Building on the Foundation

  In Exodus 12:15, as it reads in most Bible versions, we find a puzzling statement. God commanded His people, “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel” (NKJV). “On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses.” This wording makes it sound as if we should deleaven our houses on the First Day of Unleavened Bread, a Holy Day! And yet, a few verses later, we discover, “For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land” (Ex. 12:19). If no leaven is to be found in our houses for seven days, then obviously it cannot be found in our houses on the First Day, either! It must already be gone by then. So what’s the meaning of v. 15? It becomes a little...

  In 1 Corinthians 11, the apostle Paul admonished us regarding the Passover, “Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (1 Cor. 11:27-28). This word “examine” is the same one translated “test” in 1 Thes. 5:21: “Test all things; hold fast what is good.” It’s Strong’s # G1381, dokimazo , and it means to try, test, examine, prove, or scrutinize. So before Passover, each one of us must scrutinize and examine his or her own heart, to avoid partaking in an unworthy manner. Among the Corinthians, failure to do this brought about God’s judgment: “For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep” (1 Cor. 11:30). Paul added, “For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged” (v. 31). By this time, most of us have probably begun de-leavening our houses in anticipation of the Feast of Unleaven...

  At His last supper, shortly before He died as our Passover Lamb, Jesus “took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you’” (Luke 22:19-20). Now, when we partake of unleavened bread and wine to remember Christ’s sacrifice, as commanded by our Savior Himself, what exactly does that mean? What are we doing when we eat that bread and drink that wine? Remembering our Savior’s sacrifice, certainly, but what else? Long before Jesus’ sacrifice, we find bread and wine in the Old Testament. For example, in Gen. 14:18-20, “Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High. And he blessed [Abraham].” And in Prov. 9:5, using poetic license, Solomon wrote that wisdom cries out to passersby, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.” Bu...