Parable of Leaven: End Times View
Everyone changes their mind. As we live and learn our viewpoints make adjustments as we understand the progress of the end times more clearly. That’s where I am with the parables of Matthew and Luke 13 both recording Jesus’ teachings using leaven or yeast as an example of Kingdom Living. Good teachers have a flow to their message, not changing direction midstream, if they want to drive home a clear point. The flow from our Master Teacher for the day was the Sower/Seed to the Wheat/Weeds and now to the Mustard Seed/Leaven; they were undoubtedly directing our attention to preparing our faith for the end times.
As the birds were portrayed as outside influences of evil against the Church (Mustard Seed) now Jesus shows us inside influences that operate like leaven causing dough to rise. In the Bible leaven is almost exclusively portrayed as evil or sin (Ex. 34:25; Lev. 2:11; Mal. 1:7) and forbidden by God. Jesus indicted the Pharisees with a warning to beware of their leaven of hypocrisy (Luke 12). He always directs our attention to the inside, our hearts, making sure we understand the necessity of good soil (Sower/Seed).
Jesus said it’s like a woman who adds leaven to three measures of dough; that’s not bread for one family but a huge amount! Next, she hides it, leaving it alone to slowly rise penetrating the entire batch. Leaven begins its work permeating and bubbling over advancing its process; you can’t immediately see anything but eventually the hidden power of yeast will become evident. Everyone would’ve understood this one-sentence story and so should we.
Leaven has been working inside the Church since it began. Religious leaders caught in the trap of legalism persecuted those walking in the freedom of Christ. As a former persecutor Paul understood the danger of leaven, writing (Gal. 5) that it only takes a little to permeate our thinking. The contrast is unmistakable.
Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 1 Corinthians 5:8
Repentance is the key, humility before God, not puffed up like leaven. We eat the unleavened bread, Jesus’ body, in Communion not by coincidence.
Church History reveals many times when harsh persecution from the inside infiltrated, like leaven, into believers’ hearts. From the Pharisees in the first century (Acts 8) to the Church in Rome in the seventeenth, both demanded total submission to their authority. After the Reformation tens of millions were executed worldwide for refusing the old leaven of legalism: it was bubbling over. False apostles, prophets, and teachers are also leaven in our time to draw us away from the truths of Scripture.
Jesus walked around the seven churches of Revelation 2-3 warning that Kingdom Living included persecution from the outside and the inside until His Return … it’s inevitable but our faith can be ready and prepared.
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