Latest / Reformed Thinking / Hidden Yet Unstoppable: The Kingdom of Heaven as Leaven (Matthew 13:33)

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Hidden Yet Unstoppable: The Kingdom of Heaven as Leaven (Matthew 13:33) · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome to another session of Reformed Thinking.
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  I'm so glad you've decided to join us.
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  We have a really fascinating topic on the table today, one
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  that I think, well, I think it hits home for a lot of us, even
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  if we don't always say it out loud.
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  We're looking at a specific tension in the Christian life.
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  You know, we live in an age that is absolutely, almost
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  obsessively, focused on the spectacular.
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  That's a good way to put it. Obsessed.
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  We measure success by noise. We measure it by crowds, by
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  visibility. If something isn't trending, if
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  it isn't loud, if it isn't going viral, we just sort of assume it
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  isn't working. It's not having an effect.
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  And that is a well, it's an accurate diagnosis of where we
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  are culturally. We're addicted to the spectacle.
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  The problem, though, is that this addiction often bleeds
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  right into our theology. It starts to shape what we
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  expect God to be doing in the world.
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  And that creates a real problem for us, a huge one actually,
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  because so often God is silent, or at least he seems silent.
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  He seems, you know, invisible. And for the modding line that
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  invisibility equals absence. If I can't see God working in a
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  big, loud, spectacular way, I just assume he's, well, he's
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  left the building. And it feels, it feels like a
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  scandal. It is the scandal of
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  invisibility, and it's not a new problem at all.
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  It's something the disciples themselves really struggled with
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  back in the 1st century, and it's something Jesus addressed,
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  you know, head on. That is what we're going to
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  unpack today. We have a stack of notes here,
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  all of them centered on one single sentence from Jesus.
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  It's from Matthew chapter 13, verse 33, the parable of the
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  leaven. The Kingdom of heaven is like
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  leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until
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  it was all leavened. It honestly it sounds like a
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  cooking recipe, but according to our sources, this one short
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  verse completely upends human logic about how the Kingdom
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  operates. It absolutely does.
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  It's a total world view correction.
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  Our mission today is to see how the Kingdom of Heaven actually
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  works. Like Levin, it's hidden, it's
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  internal. And yet it's inevitable.
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  And since this is reform thinking, we want to look at
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  this through a specific lens. We do.
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  We're going to examine this through the lens of Reformed
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  theology, looking specifically at the doctrines of grace and
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  what the Westminster standards have to say.
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  We really want to understand God's sovereignty in this whole
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  quiet, hidden process. I am ready to get into this.
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  It's just amazing how much density is packed into that one
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  sentence. You got a woman, some flower and
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  some yeast, and suddenly we're talking about what the nature of
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  the cosmos and salvation itself. Well, that's the genius of Jesus
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  teaching, isn't it? He uses the mundane, the
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  everyday to explain the magnificent.
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  But before we get to the flower in the yeast, we have to
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  understand the room Jesus is standing in when he says this.
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  We need the context. Right, good point.
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  This isn't just a random anecdote Jesus decided to drop
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  at a dinner party. This falls in Matthew 13.
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  Correct. And to really get Matthew 13,
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  you have to look at what's happening just before in Matthew
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  11 and 12. The atmosphere is incredibly
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  tense. I mean, this is not the gentle,
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  Jesus, meek and mild moment that people often imagine.
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  It's not a felt board Sunday school lesson.
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  Not at all. There was rising opposition.
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  The religious leaders are not just skeptical, they are openly
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  hostile. In Matthew 12 verse 24, the
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  Pharisees actually accused Jesus of casting out demons by the
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  authority of Beelzebul, the Prince of demons.
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  That is just that's such a heavy accusation.
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  They're not just disagreeing with his is teaching, they're
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  basically calling him a satanic agent.
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  Precisely. And what's more, it's not just
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  his enemies who are struggling. Even John the Baptist, his own
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  forerunner, is in prison. This is the man who leaped in
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  his mother's womb when Mary approached.
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  He's the one who prepared the way.
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  And he's having doubts. He is.
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  He sends a message from his prison cell asking are you the
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  one who is to come or should we look for another?
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  That's such a raw, human moment. John sitting in a cold, dark
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  cell, probably expecting the Messiah to, I don't know, kick
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  down the doors and overthrow Rome.
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  Of course, that was the expectation.
