Take a stand!

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with the passage from Galatians.  But stay with me here – you’ll see.  After all, I said I want to bring up another thought – not another (meaning one) passage.  So let’s examine the Passover passage first.

This is the night that God is going to perform the final plague on the Egyptians, the one that will finally allow the Israelites to be set free from slavery.

We can tell just how important this is going to be by God telling Moses that the calendar was going to be reset – that this month was going to be, from this time forward, the first month of the year.  2 “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.

Then God gives directions for a sacrifice that is to be made – 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.  The people are to choose a perfect, one year old, lamb on the 10th day of the month – take care of it until the 14th day – and then slaughter it at twilight.  That’s four whole days plus part of a fifth – a fairly long period of time, considering what’s to come.

Next, God gives more instructions – 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire—head, legs and inner parts. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it.  There are very specific things to do, which are a prophecy of things to come, although the prophecy isn’t what we’re looking at here.  The last part of these instructions are an indication that the people are to leave nothing behind, not even scraps of food.  We also see that this night, after spending so many days preparing the lamb, they are to eat bread without yeast.  Not using yeast would take an hour, maybe two, off the preparation time for the bread.  (Two hours is pretty much the minimum time for yeast to do its thing.)  Given the amount of time spent on the meat – maybe not the only reason for no yeast bread.

Finally, we read –  11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD’S Passover.  The people are to be ready to leave at a moments notice.

After that, we read about the celebration that is to take place, commemorating their freedom –

Ex 12:14 “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD—a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat—that is all you may do.

Ex 12:17 “Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. 18 In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. 19 For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is an alien or native-born. 20 Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.”

Interesting.  There’s the yeast thing again.  And it’s not just a command to not use yeast – they are to remove all yeast from their houses.  Surely the lack of yeast isn’t about shortening the baking time, since the people are to do no work – they are only to prepare the food.

Yeast defined, from Old Testament Days

Let’s look at a definition of leaven, one that describes how the people used part of a batch of dough from a previous bake and see where yeast comes into the process.  BTW – if you’ve ever made sourdough bread, it was probably from this method.

LEAVEN Small portion of fermented dough used to ferment other dough and often symbolizing a corruptive influence. The common bread of OT times was made with leaven. Such bread was acceptable as wave offerings for the priests and as loaves to accompany the peace offerings (Lev. 7:11–13; 23:17). However, bread made with leaven or honey, both associated with the process of fermentation and thus a source of corruption, was never to be used as offerings to be burned on the alter (Lev. 2:11–12). Unleavened bread was also prepared in times of haste (1 Sam. 28:24) and was required for the Feast of Unleavened Bread that was celebrated in conjunction with the Passover festival (Lev. 23:4–8). This unleavened bread, or bread of affliction, reminded the Israelites of their hasty departure from Egypt and warned them against corruptive influences (Exod. 12:14–20).  ²Bruce, B. J. (2003). Leaven. In C. Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S. Bond, E. R. Clendenen, & T. C. Butler (Eds.), Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (p. 1022). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

I know it’s popular to say the lack of yeast is about being in a hurry, but I have to say, when I bake bread (using yeast) the first proof (allowing the bread to rise, from the action of the yeast) takes about an hour – then I knead the dough again (a matter of minutes) – then the second proof lets the dough rise again (about another hour) – and then the bread is formed in a matter of minutes.  Given the prep time for the lamb, haste really doesn’t seem to be the issue.

It seems that the biggest pointer to the need for haste is from verse 11 – This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD’S Passover.

So it’s not that I’m discounting the haste – it’s that I’m pointing something out for those who have made bread and might wonder about this issue.  It’s also possible that the proofing process took longer back then, because of different yeast.  Even today, some sourdough starters come with a recommendation to allow over-night or even 24 hours for the first rise.  That could be an issue when the need for haste is in the picture.  Having said that, even 24 hours is well within the time-frame of the four to five days for the lamb.  Side note – during the days when I was researching and writing this one, I happened to watch an episode of “Triple D” (Diners, Drive-ins and Dives) where the owner of a pizza place let his dough rise for four days!  Even that really long amount of time could have been met while the lamb was being cared for though.

