Daily Devotional For Friday, December 5, 2025
Good morning and it’s Friday. If you have been reading these devotionals, you know we are making our way through Matthew’s Gospel. Today, we pick up where we left off yesterday with Matthew 16:5-12:
“Later, after they crossed to the other side of the lake, the disciples discovered they had forgotten to bring any bread. (6) ‘Watch out!’ Jesus warned them. ‘Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’ (7) At this they began to argue with each other because they hadn’t brought any bread. (8) Jesus knew what they were saying, so He said, ‘You have so little faith! Why are you arguing with each other about having no bread? (9) Don’t you understand even yet? Don’t you remember the 5,000 I fed with five loaves, and the baskets of leftovers you picked up? (10) Or the 4,000 I fed with seven loaves, and the large baskets of leftovers you picked up? (11) Why can’t you understand that I’m not talking about bread? So again I say, ‘Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’ (12) Then at last they understood that He wasn’t speaking about the yeast in bread, but about the deceptive teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (NLT).
We are not told why, but the disciples in their haste to get across the lake had forgotten to bring any bread for them to eat. Maybe they all were feeling guilty for not planning ahead since they had been fed twice by Jesus. When we get to verse 6, “yeast” is a metaphor for evil. During the Festival of Passover, Jews were required to remove all yeast from their homes in obedience to Exodus 12:14-20. Jesus’ point to His disciples was that just like it takes only a small amount of yeast to make bread rise, it takes only a small amount of evil teaching and hypocrisy to contaminate the Jewish people. The wrong teaching of the religious leaders were leading the whole nation of Israel away from God and Jesus, the Messiah.
Jesus said, “Watch out!” Literally Jesus said “Be on guard.” What does it take to be on guard today spiritually? First, it requires a strong spiritual and biblical base. If you and I do not know the Word, we can be led astray by any passionate convincing word. Second, it requires a strong sense of what aligns with God’s character. In order to know what is truth, you and I must have an intimate relationship with the Way, the Truth and the Life. Third, it requires us to have as our closest friends other fellow soldiers of God’s truth. We can’t fight this battle as “The Lone Ranger.” Even he had Tonto, who always had his back.
By asking His disciples rhetorical questions about the feeding of the 5,000 and then the 4,000, His point was to prove they should have already known the answers. If Jesus could feed that many people, not counting the women and children, would He not feed them? When we read the Gospels you have to wonder why Jesus didn’t just throw up His arms in frustration at His disciples inability to connect His truth to spiritual issues. Jesus overhears His disciples arguing about the lack of bread. Here they are arguing about something temporal when their souls, eternal, were in danger. Jesus had miraculously fed them twice and they are doubting where their next slice of bread will come for them to eat. To think, these are the men Jesus would depend on to take the Gospel into the world after He was gone.
Mark’s Gospel tells us what Jesus accused them of having such little faith – it was due to them having hardened hearts (see Mark 8:17). Jesus then reminds them they had personally been fed when He fed the 5,000 and then later the 4,000. Both feedings were His way of teaching them that God would provide for all their needs. Why did they doubt this? Instead of acting on belief in Jesus, they chose disbelief. By reminding them of His feeding the 5,000 and the 4,000, which they were fed from as well, both of these proved Jesus was the Messiah. Where was their faith in Him as their Messiah? It wasn’t just that their stomachs were hungry, so was their hearts.
To think that Jesus would only talk about physical bread, which was temporal, was to miss that He was the Bread of life for their souls. Here Jesus severs the umbilical cord His disciples had with the religious leaders and their false teaching. Both the Pharisees and the Sadducees had the wrong understanding about how to get into the Kingdom of God. Both thought it was through a rigid adherence to the Old Testament Law, not through the Lord over the law. They saw it through more rituals, rules and regulations rather than through a relationship to God the Father.
The need to “be aware” would have stayed with them after the Resurrection and Ascension because some would try to infiltrate the early church with a doctrine of works rather than grace. There is still that danger in the church today. The religious leaders were proponents of legalism and empiricism (knowledge gained through the senses and experiences). We have to be on guard against both today – those who stress legalistic adherence to our faith over grace and those who stress the validity of one’s faith is their personal experiences and opinion rather than God’s word. I like what New Testament scholar Daniel M. Doriani writes. He stresses that Jesu was attempting to teach His disciples about the importance of spiritual discernment:
- First, equips believers both to engage and to resist non-Christian thought. If we have the right tools, we can critique secular worldviews. Then we need not flee when we encounter secular thought.
- Second, discernment fosters deliberation and self-criticism. It teaches believers to analyze before rushing into action. We pause to consider how other wise people see the big issues. The customary way is not the only way.
- Third, discernment helps Christians maintain integrity. Many of us face a relentless pressure to support the established ways of society. Society even rewards church leaders when they support familiar ways . . . discernment helps leaders resist the pressure to conform to the customs of our day. If even church leaders feel this pressure, how much more do Christians in business, education, and politics.
- Fourth, discernment galvanizes leaders to cause constructive trouble. Jesus and the prophets frequently subverted their culture’s values while false religious leaders affirmed them. Jesus’ teaching was revolutionary in its time and remains revolutionary today, if we do not tame it” (Source: Daniel M. Doriani, Reformed Expository Commentary, “Matthew,” Vol. 1 &2, p. 74).
Assignment: Think back over your life. When was a time where you totally failed to rely upon spiritual discernment. What happened and how did you recover? When it comes to faith, are you more loving or legalistic? More about rules or a relationship to Christ? Is there any aspect of your faith that is more from your own personal opinion than the Word of God?
Scripture To Meditate On: Romans 16:17-18, “And now I make one more appeal, my dear brothers and sisters. Watch out for people who cause divisions and upset people’s faith by teaching things contrary to what you have been taught. Stay away from them. (18) Such people are not serving Christ our Lord; they are serving their own personal interests. By smooth talk and glowing words they deceive innocent people” (NLT).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Lord, please give me a discerning heart to false teachers and false teaching. Help me to live by grace, not legalism. To live by my relationship to You, not rules. Remind me that my personal experience is the qualifier of truth – Your Word is. Thank You Lord for loving me and saving me. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly