The Parable of the Leaven #19

The Parable of the Leaven, sometimes called the Parable of the Yeast, is one of the shortest parables of Jesus, a single sentence comparing the kingdom of heaven to yeast a woman mixes into flour. It appears in two Gospels, Matthew (Matthew 13:33) and Luke (Luke 13:20-21), and in both it is paired with the Parable of the Mustard Seed.

The Parable

In Matthew, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until the whole batch was leavened (Matthew 13:33). Luke gives the same story with a slightly different introduction. Jesus asks what he should compare the kingdom of God to, and then says it is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until it was all leavened (Luke 13:20-21). The wording is nearly identical, and the main differences are Matthew’s phrase kingdom of heaven versus Luke’s kingdom of God.

Context

In Matthew the parable follows the Mustard Seed as part of a chapter of kingdom parables told beside the Sea of Galilee. In Luke it also follows the Mustard Seed, but it belongs to a different setting: Jesus has just healed a woman on the Sabbath and been criticized by a synagogue leader, and the two short parables answer the question of how God’s reign could be present in so unassuming a way (Luke 13:10-19).

Three measures, or three seahs, of flour was a substantial quantity, roughly forty pounds or more, enough to make bread for a large gathering. The same quantity appears when Abraham and Sarah prepare bread for their three visitors (Genesis 18:6). The woman conceals the leaven in the flour, and a small piece of fermented dough works through the whole batch slowly and invisibly.

The image of leaven was rich in meaning. In the Old Testament, leaven had to be removed from homes during Passover (Exodus 12:15), and elsewhere in the New Testament it symbolizes corruption spreading, as when Jesus warns of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 16:6-12) or Paul warns that a little leaven leavens the whole lump (1 Corinthians 5:6-8). This is what makes the parable striking, since Jesus uses an image that his listeners would readily associate with impurity to describe the kingdom.

Meaning

Most interpreters take the leaven as the kingdom or the gospel, which works quietly and hidden, yet ultimately transforms everything it touches. Like the mustard seed, it contrasts an insignificant beginning with an outcome that is complete. Where the mustard seed emphasizes visible growth, the leaven emphasizes an inner, pervasive influence.

A minority of interpreters, particularly in some dispensational circles, read the leaven in its usual negative sense as a sign of corruption entering the church or the world, and they see the woman’s hiding of it as a sign of something wrong. Most Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant commentators reject this reading because both Gospels introduce the parable as a picture of the kingdom itself. Whichever way it is read, the parable invites patience: God’s work may not look impressive at first, but it will be thorough.