I love rich, heavy, nutritious manly bread and am repulsed by wimpy white, tasteless, empty, junk bread. But, no matter what our preference, bread can teach us plenty. In communion, we partake of Christ. The unleavened bread of Passover pictured a sinless life. Yet, leaven can also picture the kingdom of heaven multiplying. on the other hand, the leaven of false teaching also propagates dangerously.

In Matthew 16:5-12 Jesus warned his disciples sternly about the yeast of two very different groups of ancient religious leaders. What was it about their teaching that was such a problem, when they actually taught opposing doctrines? Certainly, neither of them acknowledged Jesus and his teachings. We may have a similar problem today. Many Christians give lip service to Christ, but ignore what he taught. It is so easy to be diverted from digesting Christ to something else. The Christian market place is full of tangents and side tracks for those who are bored with Christ and have itching ears.

Many Christians who want to stay faithful are concerned that they do not have enough depth of knowledge, wisdom or discernment to know what is a false teaching and what is not. How do we sort through the incessant variety of Christian publications and media available to us today, and not get led astray? We do not have to become professional theologians in order to sort out the mess.

In Jesus' teaching to the disciples about avoiding the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, he gave a simple key: remember the feeding of the two large crowds, the 5,000 and the 4,000. That was only physical food, but symbolic of the source of our true food, Jesus. When we get misled and confused, the best thing to do is to have faith that Jesus will also supply our spiritual food when we ask. That means that we also regularly digest the spiritual food that he has supplied. The more fully immersed we are in the life and teachings of the Master, the more easily we can discern between what is significant and what is an irrelevant distraction.

We hear two caricatures of our great grandmother's life. Feminists (dare we say, female chauvinist pigs) picture her as a "kept woman" trapped in housework. On the other hand, there are shall we say for equality's sake "masculists" (and we don't hesitate to say, male chauvinist pigs) who depict her as a woman of leisure sipping tea with the ladies' guild, while great grandpa slaved away to provide the physical necessities of life. Neither distortion is an honest picture yet they are readily promoted by a world anxious to dishonor and abandon the wisdom of our ancestors.

In Proverbs 31, we find a woman who is neither extreme. She is neither the brainless bond-slave to a dictatorial husband, nor the lazy woman of leisure, living off her husband's blood, sweat and tears. The first rather impressive description is that her husband safely trusts her. Now what does that mean? Trust is a two way street. You don't earn trust if you also can't give it. So, reading between the lines, I perceive that this is a relationship of mutual trust.

What does trust entail? He trusts her enough to make a decision on buying a field. Now how much money is that? In most of our countries today, that is perhaps worth an annual income or maybe even more. In my retail experience, I have found very few couples who would make a decision over a week's wages in value without the other's input. For a husband to safely trust his wife over something that would entail such a huge cost means to me that this is an extra-ordinary woman in an exceptional marriage.

Another rather remarkable description is that this woman is not constrained by her home duties, but is very enterprising. She not only makes an income from the field that she bought, but also imports goods from afar, and has a rather successful cottage industry which swells the family's income abundantly. Remarkably, she also has employees, but is not the "career woman" who neglects her family, farms the kids out to babysitters or daycare, while she is off gallivanting all over creation, but she manages to personally attend to her family's needs. Granted, there are times when we cannot avoid babysitters or daycare and they become a necessity of circumstances. The Proverbs 31 woman is not however, the absentee wife and mother. She has found a way to richly blend all of these things together.

Some people are offended by such an intelligent and capable home-centered women. In a self-centered world, where family is allowed to rot for the sake of a career, or selfish ambition, the Proverbs 31 woman stands as an example, shining the way for today's citizens that have the highest divorce and family breakdown rates in history. She is not a brainless Hausfrau, nor a selfish, man-hating, family-destroying feminist, but an exceptionally intelligent and graciously dependable woman who is able to preserve and blend family and business life into one seamless, healthy whole. Wow!

We have all experienced prejudice and are guilty of our own. Having lived in four countries and experienced the prejudices of each towards foreigners, I am repulsed by small-minded nationalistic chauvinism. When Jesus was on earth, the Jews had good reason for their prejudice. They were the chosen people, not by technology or conquest or wealth, but by God.

So, when Jesus met a Gentile woman, who wanted the privilege of him healing her daughter, he tested her faith, saying that he was only sent to the Jews. Jewish national exclusivism had a purpose in God's great plan up until the cross. God wanted to use the descendents of Abraham to bless the world, but people cannot handle privilege without prejudice. Quoting Jewish intolerance, Jesus said that it was not right to take food from the table that was for the children and give it to dogs. Jews referring to Gentiles as dogs was a well-known insult, a highly offensive ethnic slur.

We read the story in Matthew 15:21-28. Rather than being insulted by Jesus' apparent ethnic affront, the assertive woman reasoned with him as to why he should heal her daughter. We may sense some of the love of a mother, who would not take no for an answer. Also, like Martin Luther King, she boldly questioned social convention. Her faith was bigger than her racial sensitivities. Jesus reaction, "O woman!" indicates his elated surprise to see her faith. He immediately healed her daughter and like that of the Gentile centurion, described her faith as great. Such a glowing compliment coming on the heels of such an awful insult is the core of this lesson.

We may be tempted to conclude upon an initial reading of this passage, that Jesus was a racial bigot. This shows the importance of not judging by first impressions.  A good teacher will not always speak delicately, but often challenge students with an opposite view to bring out the best in them. Jesus, who created all of humanity is not racially bigoted. Throughout Jesus' ministry we see him ignoring Jewish ethnic purity sentiments and mixing with Gentiles as well. He was probably testing the woman to see her reaction and used this common racial slur as a tool to point out that faith, not race is what counts with God.

It is wise to get the whole story before jumping to conclusions about someone else's words. Waiting for the conclusion often shows just the opposite to be true. It is not race that counts with Jesus, but faith. He used the race card to point out that with God, faith is what really counts.