SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/20/2022 9:27 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “They Receive Still Greater Light”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt. 16:5-12
Message of the verses: “5 And the
disciples came to the other side and had forgotten to take bread. 6 And Jesus
said to them, "Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and
Sadducees." 7 And they began to discuss among themselves, saying, "It
is because we took no bread." 8 But Jesus, aware of this, said,
"You men of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves that you
have no bread? 9 “Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the
five thousand, and how many baskets you took up? 10 “Or the seven loaves of the
four thousand, and how many large baskets you took up? 11 “How is it that you
do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? But beware of
the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." 12 Then they understood that
He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the
Pharisees and Sadducees.”
We
will begin with a quote from John MacArthur as he talks about the words “watch
out.” “Knowing the disciples’ concern
over their lack of food, Jesus said to them, "Watch out and beware of the
leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees."
The imperative watch out is from harao,
which has the basic meaning of seeing clearly or taking notice of. ‘Open your eyes,’ Jesus was saying, ‘and pay
close attention to the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Don’t be concerned about bread but about what
is truly important. In the present
situation, what is important is the spiritual danger of the Pharisees and
Sadducees.”
We realize as we look at this passage that Christ is
only months from the cross, and He had much more to teach the disciples and
they had a lot more to learn, so one day without food was no consequence. But just like believers in all ages, the
disciples were caught up in the physical and temporal things of life, as their
spiritual vision was limited, and their spiritual attention span was very
short.
Now
it was because the disciples’ spiritual thoughts were not where they should be
and were on physical food is why they missed the spiritual warning Jesus was
giving to them, and that is when Jesus mentioned leaven they began to discuss
among themselves, saying, ‘It is because we too, have no bread.” It could be that they were thinking that
Jesus was concerned that they might buy some bread to eat that was backed by a
Pharisee or sold by a Sadducee and that it would therefore somehow be
defiled. If that were the case then that
was no consequence in Jesus’ thinking, for the twelve should have known from
what Jesus repeatedly said and did. Just
a little while back Jesus had said that the problem was not what went into a person’s
mouth, but what proceeded out from his heart that was important. Jesus did not care who made the bread for the
physical at all.
The
week-ends are busy and my SD’s are shorter, so we will pick up on this subject tomorrow
morning, Lord willing.
8/20/2022 9:50 AM
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