Lines and Lambs | Sunday, September 6, 2026
September 6, 2026 · Pastor Miles DeBenedictis
In this teaching
Returning to Luke 12, Pastor Miles teaches that Jesus's warning against "the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy" is rooted in the Old Testament Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread: God's people are delivered by the blood of the Lamb and then purge out sin because they have been redeemed. The great danger is that religious commitment can become mere performance, a covering we hide behind, when what we truly need is the broken body and shed blood of Christ, our Passover Lamb.
- Luke 12 ("in the meantime") continues from Luke 11, where the Pharisees and scribes began turning against Jesus and seeking to trap him.
- Leaven, from Genesis and Exodus onward, is a picture of sin that spreads and permeates the whole lump; the New Testament (1 Corinthians 5) applies this to the church.
- Israel was spared by the blood of the Passover lamb, not by their cleaning; they purged leaven because they had already been redeemed.
- Jesus aims his warning not at the crowd but at his disciples, and names the leaven precisely: hypocrisy.
- Biblical "hypocrisy" is speaking rehearsed lines for a character you are not — religious performance breeds judgmentalism and arrogance.
- Everything hidden will be revealed; the only questions are when and how, so we must open our lives, confess sin, and rest in Christ our Passover.
Readable is a lightly edited reading copy; Verbatim stays close to the spoken words. The audio and video are the record of what was said.
In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together so that they trampled one another, He began to say to His disciples first of all, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops. And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!" ()
Religious commitment can quietly become religious performance — and Jesus warns his closest followers to beware.
Returning to Luke After the Detour
Thirteen weeks ago, we took a detour out of the Gospel of Luke for our summer series, eavesdropping on private conversations across the Old and New Testaments — Moses at the burning bush, Nicodemus at midnight, the woman at the well, Peter on the rooftop in Joppa, Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail. We finished with Jesus and Peter on the beach of Galilee, where the last words Jesus gave Peter were the same as the first: "Follow me." So we follow the Lord back to .
We are not opening a new subject. begins with a connecting phrase — "in the meantime" — that reaches back to , where we left off. There a certain Pharisee had invited Jesus to a meal, and Jesus's host quickly turned inhospitable because Jesus did not ceremonially wash his hands according to the Pharisees' very particular rules. This was not about hygiene; it was about ritual. And it triggered them.
The Turning Point Against Jesus
Jesus responded by speaking six woes straight down the table to the Pharisees and to the experts of the law — the scribes who copied the manuscripts of the Pentateuch by hand, since there were no printing presses. "Woe" is a prophetic word, echoing Isaiah, expressing both awe at the audacity of a thing and a pronouncement of judgment.
How did that go? Just as you'd expect. says, "The scribes and the Pharisees began to assail Him vehemently, and to cross-examine Him about many things, lying in wait for Him, and seeking to catch Him in something He might say, that they might accuse Him." This is a real turning point. Early on, many of these religious leaders were interested spectators — Nicodemus even came saying, "We know that You are a teacher come from God." They were the guardians of the faith, watching and assessing. But now, at the midpoint of Luke, they turn. They are seething with rage, still seething, when chapter 12 opens.
The Value of Saying It Again
Some of you will notice this sounds familiar to what we saw at the end of May, and you'll be partly right. We'll return to these themes again in the coming months, and that's a good thing. Paul told the Philippians that writing the same things again is not tedious but safe. Peter wrote in , "I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, even though you know them and are established in the present truth." Two apostles, two epistles, two ways of saying it, one instruction: sometimes we have to say it again.
Any parent knows this. Look both ways before you cross the road. Brush your teeth. Chew your food. Don't kick your sister. Over and over. Our loving Father in heaven does the same. The more you read the Bible, the more you see the themes repeated — sometimes with sheep and shepherd, sometimes with vine and fruit, sometimes wheat and tares — the same core truth said different ways until it finally sticks. This morning the image is yeast.
Leaven Begins in Genesis
Before we can hear what Jesus says, we need to hear what his disciples heard. For a first-century Jew, "leaven" carried a meaning far beyond pizza dough and sourdough. To grasp it, we go back to the beginning.
In , God beholds His creation and seven times pronounces it "good," concluding, "God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good." But it didn't stay that way. In , Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which I'm convinced was not forbidden forever but not yet — they were not mature enough for what it would expose. Notice the very first thing their sin produced: "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings" (). The first thing sin ever produced was a desire for a costume, to cover it up. Hold that word — coverings.
Sin Spreads Like Yeast
Throughout Scripture, yeast and leaven are connected to wickedness and sin — "a little leaven leavens the whole lump." Sin does what sin does. It was just a bite of fruit, not a big deal. But in it becomes murder; in and 6 it spreads until "the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually." It multiplies and it produces death. Fittingly, the last word of Genesis is a coffin — the book starts with creation and ends with a coffin.
Sin spreads until you are in bondage, in slavery to it. That is where we find the children of Israel in Exodus, enslaved in Egypt — a picture of the world. That is not just their story; it is ours. Every one of us comes to realize we are gripped by something we cannot escape. It is called sin. And the only hope for a slave in Egypt is deliverance.
The Passover Lamb and the Cleansing of the House
It took ten plagues to redeem Israel. Just before the tenth, God prepared His people, and the order is crucial because it is the gospel. On the tenth day of the month they were to select an unblemished male lamb of the first year, inspect it until the fourteenth, and at twilight sacrifice it, putting its blood on the doorposts. As the destroyer passed through Egypt, wherever it saw the blood, it would pass over. This became the Feast of Passover. "The blood shall be a sign for you... and when I see the blood, I will pass over you" ().
Then, for seven days beginning the fifteenth day, Israel was to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (; ). And Jewish families have done this ever since: open the house, the windows, the cupboards, every bowl and container, and purge out all the leaven — sweep it into the open and get it out of the house. Why? Because leaven is a picture of sin, which, if left, permeates and grows.
