The Feast of Unleavened Bread

Part 2 of 6 in The Feasts of the Lord

Parte 2 de 6 de la serie The Feasts of the Lord

Read the full transcript · Leer esto en espanol

Brian Hunter · April 27, 2025

Scripture Referenced

Recap

Continuing through the seven feasts of the Lord following Passover and Easter, Brian turned to the often-overlooked Feast of Unleavened Bread in Leviticus 23:6-8. He reminded the church that these feasts belong to God himself, not just to Jewish tradition (Scripture repeatedly calls them “my feasts”) and that honoring them is a way of understanding a “family tradition” that points forward to Christ, not a return to Old Covenant law.

Brian unpacked the meaning of the leaven or yeast that had to be completely removed from every Israelite home during the festival: in the Old Testament, leaven represents sin, and Jesus later expands that definition in Luke 12:1 to include hypocrisy and false teaching, anything not of God that has worked its way into a person’s heart. He described the traditional Jewish practice of meticulously scouring a home from top to bottom before Passover to remove every trace of yeast, drawing a parallel to Philippians 4:8’s call to meditate instead on what is pure, holy, lovely, and true, replacing what’s removed with something better rather than leaving an empty space.

The message closed by tying the physical search for leaven to a spiritual practice: inviting the Holy Spirit to search a person’s heart, expose what doesn’t belong, and remove it, rather than leaving that painstaking work to human effort alone.

Touch Points

1. Leaven represents sin in the Old Testament and hypocrisy in Jesus’s teaching. Is there a specific “leaven” in your own life you’ve been avoiding dealing with?
2. The Jewish tradition involved a meticulous, room-by-room search for yeast before Passover. What would that kind of thorough self-examination look like in your own heart?
3. Philippians 4:8 calls believers to replace what’s removed with what is pure and lovely, not leave an empty space. What could you intentionally meditate on this week in place of something you’re trying to remove?
4. Brian said honoring these feasts isn’t about returning to the law but understanding a family tradition pointing to Christ. Did this teaching change how you think about the Old Testament feasts?

Read the full transcript · Leer esto en espanol