Matthew 16:5 - Meaning and Application

Here we have Christ speaking with his disciples about bread. As in many other talks, he spoke about spiritual things by using a picture, but they took his words in a material way. The occasion was that they had forgotten to stock their boat and take food for the journey. They usually carried bread with them, because they sometimes traveled to lonely places, and even when they did not, they did not want to be a burden.

We may hope they forgot because their minds and memories were filled with better things. Christ’s disciples are often people who do not plan far ahead for this world. Christ first warned them to watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees. He had just been speaking with the Pharisees and Sadducees, and he saw enough of their spirit to warn his disciples not to have anything to do with them.

Disciples are often most at risk from hypocrites. They are careful around open sinners, but they often let down their guard around Pharisees, who pretend to be deeply religious, and Sadducees, who claim to be fair-minded seekers of truth. So the warning is strong: “Take heed, and beware.” The bad teachings and practices of the Pharisees and Sadducees are compared to leaven, because leaven makes dough sour, puffed up, and it spreads through everything it touches.

The disciples misunderstood this warning. They thought Christ was scolding them because they had been careless and forgotten their bread. Or they thought, since they had no bread of their own, he was warning them not to ask the Pharisees and Sadducees for help or receive anything from them. Perhaps they even feared that, under the pretense of feeding them, those men might do them harm. Or they took it as a warning not to be friendly with the Pharisees and Sadducees or eat with them (Proverbs 23:6), when the real danger was not in their bread. Christ himself did eat with them (Luke 7:36; Luke 11:37; Luke 14:1), but the danger was in their beliefs.

Christ then reproved them for doubting his ability and readiness to provide for them in this need. “O you of little faith,” he said, in effect, “why are you so troubled because you have brought no bread, as if that is all you can think about, and as if your Master is just as worried as you are?” He was not rebuking them for being forgetful in the way they expected. Parents and masters should not be angry at the forgetfulness of children and servants more than is needed to teach them better next time. We are all prone to forget our duty. A fault like that may be excused as an oversight.

Notice how quickly Christ forgave his disciples’ carelessness, even in something as practical as bringing bread. We should do the same. But what he did rebuke was their weak faith. He wanted them to depend on him for provision, even in a wilderness, instead of letting anxious thoughts disturb them. Christ’s disciples may be brought into need through their own carelessness, yet he still encourages them to trust him for help. We must not use this as an excuse to be unkind to the truly poor, saying they should have managed better and therefore deserve their need. They may have failed in prudence, but they should not be left to starve.

He was displeased with their anxious fretting. The weakness and lack of practical sense of good people in worldly matters is something others may criticize, but that is not as offensive to Christ as their excessive worry about these things. We should aim for the middle path between carelessness and anxiousness. Yet of the two, too much worry about worldly things is the worse fault for Christ’s disciples. “O you of little faith, why are you disturbed because you lack bread?” To distrust Christ, and to agitate ourselves in trouble, shows weak faith. If faith were active as it should be, it would lighten our burden by casting our care on the Lord, who cares for us.

Their distrust was made worse by what they had just seen of Christ’s power and goodness in providing for them. Though they had no bread with them, they had Christ with them, and he could provide bread. If they did not have the cistern, they had the Fountain. “Do you not yet understand, or remember?” Christ’s disciples are often slow to understand and quick to forget. Had they already forgotten those repeated acts of mercy and power, when five thousand were fed with five loaves, and four thousand with seven loaves, and there was still more left over? Remember how many baskets you picked up.

Those baskets were meant to help them remember the mercy they had seen, like the jar of manna kept in the ark (Exodus 16:32). The leftovers from those meals should have been a present comfort. The one who supplied so much then could surely provide what they needed now. That food for their bodies was meant to become food for their faith (Psalm 74:14). They should have lived on that memory now that they had forgotten to bring bread. We are often troubled by present needs and doubts because we do not properly remember God’s past power and goodness.

Christ also corrected their misunderstanding of his warning. “How is it that you do not understand?” He was disappointed that they thought so little of his meaning. Christ’s disciples should be ashamed of how slowly they grasp divine things, especially after long use of the means of grace. “I was not speaking to you about bread.” He took it badly that they thought he was as taken up with bread as they were, when his food and drink were to do his Father’s will. He also took it badly that they were so unfamiliar with his way of teaching that they took a picture literally, just as the crowd often did when he spoke in parables (Matthew 13:13).

In the end, this reproof corrected their mistake. Then they understood what he meant. Christ shows us our foolishness and weakness so that we may correct ourselves and think rightly. He did not plainly explain his meaning at first. Instead, he repeated the warning that they should beware of the leaven, and by comparing this with his other teaching, he led them to understand it for themselves.

In this way, Christ teaches by the Spirit of wisdom in the heart, and he opens the mind to the Spirit of revelation in the word. The truths we have to search for and find after some mistakes often become the most precious to us.

Though Christ had not spoken plainly at first, the disciples now understood that by the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees he meant their teaching and their way of life. Their doctrine and conduct were corrupt and bad, yet they were so handled that they could slip quietly into people’s minds, like yeast spreading through dough, or like a disease eating away at the body. Since these men were leaders and held in high respect, the danger of being infected by their errors was even greater.

In our own time, we may think of atheism and deism as the leaven of the Sadducees, and of popery as the leaven of the Pharisees. Against both, all Christians need to stay on guard.