Passage Read: Matthew 15-16
Meditation Verses: 16:11-12
Thought
The influence of ungodly religious leaders is great, and we all need to be careful of their false teachings. Jesus likens their teachings to leaven, which imperceptibly spreads all through a loaf of bread and changes the texture and quality of the bread. It becomes big and fluffy, because it's full of many small air pockets. That's fine for bread, but not for knowing God in truth. The Pharisees and Sadducees look impressive and imposing on the outside, but they're puffed up with a whole lot of nothing and nonsense. In fact, it's not nothing, but dangerous teachings that we need to be careful to avoid. The Pharisees love to make new rules that to beyond God's commands, as if by keeping their rules they can avoid breaking God's. They are the legalists who make up strict rules God never intended. The Sadducees reject the spiritual side of God's world, choosing pragmatism that allows them to define truth and righteousness according to what is most expedient for the times they live in. They are the liberals who free themselves from the directives God has in fact given. Both are wrong. Both are dangerous influences. And I need to avoid them both.
Application
I need to know and read and study and meditate on and memorize and trust and obey the pure Word of God. There are teachers today who look good and sound impressive, but whose teachings are every bit as dangerous as the Pharisees and Sadducees of old. And their influence is as subtle and expansive as yeast. How many ideas and beliefs do I hold that are not from God, but from men? How many of my beliefs are off-kilter because of the subtle errors in teachings I have received? How much of my practice of and obedience to God's Word is impaired by the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees that I've uncritically accepted as true? I need to listen less to the teachings of men and more to the Scriptures directly, so as to discern what is true and what is hot air. And I need to trust God's Word over the "wisdom" and "sensibleness" of men.