Quote:
Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
Well we have had a lot of discussion on the meaning of leaven in the Bible. I have come to the conclusion through all those discussions that WL understanding and teaching of leaven is inaccurate. So I would encourage you to discard that teaching first.
My reasoning is this. The OT said "purge out the old leaven" and this referred to once a year removing all of the leaven from the house for a week. In order to make leavened bread the Israelites would have kept a cup of sour dough by the hearth. Once a year this sour dough would have been thrown away. To make a new batch they would make unleavened bread, remove a lump and put it in the cup. A week later it would be a new batch of sour dough. They would then put this into the dough every time they made bread and before cooking they would remove a lump to go back into the cup for sour dough. God did not tell them to stop making leavened bread, rather his emphasis was on "the old" leaven. After all, if leaven signifies sin then why did Israel eat leavened bread 51 weeks out of the year?
So, if you consider it, the worst thing about the teachings of WN and WL is that the LRC refuses to purge out the old leaven. If instead WN and WL were merely treated as those who baked bread for many years and passed on the art to us, and now the LRC is full of those baking bread, the errors of the teaching would seem minor and easy to correct. The real issue is his teachings are becoming codified. The Lord said to purge out the old leaven, not venerate it.
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My use of the phrase "purge out the leaven" has nothing to do with the O.T. practice of the Israelites. My understanding is based on I Cor. 5.6-13, Gal 5.7-9, and Matt. 16.11-12. Here Jesus instructs His disciples to "
beware of the leaven of the Pharisees" referring to their teachings. These teachings had to be removed or purged from the disciples. After the Lord gave them this warning, He took them to Philippi, and asked them, "
who do men say that I am? Obviously the leaven of the Pharisees hindered them from knowing who Christ really was.
In Corinth, the church there was "glorying" in evil things. Their thinking and teachings about moral matters was leavened, so Paul warned them to purge out these teachings of malice and wickedness. Paul even went further to instruct the church to separate themselves from those who practice such evil. To the Galatians, Paul reminded them of how well they were running after Christ, but were leavened by the teachings of the Judaizers. They had not been persuaded by Him who had called them, but by leavened teachings which affected the whole lump.
Both Jesus and Paul struggled to expose the teachings, practices, ways, patterns, thoughts, principles, methods, etc. which collectively could be considered as "leaven." These much be purged, so that what remains can be a new lump of fine flour, representing Christ and His pure word. One brother has wisely said, "we got lots of extras" in the LC's. These extras are the leaven which require purging. The Lord never said to throw the "lump" out with the leaven.