Jesus enjoined them, “Watch out,
guard against the leaven of the Pharisees
and the leaven of Herod.”
Leaven in this case referred to the sinful attitudes of Herod and the Pharisees, and the way that such attitudes could disproportionately and negatively affect the loaf into which they were mixed. Jesus warned his disciples that they too could come to possess such dispositions if they didn't make a special effort to guard against them. After all, the appeal of such leaven was that it seemed to be successful. The dough was rising. But into what? The disciples, however, were operating at an entirely different level, with an earthly mindset, unable to process what Jesus had told them.
They concluded among themselves that
it was because they had no bread.
The disciples ought to have realized by now that this lack of physical bread was no problem. Jesus responded by helping them to remember that abundance that flowed in his steps, the twelve and the seven baskets left over from the feeding of the five thousand and the four thousand. This served as a bridge to Jesus' real point since a self-focused scarcity mindset was exactly the sort of thing that might make one reach for the wrong sort of solution. 'I forgot to bring enough bread', they might think, 'So I will use wealth and domination to make sure I never lack again'.
He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”
There was more to what Jesus wanted to communicate than trust in his abundance and sufficiency. He wanted to contrast his strategy for growth, his desire to integrate Israel and the Gentile nations, with the wrong strategies for that relationship demonstrated by the Pharisees, who clearly saw no place for the Gentiles, and by Herod, whose cooperation with the Gentiles was always a spiritually degrading compromise. Yet these would remain live options in the early Church described in Acts. The disciples would need to trust in Jesus' plan or risk selling out to the Judaizers for the one hand or the Romans on the other. They could ignore their Jewish heritage entirely for the sake of welcoming the Gentiles. Or they could so focus on the necessity of being Jewish that they became a community sealed from outsiders. Either of these might have seemed a more obvious solution than the solution proposed by Jesus and well understood by Paul.
When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel (see Ephesians 3:4-6).
A stage of covenant history had arrived wherein the bad could no longer simply be wiped away. The undesirable could no longer simply be excluded. It was no longer necessary because of the grace and mercy God made available in Jesus Christ. Genuine forgiveness and real transformation were finally possible. Jesus' heart was open to all and he himself was the way he taught and teaches to disciples in every age.
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