Holy Hormones Bible Study: Teaching — not Entertainment
THE MYSTERIOUS PARABLES EXPLAINED TO THE PERPLEXED #4 Leaven
Who speaks from two faces?
Will all the parables be discussed in this series?
No. Only some of the popular ones about the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew.
Is there a difference between the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God?
That will be discussed later in the series.
Before we start
First there is a Theological Concept that requires explanation if it is new to you, Expositional Consistency. When the Holy Spirit establishes an idiom, it remains constant throughout the Bible. The key is provided by Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:4 || “and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.” Now, if you have been doing more than just skimming, every time you encounter written, “Rock,” you will read, “Christ.”
The Parable of the woman and the leaven
Matthew 13:33 || 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.”
A common interpretation
It would be unusual if you, as an NT Saint, had not heard a teaching along the lines of this:-
The leaven or yeast in this parable represents the kingdom of God. The point about the yeast is that it permeated and leavened all of the dough into which it was placed. This represents the universal nature of God’s kingdom. It is a world wide kingdom, a kingdom spread through all the earth.
With the following rider:-
The figure of leaven or yeast is also used by Jesus and the apostles to represent the very opposite of what it does in this parable. Jesus said, for example, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (Matthew 16:6). We observe from this that evil also can permeate the whole world, just as much as can the goodness of God. We have to choose which of these leavens we will nurture, and which we will kill.
A reasonable question is, “How do you tell which is which? God is not the Author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33).
The fatal flaw in the common interpretation
This is a Didymus situation. The entire Bible is predicated on Humanity being not very bright. The Lord never lets us dangle to make our own decision because He knows it will be the wrong one. When He lays before Israel the question about choosing life or death He gives them the correct answer.
Deuteronomy 30:19 || I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;
This is the reason for the Principle of Expositional Consistency — but perhaps you don’t subscribe to that principle.
Check the patterns in the parable
The Kingdom of Heaven has been identified as the Church in the Parable of the Wheat and Tares.
Obviously, no man is mentioned here but the parable is in the Kingdom category so where does it fit into a pattern?
In his instruction to husbands regarding wives in Ephesians 5:25–32,
Paul reveals the Mystery of Christ and the Church. So this parable fits the pattern and can be legitimately interpreted as such. And it can be seen that this relates to actions of the church.
What would be the words unspoken that Torah observant Jews would hear?
Though this parable is about the same length as the Pearl of Great Price, there is much more information about leaven than pearls.
“Three measures of meal”: To a Muslim or a Jew, this historically suggests the Oaks at Mamre (Genesis 18) when the Lord accepted an offer of a meal, which included bread, from Abraham. From the context (everything was rushed) the bread was unleavened. From that time on, three measures of meal are the fellowship offering in those cultures.
It was wrong to hide leaven in the measures of meal!
Leaven in Jewish terms is a symbol of sin. Example: The Passover ceremony to get the leaven out of the house. Leaven is sin because it corrupts by puffing up, and the puffing is caused by a process of rotting vegetation.
There is much said about leaven/yeast.
Matthew 16:6 || Then Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.”
Matthew 16:11–12 || How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? — but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Twice Paul warns against even a little bit of hypocrisy in the Church (1 Corinthians 5:6, Galatians 5:9) Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? This comes from the OT, Haggai 2:10–14.
In the next text Jesus defines the sin represented symbolically by leaven — the two-faced life rampart in church leadership. They break the third commandment.
Luke 12:1 || In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together, so that they trampled one another, He began to say to His disciples first of all, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
He is warning of the False Prophets who are going to enter the pulpits. It was the same with Priests in the Temple. Read the Book of Jeremiah and compare that era to today, remembering that Jeremiah was the Prophet in Jerusalem warning of the destruction coming to the City and the Temple. He fearlessly spoke Truth to Power but he was stymied by False Prophets who spoke Fables to Power.
Do you think Jesus got it wrong? When looking for apostasy in a church, start at the pulpit.
Conclusion from the evidence presented
The Church will not be perfect, it will be impure. Leaven will be introduced and it will grow and contaminate. This parable is a prophecy of the Church age!
Exegesis and Eisegesis
Perhaps some people are unfamiliar with these terms. Simply:-
Exegesis: Extracting what is actually written in the original text to get the correct intended idea.
Eisegesis: Injecting a preconceived idea into the original text and torturing the latter to line up with the preconception.
The common interpretation of this parable presented at the beginning of this post is an example of Eisegesis. It is a jolly thought bubble of a Torah-fied NT Saint that does not line up with what Jesus said.
Finally Brethren
Perhaps the jolly thought bubble was not the fault of the Bubbler. Depending on his favourite translation, there may have been nothing Biblical on which to hang the parable.
To make it more acceptable to modern times, 22 of the 61 translations did not translate what is written the both the Greek texts, Textus Receptus and Morphological GNT, which is three measures of meal. The selection of alternatives is fifty pounds, a bushel, a big bowl, large tub, large amount, a measure, the dough for dozens of loaves, sixty pounds, thirty kilograms, many cups. One translation gave a whole lot; large tub; three sata; about fifty pounds. This parable cannot be correctly interpreted without the connection to Abraham’s meal prepared for the Lord. These alterations gave an idea of the size of the flour but absolutely no indication of any meaning. No wonder people scratch their heads and ask, “Why?” and leave.
My question is, did this dumbing-down to today’s culture give any understanding of the words of Christ when He spoke them? You decide.
A sad episode in Australia
In an effort to get bums-on-seats, and become more relevant, at the turn of the Century one of the Anglican Diocese on the East Coast printed copies of the four gospels to hand out to the youth. Each of the Gospels had a forward written by a secular teenage idol — none being believers. The one I remember was the leader of a Hard Rock band who did the forward on the Gospel of John. His conclusion was along the lines, “I think that Jesus was a good man but weak.” For some reason he became the darling of the church (all denominations) and spent a number of years being flown all over the country to be an “expert” panel guest at non-confrontational Christian Men’s Meetings. The idea was that the church was trying to show those outside that we are just normal people so they won’t be scared off. “Come and see how nice we are and perhaps you’ll join us.” There seems to be no difference between church and God.
The rate of Islam conversion is increasing in Australia. Strangely, the happy hunting ground is disillusioned Denominational expats tired of being no different to their “No Religion” neighbours.
The forgoing evidence has not been presented to convince any reader but to allow a personal decision to be made. There is much more to know about this subject. Perhaps you’ll pay another visit, sometime.
All Glory to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
(We all have a plank in our eye. It’s bigger than we think.)
