Creation · Biblical Holy Days
Why Do Christians Remove Leaven? The Days of Unleavened Bread Explained
If someone has ever asked you why you turned down a burger in the spring and you did not have a clean answer ready, this is the answer.
By Keith Hoeck · Pastor, Greater Phoenix Church of God
Adapted from the sermon “The Hidden Manna” 8 min read
In short
The Days of Unleavened Bread are seven days commanded in Exodus 12, immediately following Passover, during which God’s people remove all leaven from their homes and eat unleavened bread. Christians who observe them do so because Paul connected the practice directly to Christ, calling Jesus our Passover and instructing believers to purge out the old leaven (1 Corinthians 5:7-8). Leaven pictures sin: small, quiet, and spreading.
What God actually commanded
The instructions are specific, and they were given the same week Israel walked out of Egypt.
“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.”
Exodus 12:15
And two verses later, God gives the reason and the duration:
“So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance.”
Exodus 12:17
Read the language carefully. Not a suggestion. Not a cultural preference. Something to be observed, something to be remembered, and something to continue through the generations.
Keith Hoeck makes a distinction in this message that is worth holding onto. God gave His people a week of physical activity that would teach them something they could not learn from a lecture.
It was never a ritual. It was a living lesson.
What leaven pictures
Leaven is the agent that makes bread rise. Yeast. It is a tiny quantity of something that changes the entire character of a much larger mass.
Paul uses that exact property as a picture:
“Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?”
1 Corinthians 5:6
That is the lesson in a sentence. Sin does not usually enter a life as a decision. It works quietly. It is subtle. It spreads. And by the time you can see the effect, the whole lump has already changed.
Jesus used leaven the same way. He warned His disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees (Matthew 16:6), and Luke records Him defining exactly what He meant: beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy (Luke 12:1). The warning shows up more than once across the Gospels, which tells you something about how easy it is to miss.
So when God says remove the leaven, search for it, be intentional, do not allow it to remain, He is teaching a pattern of behavior toward something far more dangerous than yeast.
Why Christians keep these days
This is the question most people actually want answered, and the New Testament answers it directly.
Paul is writing to a Gentile congregation in Corinth. He is correcting them about tolerated sin in the church. And the argument he reaches for is the Days of Unleavened Bread:
“Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
1 Corinthians 5:7-8
Three things in that passage are worth slowing down for.
“Christ, our Passover.” Paul identifies Jesus as the fulfillment of the Passover lamb. The feast was pointing at Him all along.
“Since you truly are unleavened.” Paul tells believers they already are what the week pictures. Their identity in Christ has made them clean. Jesus said the same thing to His disciples: you are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you (John 15:3).
“Therefore let us keep the feast.” Paul does not treat the observance as retired. He treats it as meaningful, and he tells a Gentile church to keep it, with the emphasis on sincerity and truth rather than on the bread.
That is the biblical case in a nutshell. The feast points to Christ, Christ has made you unleavened, and Paul says keep it anyway, because the week teaches you to live like what you already are.
It was never about the bread
Here is the turn that changes the whole week for most people who observe it.
God told Israel to remove the leaven from their houses. All of it. Every bit. Search for it.
But the search is the point, not the crumbs.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.”
Psalm 139:23-24
That is David asking for the same search, applied to the only place it ultimately matters. The physical search trains you to run the spiritual one.
Keith describes what that looked like for him. In one particular year, he found no leaven in his house at all. But he found a little leavening of hurt. A little intolerance. A negative attitude. A raised voice.
None of that shows up in a pantry. All of it shows up in a marriage.
What the week actually looks like
For those unfamiliar with the practice, here is the plain version.
| Timing | What happens |
|---|---|
| When | Seven days beginning the day after Passover, in the spring. The dates follow the biblical calendar, not a fixed civil date. |
| Before | Homes are cleaned out. Bread, yeast, baking mixes, and anything containing leavening agents are removed. |
| During | No leavened products are eaten. Unleavened bread is eaten during the week (Exodus 12:15). |
| The first and last days | Scripture designates these as holy convocations, days of assembly (Exodus 12:16). |
| What follows | The count toward Pentecost begins, moving from deliverance toward firstfruits. |
If you are looking at this from the outside, the honest observation is that it is a week of inconvenience with a purpose attached. You notice bread more in seven days without it than in fifty-one weeks with it. That noticing is the design.
The part worth carrying into the other fifty-one weeks
Pastor Keith raises a question in this message that lands well beyond the spring feast.
You gravitate toward things that are rich and full and puffed up. That is true of food, and it does not stop at food. You like things that elevate you. You like to feel full in yourself.
A week without leaven quietly interrogates that. And the point is not deprivation. The point is that a life shaped before God is worth more than anything the world is offering to fill you with.
Which brings you back to the bread that matters:
“I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.”
John 6:51
For what that bread is and what Jesus promised the one who receives it, read What Is the Hidden Manna in Revelation 2:17?
The Days of Unleavened Bread do not save you. Christ our Passover did that. What the days do is put a week on your calendar every year where you go looking for what you would otherwise leave alone.
That is worth seven days.
Frequently asked questions
What are the Days of Unleavened Bread?
They are seven days commanded in Exodus 12:15-17, beginning the day after Passover, during which leaven is removed from homes and unleavened bread is eaten. Scripture calls the observance an everlasting ordinance to be kept throughout the generations, commemorating God bringing Israel out of Egypt.
Why do some Christians still keep the Days of Unleavened Bread?
Because the New Testament connects the practice directly to Christ. In 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 Paul calls Jesus Christ, our Passover, tells believers to purge out the old leaven, and instructs a Gentile congregation to keep the feast with sincerity and truth.
What does leaven represent in the Bible?
Leaven represents sin, and specifically the way sin spreads. Paul writes that a little leaven leavens the whole lump (1 Corinthians 5:6). Jesus warned about the leaven of the Pharisees, which Luke records Him defining as hypocrisy (Luke 12:1).
Do you have to remove leaven to be saved?
No. Salvation comes through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Paul tells believers they truly are unleavened already because Christ our Passover was sacrificed for them (1 Corinthians 5:7). The observance is a taught practice that trains believers to examine and remove sin, not a means of earning salvation.
What foods are avoided during the Days of Unleavened Bread?
Foods containing leavening agents, including bread, yeast, baking soda and powder products, and most baked goods. Unleavened bread is eaten during the seven days in keeping with Exodus 12:15.
When are the Days of Unleavened Bread?
They begin the day after Passover in the spring and continue for seven days. The dates follow the biblical calendar rather than a fixed civil date, so they shift each year.
Keep studying
Hear the full message
Keith Hoeck taught this message, “The Hidden Manna,” at Greater Phoenix Church of God. The teaching on leaven and the spring feast sits inside it.
Greater Phoenix Church of God
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