Notice the sequence. The lamb dies first; the blood goes on the doorpost. Then, for a full week, they root out every trace of yeast. God did not pass over the clean house — He passed over the house with blood on the doorpost. The cleaning did not earn deliverance; the blood of the lamb secured it. They swept the house because they had already been redeemed.
Christ Our Passover
"That's old covenant," you might say. "It has nothing to do with us." Except Paul picks it up in . The Corinthian church was proud of tolerating gross sin — a man living with his stepmother — and Paul says, "Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us."
Those Passover sheep, slaughtered for 1,400 years, all pointed to Jesus. John the Baptist said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." So Paul says: you have been redeemed from bondage by Christ our Passover Lamb, whose blood is on the doorpost of your heart. "Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven... but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."
Point one: God's people did not sweep the house to be spared. They swept the house because they already were. You have been set free from sin and death — so now purge out the sin. What does that look like? Exactly what the Jewish families did: open the doors, let the light in, look in every corner, and sweep the leaven out into the open. But our inclination is the opposite — hide it. Don't let anyone know I'm a sinner. Scripture says: open it up.
Beware the Leaven of the Pharisees
Back to . In the meantime, an innumerable multitude gathered, trampling one another to get to Jesus — the height of his popularity. There are three things to note in .
First, look at the crowd. This would seem the perfect moment to seize the spotlight, to let everyone see how amazing he is. He doesn't do that. Second, look at whom he addresses: "He began to say to His disciples first of all." He pulls back from the crowd, lowers his voice, and speaks to his team. Jesus wasn't building a brand; he was making people brand new. That's what his church has been about for 2,000 years.
Point two: Jesus aimed his warning at the front row, not the back. His warnings about religious fakery would have pleased the mob, who disliked the Pharisees too. But he wasn't trying to please a crowd; he was building up his inner circle to make them more pleasing to God.
He Tells Us Exactly What He Means
Third, look at what he does not leave us to guess. Had he only said, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees," we could have spent 2,000 years guessing — their showiness, their rigidity, their pomposity, their burdensome standards, their relentless converting. But Jesus names it: "which is hypocrisy." That one word brings the whole frame into focus.
Notice what he did not say. Not "beware of their extreme commitment to religious ritual," or "their seriousness about the Scriptures," or "their praying, fasting, and giving too much." Many things the Pharisees did were not bad. Before we bash them — as has been done for 2,000 years — we should give them their due. The Pharisees can be commended for their commitment.
Where the Pharisees Came From
They arose in the postexilic, second-temple period. After Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the first temple in the sixth century BC and carried Israel to Babylon, the people were captives for seventy years. When Cyrus said they could return, only a small, committed group said, "Let's go" — to rebuild the temple, clean up the city, never drift or worship idols again, never mishandle the law again, and get the leaven out. That group of separatists is where the Pharisees came from. Many of us would like those people.
Then 400 years happened. One generation built a fence; the next added a level; the next added another, until Jesus came to a Pharisee's home and they could not recognize God in their midst — walled off from him by rules. Even Jesus gave them their due: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat; therefore whatever they tell you to observe, observe and do" (). They believed the Scriptures, believed in the resurrection, prayed, fasted, and tithed with a seriousness we can barely imagine.
The problem: they came to trust all those things for their standing before God. They swept the house of all leaven and thought that made them right with God. They forgot the blood of the lamb — which came first. They became what my friend Larry calls "accidental Pharisees." Jesus is not warning the disciples about the Pharisees so much as warning them not to become like them.
Point three: Nobody decides to become a Pharisee. You just lean your weight on a good but wrong thing. Nobody wakes up wanting to be a hypocrite. But take a good thing, lean all your weight on it, and you begin to think that good thing holds you up rather than Christ. So Jesus says: beware of the covering. What did Adam and Eve do the moment they sinned? They made coverings.
What Hypocrisy Actually Is
We all have some idea of the word "hypocrisy," but for a first-century Jew this Greek word carried a specific meaning tied to the theater — the Greek comedy, tragedy, and drama. The word originally grew out of an ordinary word for an answer, and came to be associated with stage actors who learned their lines, their answers, their script. People often connect it to the masks of Greek drama, but that's a different word. This word is the lines the actors spoke — the script they followed.
Point four: A hypocrite is not someone hiding behind a mask. He is someone speaking lines written for a character he is not. You're playing a part. You've learned what to say and when, the right time to smile, to laugh, to cry. You are, as the young people say, LARPing righteousness — live-action role-playing. I had to look it up.
The Church as a Hypocrite Factory
Can we be honest about how easily church becomes a hypocrite factory? Stay long enough and you learn the right things to say — "How are you?" "Oh, blessed" — when to stand, when to sit, when to kneel, which prayers to pray when. None of those things are necessarily bad. But if they're what you're leaning on, they will not hold you up. You can learn the rituals, the liturgy, the postures, do them all at the right times, and be told, "Do all this and you're good." At first it feels wrong — surely it's more than this. But after a while you feel pretty good, and that breeds two things: judgmentalism and arrogance. You grade yourself gently and others strictly.
If you've ever felt better about yourself because of your attendance, service, giving, prayer life, or devotions, you might be a Pharisee. If you've measured someone else by their lack of those things, you might be a Pharisee. If you've been more bothered by someone's music, tattoos, or politics than by your own prayerlessness, you might be a Pharisee. If you have a bad category for the Christmas-and-Easter crowd, you might be a Pharisee. If you've edited a prayer on the fly for how others might hear it; if you're more upset about being embarrassed than about being wrong; if you've been a little relieved when someone else fell — you might be a Pharisee. And if you've spent the last two minutes thinking how badly someone else needs to hear this, you might be a Pharisee.
Everything Hidden Will Be Revealed
Here you might expect Jesus to say, "Do better." He says something much heavier. "For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops."
