although in Jesus’ day it usually was. The yeast or other biological consumed simple and complex sugars to form carbon dioxide which forms bubbles in the dough making it rise. But leavening is any number of substances that introduces air into dough or batter to make it lighter or softer. We think of yeast most often, but it can be anything for dough that causes fermentation or produces air from a biological reaction, yeast, beer, ginger beer, kefir to name a few.
There are also chemicals that leaven or create that air we’re looking for in baking, like baking soda and baking powders. These chemicals combine with acids like sour milk, buttermilk, or vinegar and cause the resulting compound to foam creating the bubbles the dough or batter needs to rise.
Bakers also use mechanical leavening like creaming butter and sugar together. The sugar crystals break into the lipid structure of the butter and when heated the crystals break down and leave behind very tiny bubbles in their place. Now we also use steam to create the effect or nitrogen or a number of other discoveries since yeast was first used in baking, but all have the same effect. The chemical or biological process introduces air into the dough or batter, softens it and makes it rise. The gluten or other proteins in the dough or batter hold the structure tight enough to prevent the bubbles from escaping and so the dough transforms into the baked goods we enjoy.
Okay, so now you’ve had a lesson in baking. What does that have to do with what Jesus wants us to know?
I’ve baked enough now, that I’ve made the mistake of using the wrong leavener in what I was making. I’ve used baking powder instead of baking soda. I’ve used regular milk instead of sour milk. I’ve used the wrong stuff enough to know that when you do, you definitely don’t get the results you’re looking for. And once it’s in there, you can’t take it out. It goes through the whole batter and you can’t remove it. Period. The whole batch is ruined and goes into the trash.
That’s what Jesus warns His disciples. If they let the false teachings of the Pharisees and the Sadducees invade them, they can’t get it out of them. It permeates and fills them. It’s as hard to remove those teachings as it is to remove leaven from bread. It infects the whole of a person. So Jesus warns them. Be careful about who you listen to. Be careful about what you let into the windows of your soul. Be careful about the studies you undertake. Those things have an affect on you that you cannot just forget.
Can God help you recover from false teaching and help you walk the path He wants you to take? Yes. But talk to recovering alcoholics. It takes very little to push them back over the edge. Talk to recovery drug addicts. They don’t want pain killers for fear they will be trapped once again in the vicious circle that pulled them into the death trap they were in before. All those things linger in our physical frame and our minds trapped in this mortal body, these vessels of clay. We can’t get rid of the consequences of letting the garbage in. Just try to convince a terrorist his cause is wrong. You won’t get very far for the same reasons.
We must keep up our guard. Jesus says using this metaphor of leaven. When you understand the chemistry behind this tiny bit of biological or chemical compound and what it can do to a large batch of dough, you understand just how dangerous the wrong kind of leaven can be. If you make a loaf of bread you want the right yeast.
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