Shincheonji lesson 19: figurative yeast

Where SCJ’s reading conflicts with the Bible

This lesson defines yeast as “teachings,” warns against the yeast of the Pharisees, who were “the religious leaders of that time,” and says those who take in Satan’s yeast become “a child of hell.” It ends by pointing students to “the one God and Jesus are working through, who cares for his people like a shepherd,” and says “Jesus promises to send a Shepherd who will give proper teachings.” SCJ’s The Explanation of Parables (p. 21) says hope of heaven comes “only” through the instructions “that God’s true shepherd gives.” The Bible does warn about false teaching, and the warning about the Pharisees is real. But Jesus’ own definition of their yeast, and the verses around it, point straight back at the practices of this course.

1. 1. The same symbol, opposite meanings

   The board says “Yeast = Teachings or Instructions.”

   • In Matthew 13:33, yeast is a good image: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of flour until all the dough had risen.” The point is that the kingdom quietly spreads until it fills everything.
   • In Matthew 16:12, Jesus uses yeast for the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees, which is bad.
   • Paul uses yeast for “vice and evil” (1 Corinthians 5:8) and for a persuasion that pulls believers away from the truth: “A little yeast makes the whole batch of dough rise!” (Galatians 5:7-9).

   Yeast means different things in different passages. Each is explained by its own context, not by a fixed dictionary. The same is true of seed and birds (see Lesson 15 and Lesson 17).

2. 2. The woman is not a shepherd

   The Explanation of Parables (p. 141) says the woman in Matthew 13:33 is a “Shepherd,” citing Galatians 4:19.

   • Galatians 4:19 says: “My children—I am again undergoing birth pains until Christ is formed in you!” Paul pictures himself as a mother in labor for the Galatians. There is no shepherd and no yeast in the verse.
   • In Matthew 13:33, the woman is an ordinary detail of a household scene. Jesus’ point is the yeast’s effect, the kingdom spreading through the whole batch.
   • Turning her into a shepherd is how the book makes even this short parable point to SCJ’s leader.

3. 3. What Jesus meant by “little faith”

   The lesson says, on Matthew 16:8, “for our faith to grow, our understanding must grow first.”

   • Jesus’ rebuke: “You who have such little faith! Why are you arguing among yourselves about having no bread?” (16:8). Their little faith was worry about bread.
   • He reminds them: “Don’t you remember the five loaves for the 5,000, and how many baskets you took up? Or the seven loaves for the 4,000 and how many baskets you took up?” (16:9-10). They had seen him provide and still worried.
   • Then he explained himself, and “they understood” right away (16:12). There was no long course before understanding.

   Faith in Scripture grows by trusting what Jesus has done and said, not by first mastering a system.

4. 4. The yeast of the Pharisees is hypocrisy, and Jesus ties it to hidden things

   The lesson correctly cites Luke 12:1: “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” Read the next two verses:

   “Nothing is hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing is secret that will not be made known. So then whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms will be proclaimed from the housetops.” (Luke 12:2-3)

   • Jesus links hypocrisy to concealment: saying one thing in public while hiding another.
   • A course that doesn’t disclose up front who runs it, or what it will finally teach about its leader, is practicing the concealment Jesus connects with the Pharisees’ yeast.

5. 5. Jesus’ warning about “a child of hell” was aimed at zealous recruiters

   The lesson uses Matthew 23:15 to say whoever receives Satan’s yeast becomes a “child of hell.” Read the whole verse:

   “Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You cross land and sea to make one convert, and when you get one, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves!” (Matthew 23:15)

   • Jesus’ charge was against religious teachers who worked very hard to win converts to their own system.
   • In the same chapter, he warns against leaders who “tie up heavy loads, hard to carry” (23:4) and says, “You keep locking people out of the kingdom of heaven!” (23:13). He tells his disciples, “you have one Teacher and you are all brothers” (23:8).

   The warning applies to any group that recruits zealously into its own system, places heavy demands on members and sets up a teacher beside Christ.

6. 6. Who are “those appointed to educate the congregation”?

   The review says Jesus warned his disciples “about the teachings from those appointed to educate the congregation.”

   • Jesus did warn against the Pharisees’ teaching. But their problem was hypocrisy and human rules that overrode God’s commands: “you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down” (Mark 7:6-13). It was not that they were appointed teachers.
   • The New Testament appoints pastors, teachers and elders in the church (Ephesians 4:11; Titus 1:5-9) and asks believers “to acknowledge those who labor among you” (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13).
   • Framing “those appointed to educate the congregation” as the Pharisees sets up the student’s own pastor as the one to distrust.

7. 7. Jesus’ authority is his own

   The lesson says Jesus’ teaching was “like the Word coming unlocked,” unlike the teachers of the law, and uses this as a pattern for a new teacher at the second coming.

   • Jesus’ authority came from who he was. The crowd said, “A new teaching with authority! He even commands the unclean spirits and they obey him” (Mark 1:27). After the resurrection he said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18).
   • He sent his disciples out, “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (28:20). Their task was to pass on his teaching, not to wait for a new figure with fresh authority.

8. 8. Ephesians 4: The new self is God’s work

   The lesson reads Ephesians 4:21-24 as receiving “new yeast,” and compares it to working out: “one year of inactivity can erase that hard work.”

   • Paul reminds the Ephesians that they “heard about him and were taught in him, just as the truth is in Jesus” (Ephesians 4:20-21). The teaching is about Jesus.
   • The new self is “the new man who has been created in God’s image—in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth” (4:24). God creates it.
   • Paul is sure “that the one who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6). Salvation isn’t a muscle that disappears after a year off.

9. 9. Balaam and the Nicolaitans: Jesus explains them

   The lesson says Balaam in Revelation 2:14 “serves as a parable” for deceptive teaching at the second coming.

   • Jesus explains it in the same verse: Balaam “instructed Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality” (2:14). The problem in Pergamum was concrete: idolatry and immorality in that first-century church.
   • The letter was written to a real church in Pergamum (2:12). It doesn’t need to be decoded as a parable for a modern era.
   • SCJ later assigns names like “Nicolaitans” to specific people in its own history. Revelation 2 already says what the problem was (2:15).

10. 10. The review says “Jesus promises to send a Shepherd”

    The review says “Jesus promises to send a Shepherd who will give proper teachings.”

    • Jesus promised to send a teacher, but not a human shepherd: “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and will cause you to remember everything I said to you” (John 14:26).
    • He adds that “when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth” (16:13).
    • John writes to ordinary believers: “the anointing that you received from him resides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you” (1 John 2:27).
    • Jesus himself is “the good shepherd” (John 10:11) and “the Chief Shepherd” (1 Peter 5:4).

    The Bible names the Holy Spirit as the teacher Jesus sends, and Jesus as the shepherd.

11. 11. The last trumpet: The dead are raised

    The Explanation of Parables (p. 141) ties the change to “the time when the last of the seven trumpets sounds,” and says under 1 Corinthians 15:51-54: “The flesh and blood of those who have already died do not come to life again.”

    Paul says the opposite in the passage the book cites:

    • “We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).
    • Paul writes that “the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

    At the last trumpet the dead are raised, and the change happens in an instant at Jesus’ return. It is not a gradual change of hearts through a shepherd’s instructions over years.