Catch the verbs: will be revealed, will be known, will be proclaimed — not "might be." And they are passive, as though someone else does the revealing. You've been hiding under a veneer, made your own covering to close up the house. God says it's spring cleaning — the blood is on the doorpost, you've been forgiven, so open it up and let it be purged. But we say, "Don't. Hide this. Don't let anyone know."
It is not a question of whether it will be revealed, but when and how. There are two options. First, the Feast of Unleavened Bread: open it up, sweep it out, say, "God, here it is," and let His consuming fire burn it away. Or, close it up — and Paul says in , "Each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work." That is not a great day.
Point five: You will be exposed either way. The only questions are when and how.
Come to the Feast
That's frightening — what do we do with it? Paul already told us: "Therefore purge out the old leaven... let us keep the feast, not with old leaven... but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us."
So partake of the feast Jesus instituted on the night he was betrayed, before the Lamb of God took away the sin of the world. He took bread and said, "This is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me." And he took the cup: "This is the blood of the new covenant in My blood; this do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." His blood is shed to be placed on the doorpost of your heart, that you may be purged of your sin and made a new lump, holy and rightly standing before the Lord.
Church is a dangerous place — a hypocrite factory — because good things, done long enough, can make you forget the Lamb and trust the lines. You said the right things, smiled and nodded at the right moments, and think you're okay. Jesus says no: you still need the broken body and the shed blood. But you can get sick at the ER, and that doesn't mean you shouldn't go. Church is the perfect and right place to be brought back to Christ through his broken body and shed blood, by which we are redeemed, delivered, and made clean.
Closing Prayer
Lord, we thank You that our standing — set free from bondage to sin and death — is not because we purged out the leaven. Our standing is because Your body and blood were broken and shed. And now, by Your Spirit, You want to make us a new lump. You do that when we come before You, opening the doors and windows and saying, "God, this is who I am. Will You forgive me?" You inspired John to write that if we confess our sin, You are faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. We thank You for Your cleansing power. We open the doors of our hearts and say, "God, clean us out." We rejoice in Your goodness. Help us not to become accidental Pharisees — it's easy — but to walk in Your righteousness, not our own. Any righteousness we have is not ours; it is what You have given us. We rejoice in that. In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen. Praise the Lord. Thank you, Anthony and Christian. Good morning, Cross Connection. You guys can have a seat. It sure is trying to rain on us outside, but you are here. I am so glad that you're with us this morning. Thank you for your prayers this last week. My wife and I were at a conference for senior pastors and their wives. I asked you last week to pray. I was teaching in the last session on Thursday, but I asked you to pray for my wife because we were both supposed to be on a panel discussion, and God answered your prayers. They canceled it. My wife was so grateful. I’m sure there was somebody praying for that cancellation. Thank you. She was very grateful.
You will notice this morning that the fly is gone. You can hold your applause, or if you want to, you can applaud. That means we're back to the Gospel of Luke. Thirteen weeks ago, we took a detour out of the Gospel of Luke and did our summer series, in which we kind of flew into and eavesdropped on a number of different private conversations in the Old and New Testament. We saw Moses with God at the burning bush, Nicodemus with Jesus at midnight, the woman at the well with Christ in Samaria in the heat of the day, Peter on the rooftop in Joppa, and Paul and Silas in the jail in Philippi. We finished last week with Jesus and Peter on the beach of the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus's conversation with Peter there included the last words He gave to Peter, which were the very same words He spoke to Peter when He first called him: "Follow me." So, we are following the Lord back to the Gospel of Luke, back to where we were around Memorial Day, now on Labor Day weekend.
When we return to the text of , which is where we're going to be, you can get out your Bibles and open to that chapter if you'd like. We are not opening a new section or a new subject, even though we are at the halfway point of the Gospel of Luke. begins with a connecting phrase that takes us back to the previous chapter, , where we left off. The opening three words of are "in the meantime." This connecting phrase reminds us of where we were in thirteen weeks ago.
It was there in that a certain Pharisee invited Jesus to his home for a meal. For some of you who have been around the Bible for a long time, you might think, "Well, that's not where I imagined Jesus at the dining room table of a Pharisee." For another group of you this morning, you may not really know who the Pharisees are. Don't worry; we'll get into that today as we go through this text.
The Pharisees were a highly committed group of religious zealots in first-century Judaism. So, a certain Pharisee asked Jesus to his house, and Jesus went and sat down. Very quickly, the hospitality of his host turned inhospitable because Jesus did something that shocked them. We are told in the text that the Pharisees saw and marveled that Jesus had not washed his hands before the meal.
I know some of you are already thinking, "Well, that's gross. He should have washed his hands." But that's not what was happening in the story. It's not that he had bad hygiene; he didn't wash according to a very specific set of rules that the Pharisees observed during a ceremonial cleansing. They would never eat without first ceremonially washing in this particular and special way, and Jesus did not do that. This triggered the Pharisee and probably some of the other hyper-religious people in the room.
The reaction of the hyper-religious to Jesus's not following their protocol caused Jesus to pronounce six woes, which is a very prophetic way of speaking. It mimics the prophetic life of the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament, who also used the Hebrew word "oi," expressing both awe at the audacity of the person and a pronouncement of judgment in one word.
So, Jesus spoke six woes straight down the table to the Pharisee and the experts in the law. Seated at that table were Pharisees and also experts in the law, sometimes referred to as lawyers or scribes in the New Testament. These were the people who would take the manuscripts of the Pentateuch and copy them word for word. They didn't have Xerox machines, and the printing press didn't come for another 1,500 years. Thus, the experts in the law and the Pharisees were present, and Jesus pronounced woe to them.
Judgment upon them was a pronouncement of punishment and judgment. Now, how do you think that went? Just about as well as you would expect. He said these things to them. It says in , "And the scribes and the Pharisees began to assail him vehemently and to cross-examine him about many things, lying in wait for him and seeking to catch him in something he might say that they might accuse him."
