The Leaven

Good morning and welcome to Our Daily Walk.

Audio version at http://tinyurl.com/2lteez

When I was in grade school our class took a field trip to a bakery. I had never seen bread being made and I looked forward to learning how it was done. What amazed me was that these small balls of dough would soon rise to be a full loaf of bread.

On the tour the guide explained about how the ingredients were all combined and then the dough had to have time to rise before baking. That dough rose because of the yeast that was in it.

Yeast is a living organism and is easily obtained today. These unicellular organisms are neatly packaged so that if they are required for a recipe, all the cook has to do is open a packet and stir it in.

In the days of Jesus yeast, or leaven, was not available in packages. It was kept from one batch of dough to the next. Instead of putting in a packet of yeast, the cook in that time would add a pinch of an old batch of dough to the fresh batch.

Yeast feeds on the sugars in the dough and carbon dioxide is a byproduct of that process. The bread rises because of the carbon dioxide that is put off during the fermentation process.

Even a small amount of yeast will be able to quickly spread throughout the entire amount of dough. Also, once the yeast is introduced into the dough it would be very difficult to get it out.

Jesus spoke a short parable about leaven, or yeast. We find this in both Matthew 13:33 and also in Luke 13:20-21. Here are those readings.

Another parable He spoke to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.”

And again He said, “To what shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.”

There are two different representations of leaven in the New Testament. The positive use is that which Jesus identified when He compared the spreading of the kingdom of heaven to leaven.

The negative representation was also used by Jesus. In Mark 8:15 Jesus said, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” His disciples didn’t immediately understand what Jesus meant. But His point was to be careful and avoid having the influence of Herod or the Pharisees in their lives.

In Luke 12:1 Jesus identifies the leaven of the Pharisees to be hypocrisy. Saying one thing and doing another can be contagious. Beware that this type of influence doesn’t enter your life.

In 1 Corinthians 5:6-7 Paul compares leaven to the immorality that has been accepted by the church in Corinth. He says, “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened.”

That church had been boasting about accepting someone that was still in a state of ongoing sin. Paul said that this was not right and that their tolerance of sin would lead to even greater evils if they didn’t purge it while they could.

But let’s turn our attention once again to the positive use of the leaven. The kingdom of God is like leaven in the world. How? Like yeast it works from the inside and has no impact or effect until it is introduced.

Like yeast it changes what it touches and transforms from one thing to something even better. Like yeast it also is able to spread quickly and affect everything around it.

How can the word of God affect your life like leaven? First, it must be introduced to you. Next it will change and transform your life. Then it will provide an influence to all those who come into contact with you. What a wonderful process! From such a small beginning comes such a grand transformation.

On Our Daily Walk today, may we remember that God wants us to be an influence on this world around us. If not already, may we seek to have the word of God enter our lives and transform us into something far better.

Our thought for the day: “Christianity is meant to be bread for daily use, not cake for special occasions.”

May God bless you on your daily walk.

© Our Daily Walk, Mike Baker, 2007. Permission is granted to copy these articles provided they are not sold and the author's name and copyright are included.