There’s a reason I point all this out.  It will be made clear in a bit.

To show you where yeast comes into this definition, also see –

Physically speaking, “leaven,” or zumē in Greek, is any substance that produces fermentation when added to dough. This became an excellent metaphor for explaining how one substance (bread dough) was entirely affected by another (yeast). Among the Jews and other peoples as well, it was common knowledge that leaven represented decay and corruption, as did other fermented things. This view of leaven made it inconsistent with the concept of God’s perfect holiness. Plutarch also expressed this long-held belief when he wrote, “Now leaven is itself the offspring of corruption and corrupts the mass of dough with which it has been mixed.” The apostle Paul quotes a similar proverb in 1 Corinthians 5:6 and Galatians 5:9.  ³Carpenter, E. E., & Comfort, P. W. (2000). In Holman treasury of key Bible words: 200 Greek and 200 Hebrew words defined and explained (p. 322). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Notice that both of these references talk about the corrupting influence of yeast, since fermentation is involved in the process.  If you remember from part 1, honey was to be eaten only in limited amounts – so while it was important for sustenance and represented abundance, too much of even a good thing can be corrupting.

To me, this seems far more reasonable as an explanation of why no yeast was to be used.  We’ll see in a moment that this line of thought continues with Jesus.

Yeast defined, from New Testament Days

Both of the previous two references also talked about yeast / leaven in New Testament days.  Let’s look at that –

In the NT “leaven” is a symbol of any evil influence that, if allowed to remain, can corrupt the body of believers. Jesus warned His disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees, their teaching and hypocrisy (Matt. 16:5–12; Luke 12:1). Paul urged the Corinthians to remove wickedness from their midst and become fresh dough, unleavened loaves of sincerity and truth (1 Cor. 5:6–13). Jesus also used leaven to illustrate the pervasive growth of the kingdom of God (Matt. 13:33).  ⁴Bruce, B. J. (2003). Leaven. In C. Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S. Bond, E. R. Clendenen, & T. C. Butler (Eds.), Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (p. 1022). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

We see more on evil influence and corruption – both symbolically referred to when talking about yeast and the leavening process.

The significant aspect about leaven is its power, which may symbolize either good or evil. Usually, though not always, leaven was a symbol of evil in rabbinical thought. Jesus referred to leaven in the adverse sense when He used the word to describe the corrupt doctrine of Pharisees, Sadducees (Matt. 16:6, 11–12), and of Herod (Mark 8:15). Like leaven that works its way into fresh dough, spreading out through the bread until its effects are evident in the entire batch, the ideas of Herod, the Pharisees, and Sadducees were gradually infiltrating people’s minds. These ideas “spread” until they had penetrated and permeated every part of the people’s thinking. Paul applied the same concept to moral corruption, warning that “a little leaven leavens the whole lump.” He admonished his readers to clean out the old leaven—that is, any evidence of their unregenerate lives—and to live the Christian life with the “unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:6–8, NASB).

This is the first time we see a reference to the effects of yeast being either evil or good.  It makes sense, given what comes next –

There is only one instance in the New Testament where leaven is used as a positive metaphor. Christ used the concept of leaven’s effect upon dough to provide His disciples with a brief, but memorable parable (Matt. 13:33; Luke 13:20–21), wherein leaven illustrates the cumulative, pervasive influence of the kingdom of God on the world. In this case, leaven illustrates how a mere spark of God’s Spirit, love, and hope can work through an entire community, society, and people to catalyze spiritual growth.  ⁵Carpenter, E. E., & Comfort, P. W. (2000). In Holman treasury of key Bible words: 200 Greek and 200 Hebrew words defined and explained (p. 322). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

So – let’s see what this all means, before we finally get to the Galatians passage.

The yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees

Mt 16:5 When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread. 6 “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

Mt 16:7 They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.”