This is a real turning point in the Gospel. At this moment, the Pharisees, the scribes, and the Sadducees—these different religious leaders, highly committed religious sects within Judaism in Israel—begin to turn against Jesus. Early on in Jesus's ministry, many of them were kind of interested spectators. In fact, Nicodemus was one of those who came to Jesus by night to inquire about him, saying, "We know that you're a teacher come from God because nobody could do these works unless God was with him."
At the beginning, they were on the periphery, watching and assessing, which was partly their role as guardians of the faith of Judaism. They wanted to ensure that there was no false teaching or heresy coming in. However, at this midpoint in the Gospel of Luke, we see the Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees becoming more prominent. Their behavior towards Jesus is markedly different; they are now looking for opportunities to catch him so they might accuse him. Eventually, they will find some things to use against him, many of which will be false.
Thirteen weeks ago, that's where we left off, right around Memorial Day. Now it's Labor Day, and the religious experts are still seething with ferocious rage towards Jesus. This is why the chapter opens with "in the meantime."
For those of you who were here for the last message in Luke back at the end of May, in about ten minutes, you might think, "Well, Miles, you've already preached this." It sure sounds similar to some of the things we discussed then, as we were looking at the Pharisees and the scribes and their issues. You will be right if you think this sounds familiar, and it will sound even more familiar in the coming months as we continue through Luke. We will revisit these themes, and I think it's good sometimes to return to things that are repeated.
Over and over again, I think that even Paul and Peter, the New Testament apostles, felt the same way. Paul, in one of his letters to the church at Philippi, says, "For me to write the same things to you, it's not tedious for you. It's safe." It's a good thing to sometimes repeat the same things over and over again. Peter followed the same sentiment in one of his letters in Second Peter 1:12, where he states, "For this reason, I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, even though you know them and are established in the present truth."
It's like he acknowledges that you already know this, but he is going to say it again. Two apostles and two epistles use different vocabulary, but the message is the same: it's safe to repeat these things. Paul emphasizes that he will not be negligent in reminding you of these important truths. So, we have two apostles, two epistles, and two different ways of saying it, but one instruction: sometimes we have to say it again.
Now, how many parents in the room, even if your kids have grown up and moved out, can lift your hands high? How many of you remember repeating the same things over and over? Look both ways before you cross the road. Brush your teeth before you go to bed. Chew your food completely before you swallow it. Don't kick your sister. We just say these things repeatedly, right? You feel like a broken record. For some people in the room, you might be wondering, "What's a record?" Well, don't worry about it; it's no big deal. It's just on repeat over and over again.
Our loving Father in heaven does the same thing. He says the same things repeatedly. I guarantee you, the more you read the Bible, the more you will see this. The themes, the concepts, and the ideas are repeated. Sometimes the words are different; sometimes the illustrative language or the metaphor is different. He might use the illustration of the sheep and the shepherd, or the fruit and the vine, or a good tree and a bad tree, or wheat and tares in fields, or pearls. He grabs for all kinds of different illustrations, but when you look at it, the core message he is conveying is often the same. He says the same thing in different ways until it finally sticks.
I had a friend who has been a pastor for decades tell me years ago, "Listen, when your church starts to kind of mimic you and mock you when you say the same thing over and over again, you have arrived." Here at Cross Connection, we're all about life in connection with God.
Another in the world through Jesus. Yes, we say it all the time: "Life and connection, God." Okay, yes, maybe we're getting there.
This morning, in the text, we are going to explore another word, an idea that illustrates something significant. This time, it is the word "yeast." For some of you, that might raise the question, "Yeast? What are we talking about? Sourdough and baking?" Well, no, not exactly. As you'll see, would you open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke? Stand with me and turn to about the last third of your Bible, where we find the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and then Luke.
We will be looking at . The opening three words are: "In the meantime." When an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together so that they trampled one another, He began to say to His disciples, "First of all, beware of the leaven, the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.
And I say to you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who will kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: fear Him who after He has killed has the power to cast into hell. Yes, I say to you, fear Him.
God, I pray that you would help us to have an open heart this morning, Lord. Open our ears and our minds to comprehend and understand Your word. But not just that these things would be something in our minds, but that they would move the eleven or so inches down from our head to our heart. I ask that You would do the work of transformation that You desire to do in us, transforming us by the renewing of our minds so that, as that happens, it would permeate our lives and work its way out.
May it be demonstrated in the way that we live, the way that we talk, the way we think, and how we act. God, continue that work that the Bible calls sanctification, which is Your very will for us. We ask this in Jesus' name. And all those that agreed said, "Amen." You could be seated. Now,
Before we can really hear what Jesus is saying here, we need to back up and understand what His disciples would have heard and understood when He spoke these words to them. For a first-century Jew, the word "leaven" would take on a different meaning than it probably does for us today. If you enjoy baking, then you have a concept of yeast and leaven, perhaps more so than others who do not. In our modern context, we think about leaven in relation to pizza dough or sourdough baking, but for a Jew living in the first century during the time of Jesus, it had a totally different significance.
To comprehend and understand this, we need to go back to the very beginning—specifically, to . In this chapter, as we read about the six days of creation, we see that at the end of each day, God beholds the work He did and declares, "It is good." Seven times in the opening chapter of the Bible, God affirms, "It is good." At the very end of all creation, in , God saw everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. Thus, God's creation is very good.
However, it didn't stay that way for long. In the third chapter of Genesis, the first man and his wife, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God's command. They ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and everything changed. God had commanded them not to eat from this tree. It is my strong conviction that God did not intend for them to never eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but rather that they were not ready or mature enough for what it would expose to them.
You see, there are certain things that God has given to us that are good but are not to be experienced until later. I'm sure you can imagine what some of those things might be. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was forbidden at the start because they were not prepared for its implications.
