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Tonight we will see where the Pharisees and Sadducees are going to ramp up their demands of Christ. They have gone from questioning the motives of Jesus, accusing him of being of the devil, asking the disciples why He went against tradition, to now… demanding they show them signs.
One quick question, did Jesus owe them anything? Did they deserve a sign? What authority did they have to ask? Frankly, the Pharisees and Sadducees were on an authority trip and were trying to find some fault in ANYTHING Jesus did.
After the feeding of the four thousand, Jesus traveled to the “vicinity of Magadan” (Matt 15:39). This region is often identified with Magdala, the place of origin of Mary Magdalene (or Mary of Magdala). It is located on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee, in between Capernaum (to its south) and Tiberias (to its north). It is the last place where Jesus and his disciples stayed before traveling northward to Caesarea Philippi where Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ.
1 And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven.
2 He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’
3 And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.
4 An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed.
Who were the Pharisees?
The Lexham Bible Dictionary describes them as members of a Jewish party that exercised strict religion according to Mosaic law. They appear to be the primary voice of Judaism following the temple in Jerusalems destruction in AD 70. They developed a tradition of strict interpretation of the Mosaic law, developing an extensive set of oral extensions of the law designed to maintain religious identity and purity. In other words, they elevated themselves to the point of being pious biggots.
Who were the Sadducees?
The Lexham Bible Dictionary describes them as one of the three main Jewish schools of thought during the Hellenistic (Greek) and Roman eras. The Sadducean writings are no longer in existence and reconstructions are dependent on meager textual evidence from outside the movement. The Scriptures (Pentateuch) possessed supreme authority for the Sadducees, to the exclusion of oral traditions from former generations. The Sadducees denied the resurrection and the existence of fate. The dates of their origin and demise as a movement remain shrouded in mystery.
So, we have two groups of “religious” leaders who missed the whole point of the scripture they were supposed to interpret and instead are asking the Son of God to show them a sign from heaven.
Oh man, how many of us today are missing the point of scripture? We look at the legalistic intent instead of the whole contextual intent? Or, we use tidbits of scripture that we know to defend certain points we consider sacred. We, like the Pharisees and Sadducees can miss the whole point when we are more interested in preserving our own personal “religion” over scripture as a whole. Notice how Jesus responded to them.
Red at night, sailors delight; red in morning, sailors take warning. He basically said to them you know how to interpret signs you WANT to interpret…but you are missing out on the greatest scriptural signs ever given!!! They didn’t need a sign, they simply needed to BELIEVE the signs they were seeing!
The religious leaders initiated this in order to test Jesus and question his authority. In their more recent encounters with Jesus, the Pharisees were with the scribes (12:38; 15:1). The last time the “Pharisees and Sadducees” were together was when some of them came to John to be baptized (3:7). The two groups did not have much in common. In fact, at some points in history they were against each other, but they were willing to work together against their common enemy.
At first glance, the religious leaders’ demand for signs was legitimate and may suggest that they had doubts similar to that of Thomas. Matthew’s portrayal of them, however, and Jesus’ response show that their demand for a sign from heaven was not evidence of sincere doubt, but of defiance and unbelief. Jesus responded by calling the Pharisees and Sadducees a “wicked and adulterous generation”, saying no other sign would be given them except the “sign of Jonah”. What was the sign of Jonah? That Nineveh was a wicked place, deserving judgment, and still being given a second chance. Jesus will go on to describe them as “leaven”.
5 When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread.
6 Jesus said to them, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
7 And they began discussing it among themselves, saying, “We brought no bread.”
8 But Jesus, aware of this, said, “O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread?
9 Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?
10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?
11 How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
12 Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
UN-leaven was often referred to clean, un-adultered - pure. By calling the Pharisees and Sadducees leaven, he is referring to them as being unclean, tainted, IM-pure (mixed with extraneous matter, especially of an inferior or contaminating nature). These religious men were contaminated. What with?
Leaven is an agent of fermentation from yeast, a contaminant blown in from the wind, and just a small amount can affect the whole dough. Jesus was simply reminding them that their contaminated views of religion and of Himself could contaminate the whole congregation and could lead a person to either believe in or reject Jesus.
He was warning the crowd, too, of false teaching. If we look closely, we will see that in the end of verse 4 “(Jesus) left them and departed. He shook the dust from his feet, when it came to the Pharisees and Sadducees knowing He would not change them.
When Jesus arrived on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, the disciples remembered something. They had forgotten to bring food. In this lapse of memory, Jesus saw another opportunity to teach a much needed lesson: beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees (see Mt. 13:33; Mk. 8:15). By “leaven” Jesus meant the false teaching of the religionists, but the disciples misunderstood what He was saying. They thought He was rebuking them for not having bread. Their thoughts were, as is so often the case, occupied with earthly matters and cares.
Jesus rebuked such preoccupation with earthly matters. He called it distrust: “O ‘ye of little faith” (v. 8). Then He began immediately to teach two great lessons of life.
He will take care of the believer’s earthly needs. He was almost shocked to think that His followers did not trust Him to take care of them. His followers are to be primarily concerned with spiritual matters, not with earthly affairs. Guarding one’s mind and soul against the leaven, the false teaching, of the Pharisees and Sadducees is to be the believer’s constant concern, not worrying and caring for earthly things. A person’s thoughts must be dominated by the truth so that he may remain in the truth and not be misled spiritually.
The leaven, the false teaching of religionists and world leaders, is the great threat to human survival.
Note: the danger was not in eating bread with false teachers but in being misled by their teachings and behavior.
The Pharisees believed in a personal God and in the Scripture as God’s Word to man, but they added to God’s Word. They added rules and regulations, rituals and ceremonies laying undue restrictions upon man’s behavior. This led to three gross errors.
It led people to think that their good behavior and their religious rituals and ceremonies made them acceptable to God. A religion of good works—of trying to do enough good to become acceptable to God—was being depended upon for righteousness.
It led to a religion of social respectability, an external religion. If a person were respected socially and did all the right things, then he was judged acceptable to God.
It led to an attitude and an air of self-righteousness. If a person kept the rules and regulations, he naturally felt righteous and sometimes demonstrated it. There was a dependence upon himself, upon keeping the right rules and thereby becoming righteous.
The Sadducees or Herodians were the liberal minded of their day. Their leaven or false teaching was twofold.
They took away from God’s Word, denying all Scripture except the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament.
They were the free thinkers, the rationalists, the secularists, and the materialistic minded of their day. Thus, they were willing to collaborate with the Romans in doing away with Jewish culture and in establishing Roman and Greek culture. Because of this, Rome placed their leaders in the governing positions (the Sanhedrin) and gave them wealth. Their worldly mindedness, their secular philosophy, and their liberal theology were always a threat to any man.
Now, has anything changed today? Do we still have those who choose to mislead others, making religion sound different than what we find in scripture? We must guard ourselves against this, and hold to the integrity of God’s Word.
Leadership Ministries Worldwide. 2004. The Gospel according to Matthew: Chapters 1:1–16:12. Vol. 1. The Preacher’s Outline & Sermon Bible. Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide.
Uytanlet, Samson L., and Kiem-Kiok Kwa. 2017. Matthew: A Pastoral and Contextual Commentary. Edited by Federico G. Villanueva, Steve Chang, Andrew Spurgeon, and Brian Wintle. Asia Bible Commentary Series. Carlisle, Cumbria; Manila, Philippines: Langham Global Library; Asia Theological Association.