Tag: Bread

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Are social viruses real?

Reading Time: 3 minutes

But the disciples had forgotten to bring any food. They had only one loaf of bread with them in the boat. As they were crossing the lake, Jesus warned them, “Watch out! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod. ‭‭Mark‬ ‭8‬:‭14‬-‭15‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Jesus seems to believe so. Mark’s gospel captures an odd blowback to the disciple’s argument about who forgot to bring enough food.

Food among men is always a heated topic. Most men are driven by base desires like food, sleep and another I won’t mention here. How often did Jesus have a foody discussion with his disciples? How about staying awake for prayer? I believe Mark’s gospel exposes raw emotions on purpose. It shows the reader that Jesus, being fully God and fully human, had human desires, but kept them in check without sin. The disciples, are totally and observably human!

The men are in a boat, crossing the sea of Galilee, and someone forgot the midday meal! Apparently one “Boy-Scout” (always be prepared) brought just enough for himself. I completely understand their frustration. When I was younger I was insanely driven by meal times being ON TIME. I was convinced that if I didn’t eat I would turn into Mr. Hyde in front of my wife and kids. It was totally a self absorbed lie! I just needed to learn patience, but I hid it under hunger.

The disciples tore into each other with blame and shaming one another with no finger-food pointing! Blaming and shaming is not a listed as a Biblical one-another for how we treat each other. It was Jesus response to their outburst that intrigues me.

Jesus warns them – Watch out (horaó) see, perceive, or attend to what is happening here! “Beware,” Jesus says, (blepó) to see something physical, with spiritual results. Why two words of warning? It’s like a teacher that snaps their fingers TWICE or claps their hands getting the attention of the class. It’s a way of stopping, interrupting our brains that are already tracking down a useless path. It’s a full 🛑. Listen and pay attention. Oh, how Jesus is the master of using very emotional, carnal situations and bringing us back to real life – the spiritual life! Have you experienced a “SNAP-SNAP” moment from the Holy Spirit? I have.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere Jesus drops this line about yeast. Yeast in the New Testament is normally used to illustrate sin. But it is useful to understand a whole other mystery. How yeast works. One thing is for sure, it replicates quickly throughout bread. Yeast has a phenomenal growth rate and can duplicate itself every 90 minutes by a process called budding. In bread it’s yummy, in our bodies the fungi is deadly. In Jesus’ warning I’m sure it’s a bad function of yeast and not a good one. If we are the dough, then Jesus’ point of being exposed to the hungry fungi of the Pharisees and Herod is a very bad thing.

What do the Pharisees have in common with Herod? Why is their “yeast” extremely dangerous and viral? Was it their religious hypocrisy? Saying one thing, but living completely different? Was it their spiritual abuse of power? Was it their misrepresentation of God? What did the disciples argument about food have to do with the evil yeast of these religious leaders?

Jesus draws their attention to the one loaf of bread they did have and reminded them to focus on the miracles of supernatural replication of bread served to the masses of people. Ah, then maybe the bad yeast warning had more to do a lack of faith? Can a lack of faith, like a fast spreading virus, be contagious? Let me ask this. Who and what was in the boat? The disciples were physically in the boat. But also, Jesus was with them in the boat. What else was in the boat? One loaf of bread!

How quickly we forget the miracles of yesterday and instead become distracted, with our lack of perception, that the same God that provided BEFORE is with us NOW. Jesus may have been talking about the social virus of UNBELIEF! Both the Pharisees and Herod had all the facts, the necessary proof that Jesus is the messiah, yet lacked faith, they would not believe.

Jesus was warning the disciples not to allow unbelief to capture and control their hearts, minds and stomachs! It happens that fast. Jesus was in the boat WITH a loaf of bread yet they worried that they would go hungry!!! That’s hilariously human, right? We would say, “If the bread had been a snake, it would have bit them.” Jesus told us when a child asks their father for bread, a good father does not give them a snake, he gives them good food to match his great love! Snap Snap – pay attention when the social virus of unbelief comes to steal our faith.

Prayer

​Dad,
I believe, but help me with my unbelief. Help me to stay clear of social viruses that would steal my faith in you. You are my hope and provision. Amen.