So God said, "Listen, don't go near that quite yet." I want you to notice what was the first thing that their disobedience, their sin, produced in them when they ate. In , it states, "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked." So they sewed fig leaves together and made for themselves, what's that word? Coverings. Don't miss that last word; it's key. Coverings. The first thing that sin ever produced in them was a desire for a costume to cover it up. It's important to hold that idea because it will become significant as we go through this text.
Then sin does what sin does. It's like leaven. One of the things you discover as you go through the Old and New Testaments is that the idea of yeast and leaven is connected to wickedness, evil, and sin. A little bit of leaven permeates, expands, and leavens the whole lump, as the Scriptures say. Bakers in the room understand this. Just a little bit of sin, just a little bit of fruit—it was just a bite. It's not that big of a deal. But then what happens in ? It spreads and becomes murder.
Then what happens in ? It continues to spread, and murder and fighting expand. This continues into , where states, "The thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually." How did that happen? It spreads. It multiplies just like leaven. We see it begin to spread, and in the end, as it spreads, it produces death because that's what God said would come.
It's fascinating that the last word of the book of Genesis is a coffin. It starts with creation and ends with a coffin, spreading until you are in bondage under slavery to sin. That's where we find the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, what we call the children of Israel in Exodus. They are in Egypt, which is frequently connected to being a picture or an illustration of the world.
And so God's people are enslaved in Egypt in the book of Exodus. That's not just their story; that's our story. Every single one of us comes to a realization at some point that we are in bondage to something. We may not even know what it is, but it grips our lives. It's called sin. That is what we are in bondage to, and we are in this world in bondage to sin. It's our story. Every one of us is in that position, just like Israel was in Exodus.
What is the only hope for a slave in Egypt? Deliverance. That's what they were praying for. They had harsh taskmasters over them, and so they cried out to God. What did God say to Moses at the burning bush? The cry of my people Israel has risen to my ears. I have heard of their bondage. They have cried out to me, and so I am sending you. Moses, you are going to go and tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go."
Of course, eventually, Moses did that, but Pharaoh did not acquiesce to his request—not at first. It took ten plagues to bring about their deliverance. That is what the whole first half, or first third, of the book of Exodus is all about: what it took to redeem and rescue the children of Israel from their bondage and slavery in Egypt. Ten long plagues.
Just before the tenth and final plague, God gives a word to His people that is super important because He is readying them for their deliverance. The order of how everything works out to bring about their deliverance is especially important because it foreshadows the gospel. God says to His people, after the nine plagues have not worked to release them, that there is one last plague. Here is what He is going to do: He will send a destructive spirit, an angel that is a destroyer, and the firstborn son of every household in Egypt is going to be destroyed by this destroyer.
Some people read that and think, "Oh, this is horrific. Why would God do such a thing? It seems so mean." However, we must be reminded that Pharaoh, for a very long period of time, had required that every male child of the Hebrews be cast alive into the Nile and killed. Therefore, God says there is justice being served here.
However, there is a provision made for deliverance. So what does God tell them? He says, "Listen. You're about to be released from Egypt. This is going to become the first month of your year. Your calendar is about to change." The month would begin at the new moon, and now you're going to have the first month. It came to be the month called Nissan for the Hebrew people. The first month of the year started there on that new moon.
He says, "Listen, on the 14th day of the month, you're going to take a lamb. You're going to select this lamb on the 10th day. You're going to identify a lamb in your flocks, and you're going to find a male lamb of the first year that has no blemish. You will take that lamb on the 10th day and inspect it for the next several days until the 14th day at twilight, at sunset. You're going to sacrifice that lamb, that poor innocent lamb, and you're going to take the blood of that lamb and put it on the doorpost of your house. Then you're going to cook that lamb as a meal and partake of a feast."
That night, when the destroying angel moves through Egypt, every house upon which it sees the blood on the doorpost will be passed over. They called this feast Passover. There, on that night, as they were in that home with the blood of the lamb on the doorpost, partaking of the lamb, God said, "This is the first of seven feasts that you're going to observe throughout the year. The first one is Passover in the first month on the 14th day of that month. This blood is going to be a sign for you on the houses where you are. When I see that blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt," as says.
Then God says, just a few verses after that, in , "In the first month, on the 14th day of the month at evening, you shall eat. You're going to eat this lamb. The blood's going to be on the doorpost. But you shall also eat unleavened bread." This is . "In the first month, on the 14th day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the 21st day of the month at evening." This is the second of the seven feasts of Israel.
There are feasts in the spring, one feast in the summer, and then some feasts in the fall. In the spring feast, God says, "Here's what you're going to do. On the 14th day of the month, you're going to sacrifice this lamb. Put the blood on the doorpost. You're going to eat that lamb as a feast, the feast of Passover, but you're also going to eat unleavened bread."
Bread. And now, for the next week, the next seven days, you're going to have another feast called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. When you start to read about the Feast of Unleavened Bread and what they were supposed to do during this period of time, let me read to you from , where it's explained. It says, "On the 14th day of the first month at twilight, it is the Lord's Passover. And on the 15th day, the next day of the same month, it is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord. Seven days you must eat unleavened bread."
Why? What is going on here? It seems very strange and cryptic. During those seven days, every Jewish family was to open up the house—open up the doors, open up the windows, open up the cupboards, open up everything. Open up the bowls, open every container, and purge out the leaven. Find the leaven wherever it may be. Sweep it out, get it out in the open, and sweep it out of the house. No leaven is to be in the house because leaven is a picture and a type of sin. That sin, if left, will begin to permeate, grow, and expand.
You can see the progression of what's happening here. On the 14th day, the Passover lamb dies first, and the blood is put on the doorpost. Then, for a full week, every Israelite family goes through the house, rooting out and purging out all of the yeast, all of the leaven, cleaning out the cupboards, cleaning out the corners, kneading bowls, cutting boards—everything needs to be pulled out.
