“Unleavened Brett” is now the name of these Friday emails. My emails used to be a combination both of events going on at church & my own personal thoughts on different subjects from a biblical perspective. I would often post those thoughts on my Facebook page as well. So I decided to split those two different purposes up, & return to having a “Southpoint Update” email on Tuesdays, with my Friday email retaining only my personal thoughts–essentially a blog.
I love bread-all kinds! Nothing like a basket of warm bread on the table; hot tortillas off the griddle; fluffy pita bread. How about those hot rolls at Texas Roadhouse? Yeah, I could eat those every day. That dark bushman bread at Outback; cheddar biscuits at Red Lobster; breadsticks at Olive Garden; sweet cornbread at Cracker Barrel. Yes, I have a bread machine at home!
Each Sunday we share in communion which involves unleavened bread. The Israelites celebrated the Passover meal with unleavened bread (which is what Jesus was celebrating when He instituted the Lord’s Supper). Jewish people annually eat flatbread to symbolize escaping Egyptian slavery so quickly they didn’t have time to let the bread dough rise. So, made without yeast, it’s a flat bread often called “matzo,” but it could also be a pita or a tortilla. The Mosaic Law didn’t allow grain offerings to be made with leaven.
Leaven (or yeast) can be symbolic of a corrupting influence that spreads. Jesus compared leaven to the false teaching of the Jewish leaders in His day. Jesus told His disciples: “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6) They took it literally, so Jesus set them straight, that he meant to beware their teaching. Elsewhere he warned: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Luke 12:1).
The Apostle Paul warned the Corinthians about tolerating sin amongst them: “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Cor. 5:6-8).
In the church, we have to be on guard against promoting or even tolerating false teaching & immoral behavior because they’re going to spread. A little bit of leaven can permeate hearts & minds with disastrous effects. So what’s “unleavened” is just what’s good & true! We don’t want to be “puffed up” with the fermented fungus of falsehoods & foul behavior. Instead, we should feast on the pure bread of Scripture.
Only once is leaven used in a positive way. Jesus tells a parable about how the kingdom of heaven is like leaven because of how it gradually & almost imperceptibly spreads through society (Matthew 13:33). The Gospel started small with a few people in Israel, but has made a huge impact over time nearly everywhere. Just a small amount will make a big difference.
So, you can see how I hope my small contributions could have a significant influence. My purpose in writing this blog is to spread God’s Word & good theology to influence thinking to be true, right & good; while purging out false & impure ideas that lead to doctrinal compromise & moral decay. So some will be positive & some will be negative, but it will all be unleavened truth.