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  And instead Jesus is just walking around teaching people
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  and healing a few here and there.
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  It doesn't look like the revolution that John signed up
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  for. It's the crisis of unmet
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  expectations, and the disciples are right there with him feeling
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  the same thing. You have to remember their
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  theology of the Kingdom was entirely geopolitical.
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  They were waiting for a military conqueror.
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  A new King David. Yes, a Davidic king who would
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  drive out the Pagan Romans, who would clean up the corrupt
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  temple and establish visible, undeniable righteousness right
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  now, immediately. They wanted the lightning, they
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  wanted the Thunder, they wanted the spectacle.
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  And instead, what do they see? They see a Kingdom that looks
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  stalled, it looks weak, it's being opposed by the most
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  respected religious leaders, it's misunderstood by the
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  crowds, and they're supposed king isn't even raising an army.
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  So it's in that atmosphere of confusion and disappointment
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  that Jesus starts speaking in parables.
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  Yes, in Matthew 13. And he tells us why he's doing
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  it. He says he uses parables to
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  reveal truth to those who have years to hear and to conceal it
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  from those with hardened hearts. So the parables themselves are
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  kind of filter. They are.
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  They're both a judgement and a grace all at the same time.
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  And in this specific context, he gives them this pair of
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  parables, the parable, the mustard seed, and our parable,
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  the parable of the leaven. They're literary twins.
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  I've always heard those two taught together.
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  The mustard seed is the famous one about the tiny tiny seed
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  growing into this huge tree, right?
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  That's the one. The mustard seed parable
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  highlights the contrast in size, a very small beginning that
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  leads to a very large, very visible result.
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  Birds can nest in its branches. OK, so.
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  That's the visible part. But the parable of the 11
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  highlights a different aspect. It points to the hiddenness of
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  the process, the invisibility of the work.
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  So they're working together. They're refuting this whole idea
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  that God needs an immediate spectacle to be at work.
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  Correct. The disciples are panicking
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  because they don't see the spectacle Jesus is telling them.
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  In essence, do not panic. The Kingdom is like a mustard
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  seed. It starts small but will grow
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  large. And the Kingdom is like leaven.
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  It's work is mostly invisible for now.
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  OK, that makes so much sense. So let's get into the
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  ingredients of this mystery. We've got the leaven itself.
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  Now I have to ask because I know some of our listeners are
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  thinking this right now. Isn't leaven usually a bad thing
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  in the Bible? I mean, we talked about the
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  leaven of the Pharisees. Paul says in First Corinthians
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  to purge out the old leaven. It almost always seems to
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  represent sin or corruption or false teaching.
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  You're right to spot that that is a very common interpretation,
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  and it's a major point of controversy in biblical studies.
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  There are many commentators who argue that because leaven
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  represents sin in Exodus or First Corinthians, it must
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  represent sin here as well. So under that view, what would
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  the parable mean? They would argue that this
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  parable is actually a warning that Jesus is saying the visible
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  church, the Kingdom, will be corrupted from within by false
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  teaching and evil. But our sources and our reformed
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  tradition, they take a different view on this.
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  They do, and for very good reason.
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  We have to use what's called the analogy of faith, letting
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  Scripture interpret Scripture. But we must always prioritize
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  the immediate context of the passage we're looking at.
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  OK. And look at how Jesus starts the
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  sentence. He says the Kingdom of heaven is
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  like leaven. He doesn't say the corruption of
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  the Kingdom is like leaven. He's making a direct positive
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  comparison. That's a pretty significant
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  distinction. It's not a subtle point.
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  It's not. And remember, it's twin parable,
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  the mustard seed, is clearly, undeniably about positive
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  growth. It would be very strange
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  exegetically for Jesus to say the Kingdom grows wonderfully
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  like a tree and then immediately follow it with and by the way,
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  the Kingdom is going to be completely corrupted by evil.
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  The flow of the argument would be all wrong.
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  It would be incoherent. The flow of the argument in
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  Matthew 13 is about the certain success of the Kingdom despite
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  its humble appearance, not its ultimate failure.
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  So here leaven has to represent the permeating energetic, life
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  giving force of the gospel, not evil.
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  OK, so we've established the leaven is the force of the
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  gospel. That's ingredient #1 then we
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  have the flour. The text says 3 measures of
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  flour. Now when I make bread, which is
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  an often, I'm using cups. What on earth is a measure?