Mt 16:8 Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? 9 Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? 10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? 11 How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 12 Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

So – Jesus is saying that leaving out the yeast did refer to something other than just saving time while making the bread.

The disciples thought Jesus was talking about bread – given that He was warning them about yeast.  Given that they almost certainly didn’t literally buy “yeast” from the religious leaders, it may be hard to imagine that they would think of bread, rather than the corrupting influence that we just looked at.  The fact that this apparently didn’t even occur to them shows the high regard the Jewish people – including these disciples – had for their religious leaders.  And this is in spite of having heard Jesus had already been through contentious encounters with the Pharisees.  Here, Jesus makes the point quite clearly.

While Jesus had many issues with the Pharisees, seven of which are in Matthew 23, this one is very telling as far as the warning Jesus just gave about the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees –

Mt 23:27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”

Looking good on the outside – the part the people see.
Looking completely dead on the inside – where God alone sees.

Good from yeast?

Since it was referenced above, let’s look at the one instance where yeast represented something that wasn’t evil –

Mt 13:33 He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

The difference between this parable and the references where yeast was to something corrupting is that this is about an action of God.  The way yeast works, as long as there is “food” for the yeast, the dough will continue to rise.  In fact, one of the dangers of letting the first rise take too long is that the yeast will consume all of the things within the dough that it uses for “food” – and then when it comes time for the final proof (the second rising) – there will be nothing left for the yeast to “eat” – and the dough won’t rise.  Not good.  The message here is that with the Kingdom of God – that’s not going to happen.  For us, as Christians, the meaning is that we are the dough – the yeast is the Holy Spirit – and the Kingdom of God will spread through more and more of our life, having more and more of an impact on us.  But we will never actually be perfect – there’s always room for growth – and the Holy Spirit, if we allow Him, will continue to work in us as long as we’re alive.

Galatians 5:1

So – finally, Galatians 5:1

Gal 5: 1 “Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you” (MSG).

We’ve spent a while looking at the exodus, slavery, and yeast.

The exodus was God’s way of rescuing His people from slavery.  In their case, and in far too many cases in this fallen world, it was forced slavery.  Forced slavery still goes on today – people are kidnapped and forced to do all sorts of horrible things from forced manual labor and living in horrible conditions to the sex industry.  As bad as they are, that’s not the kind of slavery I’m about to talk about here.

What I’m looking at for this topic is the kind of slavery we allow to come on ourselves.  It starts as something “innocent”, or so we think.  It’s a thrill, or so we think, We can control it, or so we think.  Then it ruins our lives, maybe even in spite of what we think.  It could be nearly anything – work, money, alcohol, drugs, sex, pornography – you name it, we can become addicted to it.

Those are the kinds of things Paul was talking about in Galatians.

Let’s stick with The Message Bible, since we started there, and the goal is to have something understandable for our lives today.  Sometimes Paul’s writing can get a bit deep in the logical / legal details, which is good, but that’s not what we’re after today.

THE LIFE OF FREEDOM

(Galatians 5)

1 Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

Here is my title thought – Take a stand!  As one example, this is about letting someone else incorrectly influence our thinking about God.  Allowing them to be the yeast that corrupts our beliefs.  At first we think it’s no big deal – that what we start to believe is “better”.  They / we then convince ourselves that the Bible said this new thing all along.  And then we’re hooked.  We’re slaves to this new thinking – rather than having the freedom for which Jesus died.

And what is that freedom?  The freedom to be saved by God’s Grace – not from a whole long list of things we need to do in order for God to be happy with us.  We’ll look at the slavery part more as we go through Galatians 5.

2–3  I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.

In Paul’s time, this had to do with following parts (or all) of the Old Testament given Jewish Law.  The most prominent source of argument at that time seemed to be around circumcision.  The Jews wanted the Christians to go through this.  Paul was saying it wasn’t necessary – and to begin to go down the road of the Jewish Law is to begin to lose the freedom of being saved only by God’s Grace.