You may ask, "Why this spring cleaning? What is going on here?" Now, remember, God did not say, "I'm going to pass over your house because it's a clean house." No, He passed over before the house was clean. He doesn't say, "I'm going to pass over the house because you guys are all such a nice, tidy, and good family." No, He passed over the house because what was on the doorpost? The blood of the lamb. The blood of the lamb is that which delivered, protected, and brought them out of their bondage from Egypt.
The cleaning wasn't so that they would be spared and delivered; they were spared and delivered by the blood of the lamb. The cleaning, the sweeping of the house, was because they had been delivered. Now that you have been delivered, you are a new people unto Me. The household has been redeemed. A redeemed household doesn't keep that old stuff around. It needs to be...
Leaven and yeast are a type and a picture of sin. Once redeemed, God says, "Let's purge out the old sin." Now, that's the old covenant. That's Moses. That's the law. It has nothing to do with us, right? We're Christians. Except that Paul, in the New Testament, picks that up from Exodus and Leviticus and drops it in Corinth. In , Paul addresses the church in Corinth, which, at that point in time, was very happy because they were a tolerant and accepting church. They were pleased to have some people in their congregation who were involved in very gross sin.
What is gross sin? Well, they had a man in the church who had committed adultery with his stepmother and was living with her. They thought, "We're so kind and compassionate that we have him here." But Paul says, "No, that's not how this whole thing works." He states, "You're glorying, you're boasting on all this is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?" It starts as something so small and insignificant. They believed they were just being kind and compassionate. Sometimes, I think 1 Corinthians could be called 1 Californians.
Therefore, Paul instructs them to purge out the old leaven so that they may be a new lump. Since they are truly unleavened, they have been redeemed from their sin. How? For indeed, Christ, our Passover lamb, was sacrificed for us.
What is this? When John the Baptist saw Christ, he said, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." You see, those Passover sheep that were slaughtered for 1,400 years were all pointing to Jesus. He is the Passover lamb. Paul emphasizes, "Listen, you have been redeemed from bondage and slavery in the world, in Egypt, by what?" Well, Christ, our Passover lamb, was sacrificed, and His blood has been put upon you.
The doorpost of your heart is significant. Indeed, Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven. What is he saying? You've been brought into the feast of unleavened bread. Christian, even though you're not Jewish, the vast majority of you seated here this morning are not children of Abraham by blood. You are children of Abraham by faith, and you have been grafted into the family by the blood of the Lamb. You have been redeemed from the slavery and bondage to sin.
Now, let us therefore keep the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Paul is not making something new up; he is just grabbing from Exodus and dropping it in the New Testament, saying, "This is for you that God said these things." Christ, our Passover Lamb, was sacrificed for us on what day? Passover. Since you have now been redeemed from your bondage to slavery and sin, your life has been unleavened. Therefore, purge out the leaven.
What does that look like? It is exactly what the Jewish families would do in the first century. Open up the doors. Open up the windows. Let the light come in. Open up every cupboard, look in every corner, and check around. Is there any leaven anywhere? Then get that broom and sweep it out into the open. Get it outside so that it can be taken away. Open the door so the light can come in and expose what is there.
But what is our inclination? We tend to hide it. We don't want anybody to know there's leaven in here. We don't want anyone to know we are sinners. Please, don't talk to my wife. Purge out the old leaven so that you can be a new lump. Why do we need to go back to the Old Testament for this? Because the Old Testament helps us to understand these things. All these things were written for our instruction. Paul says in that you do not purge the leaven in order to be delivered and spared from bondage and slavery in Egypt. No, that's the blood of the Lamb. That's how they were sprung from Egypt, if you will. You purge leaven because you have been redeemed.
Point number one, if you're taking notes...
God's people did not sweep the house to be spared; they swept the house because they already were. You've been set free from sin and death, so purge out the sin. As usual, we take the long way to get to chapter 12. Let's get back there.
In the meantime, Jesus had just had dinner at the house of a Pharisee when an innumerable multitude of people gathered together, trampling on one another in their eagerness to get to Him. He began to say to His disciples, "First of all, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."
Three key things to note in this opening verse: First, look at the crowd. An innumerable multitude had gathered together, so much so that they trampled on one another. This is the height of Jesus's popularity. There’s probably a Jesus tracker on first-century Instagram, where everyone is following to find out where Jesus is today. News had spread that He was at Pharisee Joel's house, and so everybody was there. Now, as Jesus is leaving, He is thronged by people all around Him.
You would think this would be the opportune moment for Jesus to engage in aura farming, to let everyone know how awesome He is. This is the perfect time to boost His coolness points. He needs to seize this opportunity to show everyone who He is and how amazing He is. However, He doesn't do that.
The second thing to note is who He talks to. He begins to say to His disciples. He pulls back a bit from the thronging crowds and lowers His voice to speak to His team: Peter, James, John, Bartholomew, Thomas—go down the list of the twelve. Why? Jesus wasn't building a brand; He was trying to make people brand new.
Can I just say that this is what His church has been about for the last 2,000 years? We're not here building a brand; we're seeking to make people brand new. This is not something to take lightly; it's important. Jesus will make this point, as He does here in this passage and in others as we continue through the Scriptures.
The Gospel of Luke contains a series of warnings about religious fakery. These warnings would certainly have pleased many in the crowd, as they did not have a favorable view of the scribes, Sadducees, and Pharisees. However, the things that Jesus said were not meant to please or build a crowd; they were aimed at His inner circle to strengthen them and make them more pleasing to God.
Point number two is that Jesus aimed His warning at the front row, not the back. He addressed His crowd directly, saying, "Guys, come here. I have something I need to say to you." This brings us to the third point. Notice that He does not leave us guessing. He warns, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees." If Jesus had stopped there, we would have spent the last 2,000 years speculating about what the leaven of the Pharisees might be. We could have come up with all kinds of interpretations.
