A Little Leaven
The Bulletin, 6/10/26
These articles are written to encourage Christians, and to be used by churches for their weekly bulletin.
All I ask is that credit is given with my name and the web address, bible101.substack.com
Baking loaves of bread with my kids has become one of my more enjoyable pastimes in the last year or so. It’s especially interesting to leave a lump of dough roughly the size of a softball and return a while later to a big, pillowy blob that has expanded up over the sides of the bowl.
That happens, of course, because of yeast, the leavening agent. When you look at the recipe, the yeast is one of the smallest ingredients, but without it, that rise into a delicious, fluffy loaf would never happen. In short, it changes the entire loaf.
Jesus famously drew on this reaction twice in His teachings. In Matthew 16:6-12, He warned His followers about the “leaven” of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” On the other hand, a few chapters earlier He compared the kingdom of heaven to leaven that a woman hid in her flour.
In both cases, it’s clear the Savior was using leaven as an illustration for influence.
If the Pharisees’ and Sadducees’ ways of thinking got into the disciples’ minds, they would be led astray. If the kingdom acts as it should, though, it can start small and influence the whole world.
He was not alone in using this metaphor. Twice Paul said “A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough” (1 Corinthians 5:6; Galatians 5:9). We also can read the Feast of Unleavened Bread, established as Israel left Egypt in Exodus 12-13, as a symbolic purging of Egypt’s influence on the people.
The point is, leaven changes anything it’s mixed into. Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes it’s a bad thing. That raises two questions we should ask ourselves: what leaven am I allowing into my life, and how am I being God’s leaven in the world around me?
Just as Israel had to purge Egypt’s leaven, so we have to diligently purge worldly influences from our lives and our homes, less they grow in our hearts and change who we are. And, as Jesus preached of a kingdom that acted as leaven, how are you changing the world around you for the better?
My wife makes those loaves of bread as well. Each time leaving the dough to set on the island in the kitchen near the stove top. And each time, it never fails to amaze me of how great its growth becomes. What a wonderful transformation it is to see in the before and after.