Advancing the Kingdom: Session 4 – A Little Leaven

Notes:

Beware of the Leaven    See Session Slides Here

Matt.13:33. In Scripture leaven, when used figuratively, is consistently a symbol of corruption. Leaven spreads and corrupts that with which it comes into contact by disintegrating it and breaking it down.

Leaven is anything added to baking that causes it to ferment and rise. In Biblical times it referred to a piece of dough from a previous baking, which had fermented and become acid. Here is the key. The Church was initially made up of people from two different backgrounds – Jews and Gentiles. Each brought their past influence into the Church which had a leavening influence. The apostles had to deal with these things:

1) Legalism, Gal.5:1-9. Judaizers attempted to bring the Law into the church but, like leaven, its effect was to corrupt. Paul sought to preserve it from corruption. He does so by teaching the true way to holiness – Christ. We were baptized into Christ, meaning we died to the Law and have become married to Him. He is now the source of our holiness. When one works with the Law he falls back into the power of his flesh. When one lives by grace He lives by faith in the Son of God and experiences God working in Him.

Legalism, then, is leaven. It nullifies the grace of God (Gal.5:2,4). When we relate to God via the law we leave the realm of grace and Christ is of no effect to us. It is grace, not law, which gives us victory over sin. Rom.6:14. So Paul seeks to prevent the corrupting influence of the leaven of legalism entering the Church.

2) Licentiousness, 1 Cor.5:6-8. This passage is not addressing a situation where someone is struggling with sin, but rather a person using the message of grace to live in sin. Some taught this in the Early Church. Jude 1:4. This too is leaven. How does Paul address the problem of one who wanted to go on living a life of sin?

He does not tell us to do something to become unleavened. He says that we truly are unleavened because Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us (1 Cor.5:7). We deal with sin by grace. Begin with identity and let that transform you. Position leads to condition. Eph.4:1. Rom.12:1. Being precedes doing. Be who you are.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread was a part of the Feast of Passover. Both symbolized the work of redemption from Egypt. The blood of the Passover Lamb represented the work of forgiveness of sins. Unleavened bread was waved before the Lord symbolizing the work of holiness, which is also a part of the work of redemption. God who took Israel out of Egypt is the One who takes Egypt out of Israel.

The woman “hid” (Gk. enkrupto), i.e. to hide in or to mix. Enkrupto from which we get our word ‘encrypt’. When someone encrypts a message they mix it up so that others do not understand what is being said. The major idea is to be sneaky or covert. Interestingly, both forms of leaven came in by stealth, (Gal.2:4; Jude 1:4).

The leaven was hid in three measures of meal:

  • The Leaven of the Pharisees. Man-made teaching corrupting the Word of God, Mark 7:6-13.
  • The Leaven of the Sadducees. The power of reason corrupting the Word of God.
  • The Leaven of the Herod. Mark 8:14-15. Humanism corrupting the Word of God. The Herod’s, unlike the Pharisees and the Sadducees, were not a part of the race of Israel. They were Edomites, descendants of Esau. They were of the flesh, earthly, worldly, godless.

When leaven is introduced it is impossible to separate it from that with which it is mingled.

Three measures of meal.” “So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quickly, make ready three measures of fine meal; knead it and make cakes” (Gen.18:6). God came down with two angels and had a meal with Abraham. What was the focus of this fellowship? The birth of the Promised Seed!

Christ is the Bread of life. Jn.12:24. “I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” ( 2 Cor.11:3.) The whole purpose of Scripture is not to give us information, but to bring us to Christ.


# Answers to this quiz are found in the notes above. Click on quiz to commence. Only correct spelling is recognised. A minimum 70%  correct is required to advance to the next session.