One of the things added in The Message is the part about or any other rule-keeping system.  This is one of the reasons I stayed with The Message, rather than go to my normal translation, the NIV.  This is important for us today.  There are all sorts of call for us to “coexist” with other religions.  Unfortunately, the intent is for us to do more than “coexist” with them.  It’s for us to believe in them as well.

You may have seen the bumper sticker at the right.

If you don’t recognize the symbols, here’s what they stand for, from left to right – the crescent moon of Islam, peace sign (remember the 60s?), male / female symbol, Judaism Star of David, depending on the shape of the “i” it’s generally either paganism or Satanism when the i is dotted with a pentagram, ying / yang often associated with Taoism, and the Christian Cross.

4–6  I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.

We start off innocently enough, for example when we tell ourselves that Christianity doesn’t really mean don’t do .  Or maybe we tell ourselves that we can be forgiven for .  Soon, we forget what the problem was in the first place, having fully convinced ourselves that what we’re doing is OK – and then that it’s even God’s will.  And not realizing that whatever we filled the blank with is completely against His will.

7–10  You were running superbly! Who cut in on you, deflecting you from the true course of obedience? This detour doesn’t come from the One who called you into the race in the first place. And please don’t toss this off as insignificant. It only takes a minute amount of yeast, you know, to permeate an entire loaf of bread. Deep down, the Master has given me confidence that you will not defect. But the one who is upsetting you, whoever he is, will bear the divine judgment.

Maybe we go to one of the “prosperity” Gospel churches – where the pastor tells us that God wants us to be happy, rich, popular, What’s wrong with joy, abundance, and followers hanging on our every word about what we’ve learned in church?  Fruit of the Spirit, right?  Wrong!

11–12  As for the rumor that I continue to preach the ways of circumcision (as I did in those pre-Damascus Road days), that is absurd. Why would I still be persecuted, then? If I were preaching that old message, no one would be offended if I mentioned the Cross now and then—it would be so watered-down it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. Why don’t these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves!

Even when the Gospel is preached correctly, someone else may come along and twist it – pervert it – into something else entirely.  We should always go back to the source of God’s Word – the Bible – to see what was really said and intended.

13–15  It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?

What God wants for us is actually quite simple – service with love.  Everything else – the yeast from various sources, ranging from our own desires, to perverted versions of the Gospel message, to attacks from Satan himself – only make it more and more difficult for us to live the life that God intended for us.  All of that yeast has left us in a condition where we don’t even know how to get rid of it.  Then, we’re slaves again.

16–18  My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

We must realize that some things are exclusive, no matter how ugly the world tries to make that word. We cannot be both free and a slave.  As soon as we even begin to walk down a path where we start to become slaves to something – we’re no longer free.  We must choose to examine ourselves, and be sure to stay free, with and through the Holy Spirit.

19–21  It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.
This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.

Even though we see some or many of the things listed above appearing in our lives, we seem to think that if we keep going down the same road – things will get better.  That’s addiction.  They say insanity is to continue to do the same things over and over, expecting a different outcome.  That’s slavery.  That’s the yeast, poisoning the freedom that we could have with Jesus.

22–23  But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

The good news is that when we start to follow Jesus, we begin to learn that this really is a better way,  Then it gets to be something we want to do.  We find that living the life God has for us really is the best way.

23–24  Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good — crucified.

Legalism – like following a checklist of things that we’re all supposed to do – that’s not going to work.  Instead of going for what we want for ourselves, we go for what Jesus wants us to do.  I can tell you, even when that involves difficulties on our part, it’s still the best way – because He is with us in those difficulties, as opposed to us walking / running away from Him while we chase our own self-interests.

25–26  Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.  ⁶Peterson, E. H. (2005). The Message: the Bible in contemporary language (Ga 5:1–26). Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

We are not little robots.  We aren’t carbon copies of each other.  Each of us has a custom designed plan from God, to let us know what is the best possible life we could lead.  To the extent that we successfully choose to live a life guided by the Holy Spirit, we will also live out that exciting and rewarding life God planned for us.

Milk and Honey – Yeast – Taking a Stand