Careful What You Eat

By:  Dale Weckbacher

Mark 8:15

As they were crossing the lake, Jesus warned them, “Watch out! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod.”

(NLT)

Jesus ministry was a ministry that resulted in the blind receiving their sight, the lame walking, lepers being cleansed, the deaf hearing, the dead being raised from the dead, and the poor hearing the Gospel (Matthew 11:5).   However, perhaps the most well-known of the miracles of Jesus is his feeding of the five thousand for it is mentioned in all four gospels (Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:30-44, Luke9:10-17, John 6:1-15).  I believe we must include food in the ministry of Jesus.

After watching the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand as well as the feeding of the four thousand (Mark 8:1-10), the disciples were concerned over the Jesus warning them to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod believing Jesus was reprimanding them for forgetting to bring any bread (Mark 8:14,16).  Once again, this is an example of Jesus’ disciples missing the point for Jesus was not speaking of food for Jesus had already demonstrated twice that he could provide food for them.  Instead Jesus was warning them against the yeast or words and teachings of the Pharisees and Herod.

The word translated yeast in Mark 8:15 means something that encourages mental and moral corruption.  (1)  It is something that although small in quantity infects something like a cancer.  Jesus warning was not a warning not to eat food from the Pharisees or Herod but a warning against the mental and moral corruption of their words.  Therefore, it is not a warning against eating certain foods but instead a warning to be careful not to allow mental and moral corruption to enter our hearts and minds. 

The recent election in the United States will go down in history as the election exposing the liberal compliant media who worked hard to insure Hillary Clintons nomination.  (2)  Fortunately, however, their efforts fell short resulting in the election of Donald Trump despite the compliant medias suppression of truth and propagation of lies. 

Pollsters also missed the mark by standing by their numbers showing a Clinton electoral victory and even reliance on exit polls which were compiled before the groundswell of Trump voters showed up to vote after a hard day of work on Election Day.  (3)  Polling is a statistical sampling of voters and as with all statistical sampling, is only as reliable as the sampling, which must come from a sample matching the overall population.  In the case of this election, the sampling excluded many Trump voters, resulting in erroneous results. 

Many in this election relied on the yeast of the mainstream media and pollsters instead of paying attention to the truth of the mood of the electorate.  The yeast of the mainstream media and pollsters was a yeast of the corruption of a biased media and pollsters relying on inaccurate sampling.  Those relying on this information were embarrassed and shocked at the Trump electoral victory.  My recommendations to both pollsters and the media is for them to begin,

1)      Doing their jobs – The job of media, and the reason they have constitutional protection under the first Amendment is to insure they can bring the public the truth without fear of retribution from whoever is in charge of the government.  Unfortunately, when the media becomes biased towards one political ideology, they suppress any story threatening their chosen ideology and may even concoct stories supporting that ideology.  I recommend they get back to doing their jobs of researching facts to determine the truth and reporting the truth of their findings to the public.  They also must bear in mind that the public now has access to information through the internet and social media unlike they have never had before and therefore can easily spot bias and lies, something that became apparent this election.

2)      Changing polling models to insure accuracy in sampling – This election, polling errored due to its being based on erroneous sampling.  (3)  Prior to the next presidential election in 2020 or even the next congressional election in 2018, pollsters must determine how to sample the correct cross-section of the electorate in order to insure more accuracy of polling.  Failure to do so will result in the public and media not trusting their polling and causing many polling organizations to go out of business. 

I encourage voters to do as they did this election, vote for the candidates that best promote their liberty and values.  In this election cycle, that candidate for President was Donald Trump who connected with voters across the country.  (4)  I encourage candidates to stop listening to flawed polls, biased media and consultants and instead go to voters as Trump did and make the connection with them in order to determine their needs and concerns.  For the rest of us, I encourage you to heed the words of Jesus and be careful not to feed our mind and spirit with morally and mentally corrupt information and instead feed ourselves on the Word of God so we can correctly discern truth from lies. 

1. BibleExplore.com. KJV W/ STRONGS BIBLE - MARK 8. www.godrules.net. [Online] BibleExplore.com. [Cited: November 26, 2016.] http://www.godrules.net/library/strongs2b/gre2219.htm.

2. Shapiro, Ben. Some Good News: This Election Has Exposed The Media. www.dailywire.com. [Online] The Daily Wire, November 8 2016, 2016. [Cited: 26 November.] http://www.dailywire.com/news/10596/some-good-news-election-has-exposed-media-ben-shapiro, 

3. Bomey, Nathan. How did pollsters get Trump, Clinton election so wrong? www.usatoday.com. [Online] USA Today, November 9, 2016. [Cited: November 26, 2016.] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2016/11/09/pollsters-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-2016-presidential-election/93523012/.

4. Elving, Ron. Trump Confounds The Pros, Connects With Just The Right Voters. www.npr.org. [Online] NPR, November 9, 2016. [Cited: November 26, 2016.] http://www.npr.org/2016/11/09/501387988/trump-confounds-the-pros-connects-with-just-the-right-voters.