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Desires for decompression.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught. Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat. Mark‬ ‭6‬:‭30‬-‭31‬ ‭NLT‬‬

The New Living Translation takes too much liberty here describing the disciples reconnecting with Jesus and with each other. Of course, it’s true, they had just returned from their assignments and I’m sure they were full of stories and a lot of questions. But Jesus did recognize their need to get away from the crowds and just be alone, together. Mark notes that there were so many people with so many needs that no one got a chance to even eat. Eating in New Testament times was very much like it is still today in the middle east. It’s a LONG process involving several courses of food, but it is clear that long conversations and long stories are the priority over the main course being served. A meal easily could last a couple of hours! I don’t think they had any concept of “fast food,” or just grabbing a bite to eat.

Even though Jesus’ intentions are given, Mark lets us know that the crowd had figured out where the group was going and were waiting on the other side of the boat ride. “So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them.” Maybe there was time to talk on the boat? With the crowds gathered, Jesus just could not ignore their passion to hear the words of God. Compassion once again drove Jesus to work while there was still light!

I find that in full time ministry these kinds of dilemmas happen far too often. Pastors used to brag about zero vacations and no days off, thinking it was honoring the responsibilities of ministry. Jesus intended to get away from the crowds with his team! He would often slip away at night or before sunrise to pray and spend time with Father God, but in this instance he wanted the group to get some rest. No breaks, no rest, no quiet, no solitude is a recipe for personal disaster! The difficulty was that Jesus ministry time on earth was rather brief – just three years. Three years to establish His mission of being the living gospel – the good news that God had prepared the way to make things right with sinful humanity and repair the breech that had been created in the very beginning of creation.

The crowds, that Mark wrote about, the ones who represented sheep without a shepherd, would be the object lesson or picture of humanity searching for something more than the misery of life under the religious and political leaders of that day. That crowd has only grown larger!

Look around the current situation in our world today. With unending ability to see around the globe from our screens, we know that the United States is not the only country in religious and political crisis. So, even though it is necessary to find places of quiet to rest, it is also possible to be available when the hurt and heartaches of the crowd stir up a passion and a hunger to hear the voice of God for themselves. Will we be available to speak truth and feed them the bread of life? Is the Church ready to set aside its bickering, complaining and judging hearts to BE the gospel of life for those who are searching? I hope so.

Prayer

​Dad,
You see how tiring it is to be serving in the Church today! You see how exhausting it can be to carry the hurts, struggles and sicknesses of families. Yet, out on the horizon, I see a crowd forming. A crowd filled with despair and grief. A gathering of people who have discovered that they have been lied to and are living in that lie. Sheep who are looking for their good shepherd. The crowd is coming! Will I be ready? Will we be ready? Will we have the strength and clarity to give them the bread of life, the living water – your good news? Help us Oh God, in our time of preparation, to not lose heart, hope or strength! Amen.

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Religious brand of yeast.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

“Later, after they crossed to the other side of the lake, the disciples discovered they had forgotten to bring any bread. “Watch out!” Jesus warned them. “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”” ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭16‬:‭5‬-‭6‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I am told that yeast has some pretty unique, if not plain freaky properties. IT’S ALIVE! I’m not a baker nor a microbiologist, studying eukaryotes (fungi), so my only experience with “leaven” is eating it in pizza or sourdough bread (yum). When I’m told that it can live forever, if properly fed and tended to, it’s pretty creepy. The fact that yeast has to eat and grows and spreads rapidly gives us the perfect object lesson from the most common household ingredient.

The subject of Biblical leaven is spoken of all through the gospels – zýmē, leaven (yeast); (figuratively) the spreading influence of what is typically concealed (but still very dramatic). Leaven is generally a symbol of the spreading nature of evil. Jesus gave multiple warnings about a particular brand of yeast – the religious brand, known as the Pharisee and Sadducee brand. You could pick it up everywhere that people gathered – water-cooler (city gates), church (temple), and grocery stores (marketplace). By the way, the Jews were only allowed to eat Jewish leavened bread, NOT Gentile’s bread. A simple synopsis, given by a Bible Commentary, highlights the beliefs of these two religious groups: “The doctrines the Pharisees taught were the commandments and inventions of men, the traditions of the elders, and justification by the works of the law: the doctrine of the Sadducees was, that there was no resurrection of the dead, nor angels, nor spirits: now because they sought secretly and artfully to infuse their notions into the minds of men; and which, when imbibed, spread their infection, and made men sour, morose, rigid, and ill natured, and swelled and puffed them up with pride and vanity.”

So there’s the brand of yeast, the mother – the starter! The real beauty of Jesus’ illustrations isn’t just the content of the yeast (the arrogant traditions), it was the insidious spreading of these beliefs that so quickly infected others. Its “mother” is traced back to the garden of eden when the choice was made to believe a lie over the truth. God told the first humans not eat because He himself was to teach them about good and evil. The tree was a shortcut to get the “knowledge” sooner, faster and satisfy their own desires as quickly as possible.

