1/24/14

1/24/14

What the heck is the deal with bread?

Later, after they crossed to the other side of the lake, the disciples discovered they had forgotten to bring any bread. "Watch out!" Jesus warned them. "Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees." At this they began to argue with each other because they hadn't brought any bread. 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? 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? Or the 4,000 I fed with seven loaves, and the large baskets of leftovers you picked up? 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.'" 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. (Matthew 16:5-12 NLT)

Is Jesus trying to confuse his disciples here, or is he using a play on words to make a point? What I mean is this: it's obvious from reading the whole text here, that the disciples didn't get his point at first...that he wasn't speaking about bread at all, but about the false teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. But why did this not smack them in the face? Why was it not so clear as it is to us? In his commentary "Companion God: A Cross-cultural Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew," George T. Montague makes the argument that Jesus is using a play on words. I think He was doing this to try to get their attention. Think about Scott's sermons. The ones we really remember...think about "jogswspam" a term so eloquently created, that few will soon forget what it means to get closer to a loving Savior. I think Jesus is doing the same thing here. He got the disciple's minds so all-in with his "bread-teaching," (ie the feeding of the five thousand, the feeding of the four thousand, and then they forgot bread.....how could they?) Jesus is using the mix of the Aramaic words "hamir'a and 'amir'a." Now, funny thing about these two, is they sound almost identical. And they mean totally different things. Hamir'a means "leaven" and in the KJV, that is how this particular passage reads, and 'amir'a means "teaching" thus the tongue-twister that Christ has created. But once they get it, man they get it. Or maybe the wind was loud on the Sea of Galilee that day, and they thought he said hamir'a when he really said 'amir'a!?

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