How Much Yeast Have You Been Eating?

Matthew 13:33
Jesus spoke another parable to them, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.”

This is one of Jesus’ many “Kingdom parables” where He compares the Kingdom of God to something else in order to relate truth about how His Kingdom operates. And at first glance, this parable could be interpreted as God’s Kingdom positively affecting the world around it. However, I think if we dig a little deeper we’ll find something different.

In this parable Jesus used the Old Testament understanding of leaven along with an example from his culture to relate a truth about the Kingdom of God.

So what does the Old Testament (and parts of the New Testament) say about leaven? Well, according to the following passages, it is consistently shown in Scripture as exemplifying the presence of impurity or evil.

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Living by Grace through Faith

How does a person become a Christian? I think the majority of existing Christians would say that a person gets saved by accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior or by simply believing in Jesus or by accepting the free gift of grace from God. And any of these would be correct. Paul wrote to the Ephesian church “For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

However, when asked how a Christian becomes mature in their faith, most Christians will answer: by reading your Bible, doing daily devotions, praying often, going to every church service, getting connected to a small group, giving to the church and missions, by serving at your church, etc.

Not that doing any of those activities are bad––in fact, they’re all very good things to be involved with––but none the less, they are just activities. They are merely external events that we can choose to do.

Instead, I believe the way for a Christian to become spiritually mature is to live life the same way they received eternal life––by the grace of God through faith in Jesus. Let’s take a look at Galatians to study this a bit further.

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