Matthew 16:6-8
Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.  And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread.  Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread?

The disciples got it wrong at times.  They didn’t always understand what Jesus was saying.  They got mixed up in their thinking, focused on the wrong things, and just sometimes didn’t grasp what Jesus was trying to teach them.  And if we’re honest, sometimes we do the same thing.  But what does Jesus do?  He talks to them about it.  He brings it up and gets them to a place of understanding.  He does not leave them there to puzzle it out and to be misled.  Ultimately He makes sure that they know the truth of His words and what He really meant.

Jesus will do the same for us.  He doesn’t want us to stay in misunderstanding, but to know clearly His truth and the meaning of what He has said.  We have His Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth.  We have His Word to be our guide and to expose us to these important lessons that we need to learn.  So we can spend time in Bible study.  We can ask God to help us understand.  We can go to church and hear the preaching  and teaching of God’s Word.

But Jesus’ warning to the disciples also applies to us.  It’s not that just any teaching will do.  Not every teaching based on the Bible is truth.  Not everything religious people say is the same as what God says.  The leaven of the Pharisees was their doctrine, and Jesus didn’t want His followers to be misled by some teaching from the educated religious crowd that wasn’t in line with what He was teaching them.  He wanted their spiritual food to be His bread from heaven, not the leavened bread of the Pharisees.

Jesus had provided bread in desert places for a multitude of people on more than one occasion, proving that He could and would supply the physical needs of His disciples.  But the Bible also says that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.  And that’s where our focus needs to be.  That’s what we need to pay attention to.  That’s what we need to consume on a daily basis so that we are equipped and nourished to handle the spiritual battle that we are in.  So may we focus on the pure truth of God’s Word, learning at the feet of our Master those important lessons to guide us through life.