Mark 8:14 Commentary and Bible Study

The event that follows provides us with a lesson on the way we should think, and how faith must always be a part of their reasoning. The disciples completely failed to understand Christ’s meaning because they did not apply this rule. ‘Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf.’ These words introduce us to their foolishness misunderstanding of the Lord. They had only one loaf, and that would not have been a large loaf but something like a little flat barley cake, so there was a severe lack in their food supply. It was because of this circumstance that they so seriously misunderstood the Lord. They connected what he said with this shortage of bread when actually it had nothing to do with it. ‘And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.’ The Lord must have known that they had forgotten to bring bread and that it was in short supply. He must have known that what he said could be taken in another way and that because of this circumstance with their food shortage, their minds could go in that direction. Yes, he knew it, but perhaps we should understand this as kind of test of the disciples. How would they understand what he said? Faith would have brought them to a right understanding of what he meant. Would they succeed in exercising that faith or would they leave faith out of their thinking? ‘Take heed! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, [and of the Sadducees,] and of the leaven of Herod.’ What does that mean? What is the leaven, that is to say, the yeast, of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and Herod. What does it mean – the yeast of these men? The disciples come to the extraordinary conclusion that what Christ means is, ‘You disciples haven't brought any bread.’ How did they come to that conclusion? Had Christ ever complained about lack of provisions? Had he ever complained that they hadn’t thought ahead and bought enough? Had he not fed five thousand from just a few barley loaves and a few fish, and now four thousand – miracles of creation? Is the one who has created food for possibly up to ten thousand people first time, and eight thousand people or more the second time, likely to be complaining about a lack of a loaf or two in a boat? It doesn't make any sense. Besides, what sensible meaning could be attached to a warning about yeast or bread supplied by a particular class of people, even those who were clearly enemies of the Lord? He had already taught them that, in itself, food can do no spiritual harm, but that it is what comes out of the heart that makes us unclean. He had previously admonished them when they had failed to understand that. How foolish was their thinking! The Lord was using yeast as a metaphor, a symbol of depravity, a symbol of hypocrisy, a symbol of false teaching. Yeast spreads throughout the whole lump of dough, and false teaching and hypocrisy spreads. Beware, he says, of the false teaching and hypocrisy of the Pharisees who believe that by your works and your good lives you can earn God’s favour. Beware of the hypocrisy and the false teaching of the Sadducees, who did not believe in much of the supernatural teaching of Scripture. They were like the theological liberals that fill many churches today and they did not believe in the spiritual things of God in the Bible, in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Beware too of the hypocrisy and the evil of Herod.