When Jesus came into the lives of those fishermen from Galilee, His message sounded so different from anything they had ever heard. He did not teach as those leaders in the synagogue. The Sermon on the Mount ends with these words. “The people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (Matt. 7:28-29). His method of teaching was not the only difference between Him and other teachers. His message revealed a New Testament way of living.
When He described how John the Baptist fulfilled the prophecy that Elijah would come, the apostles could not understand how that could be. When He explained that difficult prophecy to them the Bible described what happened. “Then His disciples understood…” (Matt. 17:13).
In Matthew chapter sixteen, there is a description of His confrontation with the Pharisees and Sadducees and their request for a sign. He left them and went with His disciples to another place. He said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” They failed to see how He was not speaking of actual leaven, and they arrived at the conclusion that He was rebuking them because they had failed to bring bread so they could share it. Jesus rebuked them and described them as those who had such little faith. He reminded them of feeding the 5,000 and also of the 4,000. Had they remembered these two events, they should have understood that He was not concerned about getting bread. It was at this point that the situation changed. “Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of Pharisees and Sadducees” (v. 12).
There is a parallel to this event in our own world when those who are religious leaders fail to reveal the New Testament way of living. An illustration of this is the prevalence of the use of the sinner’s prayers to describe the path to Jesus. This prayer often consists of about twenty words—when one says it, he is told that he is immediately saved. This prayer is not found even one time in the entire Bible.
The first recorded use of it was in 1741, but it was not until the next century that it became widespread. Neither Jesus nor His apostles ever told any man to use this prayer. There is a path to heaven He has revealed to us. I challenge you to study the book of Acts, where many asked the question about what they must do to be saved and heaven’s answer to the question was given. It is far different from saying about twenty words! Consider these words, “Beware of the leaven (the teachings) of pastors and televangelists” who teach a path to salvation no one ever heard of for hundreds of years.