The leaven of the Pharisees includes their showiness, rigidity, and pomposity. It also encompasses the burdensome standards they imposed on others, which those individuals could not bear. Additionally, the leaven of the Pharisees reflects their relentless pursuit of making converts to their own brands of righteousness. We could have imagined many things about what the leaven of the Pharisees might entail, but Jesus clarifies it for us. He states that the leaven of the Pharisees is hypocrisy.
That one word brings the entire message into focus. Notice what He did not say. He did not warn them about the Pharisees' extreme commitment to religious rituals or their seriousness about the Scriptures. He did not mention their excessive praying, fasting, or particularity regarding their giving. In fact, many of the things the Pharisees did were not entirely bad; there were numerous good practices among them. Before we criticize the Pharisees too harshly, we should consider this context.
Much of what is said about the Pharisees is way too easy and has been done for 2,000 years. However, there are a lot of good things we could say about them. The Pharisees could be commended for their commitment, a reality that is rarely acknowledged in a church setting. There are many aspects of the Pharisees that might make you appreciate them. They were the committed religious conservatives of their day, and it is important to understand where they came from.
There was a period known as the postexilic period or Second Temple Judaism. The children of Israel had their first temple from the time of Solomon until the sixth century BC, when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, brought his armies into Jerusalem, destroyed the city, and took the captives of Israel back to Babylon. You may remember Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; those were the individuals taken captive. The people of Israel remained prisoners of war in Babylon for the next 70 years until a new kingdom and a new king emerged. Cyrus said to the Jewish people, "You can go back to your homeland."
You would think that all of them would respond, "Well, let's go," but not everyone did. Only a small group of people said, "Let's go." They decided to return to Jerusalem, rebuild the temple, and clean up the city. This group consisted of the committed ones, those who wanted to never drift again, never worship idols again, and never mishandle the law again. They aimed to remove the leaven and make Judaism great again. This group was called separatists, and that term is connected to the Pharisees. This is the kind of people that many of us would say we admire.
So what happened? Well, 400 years passed. Over the next 400 years, between that time and the era of Second Temple Judaism and Jesus's time, generation after generation built a fence around the law. The first generation established a boundary, and the next generation added another level to that fence. This continued until Jesus showed up and went to the home of a Pharisee, where they could not recognize that God was in their midst.
Because they've been walled off from Him by all kinds of rules and regulations, we want to make sure that we give them their due. Even Jesus did in . He said, "Listen, the scribes and the Pharisees, they sit in Moses's seat. They have the law of God, and therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, you should observe and do that." Jesus emphasizes that we should listen to what they tell us to do.
The Pharisees believed the Scriptures were the word of God. They believed in the resurrection. They prayed, fasted, and tithed with a seriousness that you and I can't even imagine. The problem was that they had come to a point where all of those things were what they trusted in for their standing. They had swept the house of all the leaven. They got all the leaven out and made it impossible for leaven to ever be there. They thought that was what made them right with God. They forgot about the blood of the Lamb. They forgot that the blood of the Lamb came before the sweeping of the house. The sweeping of the house was purely because they had been redeemed. They became what my friend Larry calls accidental Pharisees.
Jesus is not warning the disciples about the Pharisees and the Sadducees; He is warning them not to become like the Pharisees and the Sadducees because their teaching turned well-intended people into bad people. Don't miss that these were well-intended people. Nobody sets out to be fake. Nobody wakes up one day and says, "I want to be a hypocrite." The problem arises when you take a good thing and lean all of your weight on that good thing. You start to think that the good thing is what holds you up and not Christ.
Point number three: nobody decides to become a Pharisee. You just lean your weight on a good but wrong thing. Jesus didn't say to beware of their commitment. He didn't say to beware of their seriousness about the Scripture. He didn't say to beware of praying too much, fasting too much, or giving too much. He did say to beware of the covering. What did Adam and Eve do immediately when they sinned? They made coverings. Beware of the leaven.
Pharisees represent hypocrisy. What is that? We all have an idea when we hear the word "hypocrisy" or "hypocrite," but what does it really mean? For a Jewish person in the first century, hearing this Greek word "hoopus" had a specific meaning. It is a Greek word connected to the Greek theater. Many of you may remember studying Greek comedy, tragedy, and drama back in grade school. Recently, we had a big Greek drama come out in film.
In those Greek theaters, there were the "hoopus" and the "hooprete." The "hooprete" refers to the actors, the role players. So, what is this word "hoopus"? It is interesting because it originally started as an ordinary word for an answer. You might wonder, what is that—an answer? Eventually, it became associated with roleplaying and stage acting. The roleplaying stage actors would learn their lines, their answers, and their scripts.
You often hear people associate this with the masks of Greek drama, but that is a different Greek word. "Hoopus" refers to the lines that they would speak; it is the script they would follow. "Hoopus" is not about hiding behind a mask; it is about performing the right words at the right time in the right way.
Point number four: a hypocrite is not someone hiding behind a mask. A hypocrite is someone speaking lines written for a character they are not. You are playing a part. You have learned what to say and when to say it. You know the right time to smile, the right time to laugh, and the right time to cry. You are "lairing" righteousness. Only people under 30 know what that means, so let me clarify: "lairing" refers to live-action roleplaying.
When I mentioned those things, perhaps some of you caught it. You have learned what to say and when to say it. You have learned the right time to smile, laugh, and cry. Can we be really honest here and recognize how easily the church can become a hypocrite factory?
When you're there long enough, you start to know the right things to say. "How are you doing today?" "Oh, blessed." One way you know when to stand up, when to sit down, when to kneel down, when to genuflect, and when to do all the right things is by knowing what prayers to pray and when. You learn all the right things at the right time because you're play-acting Christianity. None of those things are necessarily bad, but if those are the things you're leaning on, they will not hold you up.
