SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/15/2022 10:03 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The Parable of the Leaven”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
13:33
Message of the verse: “33 He spoke
another parable to them, "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a
woman took, and hid in three pecks of meal, until it was all leavened.’”
I mentioned in our last SD about the word
fermentation, and because leaven causes this some interpreters insist that in
Scripture it always signifies that which is evil and corrupting when it is used
figuratively. MacArthur adds “But such a
restrictive view is arbitrary and certainly does not fit the present text. Jesus specifically says that the kingdom of
heaven, the most positive of all influences imaginable, is like leaven. To take leaven as representing evil that
permeates the kingdom is to twist the obvious meaning and construction of words—whether
in the Greek or English texts. Nor does that
interpretation fit Jesus’ development of this group of parables, in which this
one parallels that of the mustard seed.
They both illustrate the power of the kingdom to overcome the resistance
and opposition illustrated in the parables of the sower and of the wheat and
tares.”
Let
us now look at Luke 12:1 and then comment on that verse: “Under these circumstances, after so many
thousands of people had gathered together that they were stepping on one
another, He began saying to His disciples first of all, "Beware of the leaven of
the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”
The highlighted portion of this verse is what I want to focus in on. Here we see that leaven is used in relation
to something evil, but the point is not that leaven and hypocrisy are both
inherently evil but that they both are inherently pervasive and powerful in
their influence. Paul uses leaven in the
same way in his letter to the Galatians, not to illustrate the evil of legalism,
and we know is great, but rather to point out its great influence: “A little leaven leavens the whole lump of
dough” (Gal. 5:9).
4/15/2022 10:16 AM 4/15/2022 11:19 AM
Now
I want to conclude this SD with a very important quotation from MacArthur’s
commentary. “As Paul indicts the
Corinthians for arrogant indifference to the gross immorality of some of the
church members, he states the same well-known proverb that he uses in Galatians
and that Jesus had in mind in this parable:
‘Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?’
(1 Cor. 5:6). He is speaking in the
context of demanding that believers remove immoral members from their midst, in
order that the evil conduct might not contaminate the rest of the church (vv.
2-5). Here again, the figure of leaven
is used in regard to something evil, but the focus of the analogy is not on
common evil but on common permeation.”
One
more quote and I believe that if we understand this quotation that we will
understand the parable that Jesus is giving.
“As Paul continues his warning to the Corinthians, he also uses leaven
to represent discontinuation. Israel
under Moses was commanded not to take any leaven from bread in Egypt as they
prepared to leave that land of captivity and oppression and journey toward the
Promised Land. In the same way,
Christians are commanded to ‘clean out the old leaven’ of ‘malice and
wickedness’ that characterized their unsaved lives and take nothing of it into
their new life in Christ (1 Cor. 5:7-8a).
The bread of their new life in Christ is then called ‘the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth’ (V. 8b).
“But
no analogy can be pressed to far. In
this instance Paul uses leaven to illustrate the discontinuity that should be
evident between an unsaved and a saved life.
The relationship of leaven to the evil of the old life and of no leaven
to the righteousness of the new life is incidental. The focus is on discontinuity, just as in the
parable it is on permeation and influence.”
I hate to stop here but it is necessary
and we will conclude this section, Lord willing in our next SD.
4/15/2022 11:31 AM
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