[OBW]

OBW: “The bread of life is not about fermentation. It is about the nutritional content that sustains life.”
ZNP: “Sounds reasonable but completely untrue. When you make bread you learn very quickly that you are dealing with something that is alive. If I used tap water (that had chlorine)”
Problem with response: I am talking about the scriptural reference to Jesus as the bread of life while ZNP is busy talking about how bread is made. Since the reference to the bread of life is in response to eating, it is not about making bread, but about the value of bread as nutrition and therefore of Jesus as spiritual food. I challenge anyone to show how scripture, at least in this case, refers to Jesus as the bread of life so that the process of how bread is made can be made important (or the fact that leaven is something alive) rather than Jesus as spiritual food.

OBW: The bread is either unleavened or it is leavened. The Passover type was to remove all leaven from the premises.
ZNP: Simply not letting it rise is the definition of unleavened.
Problem with response: Ignores the meaning of the ritualistic removal of leaven from the premises. If simply not letting it rise makes unleavened, then there is no need to avoid leavening agents. But in any case, how does that ritual factor into the parable in Matt 13? Leaven is not mentioned as something to avoid, but as the Kingdom added to something else. Leaven is not used in the sense of something to purge out as in the Passover ritual.

OBW: “Not all seed is grain. The parables that mention seed are referring to what grows up, not what you can do with it after it is harvested.”
ZNP: “What are you talking about? You can make flour out of any seed. What is the purpose of planting grain if you are not going to harvest it for food?”
Problem with response: The thrust of my comment was that the purpose of the parable was not about the seed, but the soil into which it was placed (or landed). ZNP has made it all about whether you can make bread or other food out of the harvest. The parable never gets to the harvest except in the mention at the end of the produce from one type of soil. Whether the purpose of planting a seed is to harvest it for food is irrelevant if the purpose of the parable is to demonstrate the kind of soil into which seed can be sown. Jumping to the harvest and beyond is to ignore the purpose of the parable.

OBW: When I refer to the teaching of the Pharisees (which is not part of the Matthew 13 dialog) I mention that the Pharisees are adding to the Word in their teachings.
ZNP: “No, what I am suggesting is that the term "leaven of the Pharisees" refers to the teaching of the Pharisees. No doubt the Pharisees did read the Bible and other books to arrive at their teachings. So if the pure word of God in the analogy is the flour, the yeast would be the Pharisees, and the product that they produce is referred to as "leaven of the Pharisees".”
Problem with response: There is no flour in the reference to the Pharisees. The mention of leaven is referring directly and singly to what they add to the Word to arrive at their teachings. There is no evidence that the reference needs to discuss the aspects of making bread more palatable (as some have tried to do). Further, even though it would be easy to say that the Word is the flour, it is unimportant. It is not the purpose of the mention. The purpose is to make note that what the Pharisees were adding was to be avoided. It wasn’t’ even necessarily that they added something. It was what they added. It was something to be avoided. Bringing in all the other possible aspects of a flour/yeast/dough/bread analogy is to create in a rather direct warning about the Pharisees’ teachings something that is not there. The rest of what you might try to make out of it could be theologically correct, but not actually supported by the passage in question.

I do not care that yeast is “something alive.” I don’t care that you can make your own sourdough without yeast. My son and daughter-in-law have done it. The problem is that you are jumping all over kingdom come to make points about yeast and leaven that are not being made. Sort of like a reference in the NT to power. Since the word is the root from which we get “dynamo” then every appendage to the process of making electricity will be brought in as important to the verse. The verse said “power.” It didn’t say 100 megawatt power plant with step-down transformers, miles of wires and a light switch to turn on the light in your house. You are doing the same thing here with leaven. Leave out anything that is not in the passage. Let the passage speak for itself. It actually does quite well. These few parables in Matt 13 are quite meaningful. They do not need any reference to how yeast works. They don’t refer to Paul’s use of leaven as a negative thing. The don’t refer to seed for the purpose of grinding into flour. They don’t speak about the RCC with birds roosting in its evil, anomalous branches.

Yes, Jesus did say that he was the bread of life. But living on “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” does not “mean that we should eat the word” in some special definition. It means that our source and supply is there. And just because the Pharisees were searching the scripture did not mean that they were “eating the word” when Jesus made reference to the leaven of the Pharisees. And on what basis do you conclude that it is the Pharisees themselves that is the leaven? That is quite novel. Surely you mean that what comes from the Pharisees for the people to follow to attain their definition of “God’s standard” had something added by the Pharisees that was not part of what the read and studied in the scripture.

This kind of reading is the main reason that I have suggested in parting that almost everyone’s reading of scripture is still too influenced by Lee. Lee did not take scripture and expound upon it. He took scripture and added to it. He took every word that could be made to refer to some other place in scripture and made it so. And caused it to override what the present scripture actually said.

A challenge. Read what is actually there. Then read it again. Then again. If you start thinking about other passages that have similar words, forget them — at least for a while. See if the context and the words actually present say what you think they do without searching elsewhere. See if what they actually say without referring elsewhere is sound in the context. Don’t start with knowledge of what you expect them to mean. Start with what they actually say. There is entirely too much good stuff without layering on Lee or a modified form of it.

And while I have somewhat dissected your response to me in the manner that you did my response to you, did you actually bother to read the whole thing for the full context? And did you read the response to aron who commented in between? I see virtually every specific issue that you are bringing as an external overlay to the parables and statements of Jesus. I find those to require more than saying they are to make them applicable to the verses we are actually reading. You are trying so desperately to align all the references to leaven and make them say one constant thing. But they simply don’t. One place is mostly about not being slowed down, and possibly about getting out of Egypt. Another is about the Kingdom being introduced to the world and ultimately spreading throughout it. Another is about something that the Pharisees are adding to the teachings of scripture. Yet another is about mixing the world and sin into the assembly in an open and even boastful way.

On that last one, I find that a perfect reference to leaven is not found. Since the sin can be located and purged, it is not like leaven within bread because there is a chemical bond. It is too late to purge it. But the metaphor is still quite useful since the boastful allowance of such sin within the assembly will both weaken the testimony of that assembly to the larger community in which it is found, and will create a (unspoken?) teaching of tolerance for sin in a manner that should not be. It is not a perfect fit to leaven. But the point is well made.

And, despite my true desire to leave, I find it difficult to simply leave everyone to consider this kind of thing in such a convoluted way that I honestly believe is damaging to the overall spiritual condition. The kind of seeking for more in scripture than is there can only result in teachings that are unique and ultimately puff up its adherents. Maybe not you specifically. But that is what we had in all those special readings and understandings from Nee and Lee. We had something that no one else had. And there was a reason that no one else had them in too much of the cases — it wasn’t really there.