Mark 8:14

And they forgot to take bread; and they had not in the boat with them more than one loaf. And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.

REGARDING THE LEAVEN OF THE PHARISEES AND HEROD

Forgot to take bread ... This lapse on the part of the Twelve led to their misunderstanding Jesus' reference to "leaven," but Jesus here used that term as a reference to the teachings, philosophy, and life-style of the Pharisees, Sadducees (Matthew 16:6) and Herod. It is very significant that Christ found it necessary here to utter this warning to his apostles.

The leaven of the Pharisees ... has reference to their hypocrisy and deceit, and especially to the vicious campaign they had launched in an effort to refute Jesus' claim to be the divine Messiah of Israel. They were advocating the rejection of their Messiah with every cunning and lying argument possible. For a detailed catalogue of no less than twelve false charges they made against Christ, see my Commentary on Matthew, p. 240. Considering the power, respectability, and influence of those Jewish leaders, it was most appropriate that the Lord warn his apostles to prevent their deception by his unscrupulous foes.

The leaven of the Sadducees ... mentioned, not here, but in Matthew, coincided with that of the Pharisees as far as it regarded opposition to Christ; but their teaching had additional dimensions of secularity and materialism beyond that of the Pharisees. They did not believe in the existence of angels, nor in the resurrection of the dead, and were as cold-blooded a group of crass materialists as ever lived on earth.

The leaven of Herod ... This was the leaven of renunciation concerning all the vaunted hopes of Israel. The Herodians were a prominent sect of the Jews who were willing to give up their sacred inheritance and accommodate with the military power of the Romans, whose vassal Herod Antipas was. Herod Antipas (this son of Herod the Great) was also a profligate, licentious, and unprincipled prince whose sensuous life and dissolute family were a prime scandal of that whole generation.

How strange it is that the apostles failed, at first, to catch the Lord's meaning in these words. Needless to say, the same "leaven" is found in the teachings of men today.