This starter brand of yeast was the choice to sin, and the religious zealots peddled it everywhere they went. The argument about who forgot the bread (while traveling WITH the bread of life) was a sure sign of Pharisee’s and Sadducee’s recipe. Jesus smelled the rising aroma of religious yeast, the division and lack of spiritual awareness, then warned his friends TWICE. Can you smell it?

If we could only smell the difference between the wonderful aroma of unity and spiritual perception rather than the attractive fumes of bitterness, division and solely physical experiences! The rising yeast of one is very different than the other. Jesus’ warning wasn’t that the religious bread stunk and could be identified by a putrid smell. Contrarily, it smelled like human desire, pungent and looking delicious to quickly take it and eat it. BEWARE He said. Maybe a modern axiom would be, “if it smells TOO good to be true.”

Prayer

Dad,
I don’t want to eat or promote the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees! I want to know, carry and share the aroma and bread of life – Your gospel – THE truth. Help us see and smell the difference through our thoughts, attitudes and behaviors. I noticed it showed up in how the disciples reacted to a problem and then turned to blame each other. Is this how it works? Give us wisdom in these last days to love one another and stay clear of sin’s religious yeast.

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Oh Little Town of Barley Bread

Reading Time: 3 minutes

“Then Elimelech died, and Naomi was left with her two sons. The two sons married Moabite women. One married a woman named Orpah, and the other a woman named Ruth. But about ten years later, both Mahlon and Kilion died. This left Naomi alone, without her two sons or her husband.” ‭‭Ruth‬ ‭1‬:‭3‬-‭5‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Three verses describe the most devastating story for a woman to experience in ancient times. Famine causes the couple to leave home and go to a foreign country, a country with more resources than their own. It was either starve or move. Elimelech and Naomi decided to move.

They make the roughly a 50 mile trip taking two weeks to travel on foot. The couple left Bethlehem, the house of bread to go to “the seed of my father.” The name Moab means “he is of my father,” a perpetual reminder of Moab’s incestuous beginnings of Lot’s daughters getting their father drunk so their lineage would not die in the desert. Interesting comparison to the two cities.

Elimelech and his wife survive the famine, only to succumb to something worse – all the males in their family die in Moab. Naomi is not just widowed, but her and her two daughters in law are alone.

What looks like the worst possible outcomes in a string of tragedies, is the backdrop of our own redemption!

Naomi had heard that her little bread town had sprung back to life, producing much of her nation’s barley supply. So she decides to make the trip back home. Even in her bitter state of mind there is grace when she tries to convince her daughters to go back to their families, try to find husbands, so they might have another chance at a life and family. There is an odd sense that Naomi feels responsible for her sons’ death and leaving these girls destitute without a future. Both girls wept, wanting to stay with Naomi. Then one of them decided it might be better to just go home, so Orpah left Naomi in tears. But Ruth wouldn’t leave. She too felt a strong bond with her mother in law. Samuel adds a critical detail, Naomi says, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. You should do the same.” Ruth declares that she is not just staying with Naomi for her sake, but also because she has made a declaration, a decision that Naomi’s God would be her own God as well.

After returning home, back to the little town of Bethlehem, the story dramatically turns into a beautiful, romantic love story involving Boaz as Ruth’s “kinsmen redeemer,” the family redeemer of the Elimelech’s bloodline and legacy. What starts out as one of the worse tragedies in the Old Testament is cloaked in one of the critical moments in the historical birthright and lineage of Jesus, the Messiah.

Yet another example of God choosing a Gentile, a Moabite, a non-Jew to carry the family story. This gives me hope. My lineage, my family name, both of them – Spear and Garvin were not all that stellar when I received the baton. Yet, because of Christ, God has redeemed and restored my own family name to a place of honor and godliness. It’s all because of His grace!

What’s your story? Are you living in tragedy? Or have you come from some shameful stock such as Ruth, who’s relatives came from Lot and his own daughters? God can and does restore and redeem our travesties and turns them into triumph.

Prayer

Dad,
Wow! What a grand story 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼. You make all things new. You can make all things right. You can turn our mourning into dancing, our fears into faith. There are so many lessons to be learned here from Naomi, Ruth and Elimelech. Naomi, who wanted to change her name to Mary, found that although she came through bitterness, her life represented one of the sweetest parts of our Savior’s story. Thank You for being such a amazing weaver of good stories.