“Unnecessary Ingredient” (Luke 12:1-3)
We can just be true and pure and straight in our service to God rather than embellishing it unnecessary ingredients such as unbiblical and worldly ideas.
Meanwhile, when a multitude of many thousands had gathered together, so much so that they trampled on each other, He began to tell His disciples first of all: Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy. But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light. Whatever you have spoken in the ear in the inner chambers will be proclaimed on the housetops.” (Luke 12:1-3)
A Word of Caution
“Beware of the yeast….” (1ci).
There is a particular commandment in the Law of Moses wherein God prohibits the use of leaven as an added ingredient to certain food offerings made for Him.
“When you offer an offering of a meal baked in the oven, it shall be unleavened fine flour mixed with oil. If your offering is a meal offering of the baking pan, it shall be of unleavened cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, unleavened wafers anointed with oil.” “No meal offering which you shall offer to Yahweh shall be made with yeast. For you shall burn no yeast nor any honey as an offering made by fire to Yahweh” (Leviticus 2:4-5,11).
Whenever I come across passages like these in the Old Testament, I wonder why God makes such strict commandment against leaven, thinking leaven in itself is not really bad. I would just then conclude that maybe leaven is something that defiles a food offering; and therefore, God sees it as an unacceptable, unnecessary ingredient.
As far as I can understand the process of baking because I’m not a baker, leaven is something that puffs up the bread. It means that by adding leaven, the bread gets big, not by its natural or innate capacity but something else puffs it up. Without leaven, the bread turns out compact and little; but with leaven added, the bread turns out big but bloated, airy, and hollow.
Maybe that’s why God doesn’t want leaven added to food offerings because leaven seems to compromise the purity and naturalness of the offering. It only makes it look substantial than it actually is and fancier than it has to be. Maybe God wants us to offer Him offerings of only pure composition, done with the purest motives. If it turns out fancy, it’s okay as long as it was done intrinsically and naturally and not motivated by any other sentiment apart from the mind of Christ.
This may also be the reason why God wants us to worship Him as He is: an invisible but Almighty God, not through engraved images of what we suppose He looks like.
The Leaven of Hypocrisy
“yeast of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy” (1cii)
So why did Jesus liken hypocrisy to leaven? Maybe because of the reasons stated above. Hypocrisy makes us think we’re larger and more important than we actually are. We put up an act instead of being our natural selves. We put up a façade or an attitude that is contrary to what really springs up from our inner being and what we exude.
Jesus admonished His disciples to do away with hypocrisy. They shouldn’t incorporate it into their system if they are to be true servants of God. Pretensions don’t help with the work, and it has no intrinsic value whatsoever. Having to pretend is just such a heavy burden, and the disciples won’t want to encumber themselves with such.
We can just be true and pure and straight in our service to God rather than embellishing it unnecessary ingredients such as unbiblical and worldly ideas.
The Thing About Hypocrisy
“But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light. What you have spoken in the ear in the inner chambers will be proclaimed on the housetops” (2-3).
That means hypocrisy never lasts forever. We can only hide the truth for as long as we can, but there’ll come a time when we will no longer can. No matter how much we expend all effort and resources in trying to hide the truth, truth will eventually find its way out like a bird that can’t be caged. This is what the word of God declares, and the word of God never fails. So if we think that that we can run away from the truth, we can already kiss that thought goodbye.
Therefore, the best thing that we can ever do in this life is just to keep doing what’s right and stay away from evil, from deeds we know we’ll be ashamed of in the future. That way, we’ll have a life that’s peaceful and worry-free and we’ll never have to engage in the business of pretending. Hypocrisy is such a heavy burden and an unnecessary ingredient in life.
Kept from Hypocrisy
The people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes on their shoulders. They baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt. For it wasn’t leavened because they were thrust out of Egypt and couldn’t wait. Neither had they prepared for themselves any food (Exodus 12:34,39).
Jesus already told us to do away with hypocrisy, but we as natural sinful beings may be tempted to use the leaven of hypocrisy anyway once we find ourselves in a situation that seems to call for such. God, by His grace, may just thrust us away from that situation so that we won’t be able to play the hypocrite even if we wanted to. God wants us to be true to Him, to others, and even to ourselves.
Passage by Passage: Luke 12 series, episode 1
by: Marven T. Baldo
