3 Bible Tips: Beware the Leaven of the Pharisees
"Leaven was a common Jewish metaphor for an invisible, pervasive influence" (Nelson Study Bible), based on the meaning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Why did Jesus Christ warn about the "leaven of the Pharisees"?
1. Jesus Christ warned about hypocrisy, which can spread like leaven. The Pharisees pretended to be righteous, while maliciously trying to trap Jesus. Their example affected many people who held them in esteem.
"In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude had gathered together, so that they trampled one another, He began to say to His disciples first of all, 'Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy’" (Luke 12:1).
2. The antidote to the "leaven" of malicious hypocrisy is the "unleavened bread" of sincerity and truth.
"Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Corinthians 5:8).
3. Jesus also compared the teachings of the Pharisees, the traditions of men, with leaven.
"'How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread?—but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’ Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees" (Matthew 16:11-12).
For more about the leaven of the Pharisees and what it means for us today, see Beware the Leaven of the Pharisees.