You can come into the church—not just this church, but churches all over the world for centuries. You learn the right prayers, the right periods of time in the liturgy, how to stand, how to kneel, how to genuflect, and all this sort of stuff. You observe the right rituals at the right times and seasons, and you're told to do all these things, and you're good. This is what you do; this is what church people do. At first, it feels wrong. You think, "It can't be just this. It's got to be more than this."
But then, after a while, after you've done it for some time, you start to feel pretty good. Why? Because you know what that breeds? Two things. It always breeds two things. First, judgmentalism. You start to look at other people and think, "Well, that person over there doesn't know when to stand at the right time." Or, "That person over there clearly didn't know where their parking space was." It breeds judgmentalism and it breeds arrogance.
You start to think, "I sure know the right way to do things." You begin to grade yourself rather gently and others more strictly based on what you do and what they don't do. If you've ever felt a little better about yourself because of your church attendance, your service, your giving, your prayer life, or your devotions, you might be a Pharisee. A little Jeff Foxworthy there, maybe. If you've ever measured somebody else by their lack of commitment to those things, you might be a Pharisee. If you've ever been bothered by...
Somebody's musical choices, tattoos, and politics matter more to you than your own prayerlessness or love? You might be a Pharisee. If you have a category in your head for people, and it's not a good category for those who only show up to church on Christmas and Easter, you might be a Pharisee. If you've ever edited a prayer on the fly because of how other people might hear it, you might be a Pharisee. If you are more upset about being embarrassed than about being wrong, you might be a Pharisee. If you have ever been just a little bit relieved when somebody else has kind of fallen, you might be a Pharisee. And if you've spent the last two minutes thinking how badly somebody else might need to hear this, you might be a Pharisee.
Now, at this point, you might expect Jesus to say, "Do better." Instead, He says something much heavier. In verse two, it states, "For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed." What does sin cause you to do when it's not opened up and swept out to be purged? It makes coverings from the first sin onward. For there is nothing covered that will not be exposed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.
Catch the verbs there: will be revealed, will be known, will be proclaimed—not might be. It's interesting that the mood of these verbs is all passive, as if somebody else is doing the revealing, not you. They will be revealed.
So, what is Jesus getting at here? He's saying, "Listen, you have been hiding underneath a veneer. You've made your own covering to try and close up the house. I've said, 'Hey, it's spring cleaning. The blood is on the doorpost. You've been forgiven. So, let's open it up. Let's just get it out in the open so that we can get rid of it, purge it out, and make you a new lump.'" And you say, "Don't go. Hide."
Don't let anybody know. You've been hiding under a veneer. You've made your refuge under a house of lies. You've hidden under falsehood. And he says, "Is it going to be revealed?" Well, the words were, "You will be revealed, will be known, will be proclaimed." It's not a question of will it be revealed. The questions are when and how.
There are two options. The first option is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Open it up, sweep it out, and get it out in the open. Say, "God, here it is," and His consuming fire can come and burn it away. The second option is to close it up. And what's going to happen? It will be revealed. When? Well, Paul in says this: "Each one's work will become clear for the day." What does that mean? Not a great day, that's what I think. For the day will declare it because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test each one's work of what sort it is.
Point number five, and I'll try to wrap it up: you will be exposed either way. The only questions are when and how. Well, that's frightening. What am I supposed to do with that, pastor? I'm glad you asked. Paul in , we already read it, says, "Therefore, purge out the old leaven." Immediately he followed with, "Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Indeed, Christ our Passover was sacrificed."
Today we're going to partake of communion as we close. Therefore, partake of the feast. The feast of what? The feast that Jesus instituted on the night that He was betrayed before He, the Lamb of God, came to take away the sin of the world. You can come on up, Anthony. Jesus, on the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread and said, "This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me." Then He took the cup.
He said, "This is the blood of the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me." What was he doing? He was saying, "My blood has been shed to put upon the doorpost of your heart so that you could be purged of all of your sin and become a new lump, holy unto me, with a right standing before the Lord."
You see, church is a dangerous place. I'm sure you didn't realize this, but it's a dangerous place because it can easily become a hypocrite factory. I'm sure you've heard people say, and maybe you have uttered it before you started coming to a place like this, "Oh, the church is full of hypocrites." Sometimes that's absolutely true. Why? Because we do things that are good things, but eventually, after you do those long enough and you learn the ritual and you know the lines, you forget about the Lamb. You think that your standing is because of the lines. You said the right things in the right way, and you smiled and laughed and nodded at the right key points in time, so you think, "I'm okay."
But Jesus says, "No, you still need the broken body and the shed blood." So, church is a dangerous place. I know there will be some person who says, "Well, I can't go there then. It's dangerous. Now I have a reason not to go there." You know, you can get sick at the ER. That doesn't mean you shouldn't go there if you're not sick or if you're sick, right? We still need to be in the place where we're brought back to Christ. That's what we should be finding when we come to church.
Church is the perfect and right place to be brought back to Christ through His broken body and His shed blood, by which we are redeemed, rescued, delivered, and made clean. The Lord Jesus, on the night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had broken it, He gave thanks and gave it to His disciples, saying, "Take, eat. This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me."
Let's partake together. In the same manner, He also took the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me."
Let's partake together. Lord, we thank you that...
Our standing as set free from the bondage to sin and death in the world is not because we purged out the leaven. The standing we have is because Your body and blood were broken and shed. Now, because of that, You, by Your Spirit, want to make us a new lump. You do that when we come before You, opening the doors and the windows and saying, "God, this is who I am. Will You forgive me?"
Lord, You inspired John to write, "If we confess our sin, You, God, are faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness." God, we thank You for Your cleansing power. We open up the doors of our hearts in this moment and say, "God, clean us out. We rejoice in Your goodness."
God, help us not to become accidental Pharisees. It's easy to fall into that trap. But Lord, we desire to walk in Your righteousness, not our own. Any righteousness we have is not our righteousness; it's what You have given to us. We rejoice in that.
Scripture in this teaching
12Passages opened in this message
Related teachings
12Other messages that open the same passages