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  It's a significant amount. A really significant amount.
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  The Greek term is SATA, tria 3 SATA.
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  This is roughly equivalent to a Hebrew ephah.
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  For us. We're talking about something
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  like 50 lbs of flour. 5050 lbs of flour.
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  That's not a loaf of bread for dinner.
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  That's that's a commercial bakery operation.
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  It's enough to feed over 100 people.
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  The scale here is really important.
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  Jesus isn't describing A scarcity meal for a few ascetics
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  living out in the desert. He's describing A feast.
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  Massive provision. You know, it reminds me of
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  something from the Old Testament, didn't Wasn't it
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  Sarah who made bread like that? That's a brilliant connection.
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  It's a direct echo in Genesis 18 verse 6, when the Lord and two
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  angels visit Abraham by the oaks of Mamre.
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  Abraham runs to the tent and tells Sarah to quickly get 3
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  measures of fine flour and knead it and make cakes.
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  So it's the same amount. It's the exact same amount.
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  It's a covenantal amount. It speaks of abundance, of a
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  royal feast fit for God Himself. So the implication here is that
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  the Kingdom isn't this tiny, small minded sort of ghetto
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  mentality movement. It's meant to be a feast for the
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  nations. It's huge.
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  Precisely. It completely refutes the idea
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  that the Kingdom is just for a tiny, huddled bunker of
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  survivors waiting for the end. It's a massive, abundant
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  provision for the world. And then we have the Baker, the
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  one doing the work. The text says a woman and.
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  Again, right away we see the unexpected upside down nature of
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  the Kingdom. Jesus chooses a domestic image.
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  He chooses a kitchen. He doesn't choose a battlefield
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  or Royal Court or even the temple.
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  He chooses a woman doing ordinary daily domestic work.
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  Which would have been a bit shocking in the 1st century,
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  right? I mean the public sphere, the
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  sphere of influence, was very male dominated.
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  It would have been power was located in the courts, in the
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  synagogues, with men. But Jesus's choice here
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  highlights that God's true strength is often displayed in
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  the mundane, in the ordinary, in the private spheres of life,
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  rather than on the public stage of political authority.
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  So we have the ingredients laid out, the gospel, this massive
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  lump of humanity and this ordinary agent.
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  Now let's talk about the action. This is where our sources say we
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  really get into the Reformed theology of the text.
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  The verse says she took and hid the leaven.
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  Yes, that word for HID in the Greek is inacrypton.
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  That's a compound word in meaning in and krypto meaning to
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  hide. You get our word cryptic from
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  it. It implies a deep, intentional,
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  deliberate insertion. It's not just sprinkled on top.
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  Not at all. But let's look at the theology
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  of the action itself. Think about the flour.
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  What is flour on its own? What are its properties?
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  It's just powder, it's inert, it's lifeless.
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  It just sits there in the bowl. That's it.
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  It is a lifeless lump. The flour does not ask for the
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  leaven. The flower cannot leaven itself.
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  You can yell at the flower, you can educate the flower, you can
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  rearrange the flower into a nice shape, but it will never ever
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  rise on its own. It is completely passive.
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  And the woman is the active one. She's the one who takes the
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  initiative. This is a perfect picture of the
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  doctrine of monarchism. OK.
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  Let's unpack that term for the listener who might not be
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  familiar with it. Monarchism.
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  It sounds a little technical. It does, but the concept is
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  straightforward. Monarchism comes from 2 Greek
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  words, Mono meaning 1 and ergon meaning work.
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  It's a doctrine that salvation is entirely the work of one that
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  is God's work alone. And that stands in contrast to
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  What's the other view? It contrasts with synergism, sin
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  meaning together, and ergon meaning work.
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  Synergism is the idea that we work together with God for our
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  salvation. God does his part and we do our
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  part. But Reformed theology, following
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  what we see in Scripture, teaches monarchism when it comes
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  to regeneration, the new birth, we are the DOE.
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  We are the heavy, lifeless lump of flower.
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  We are, Ephesians 2 says. We are dead in our trespasses
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  and sins. We're not just sick and in need
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  of a little help. We are spiritually dead.
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  We cannot cooperate to start the process of life any more than a
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  corpse can cooperate in its own resurrection.
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  So life has to be introduced from the outside.
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  It must be. The gospel is an alien
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  intrusion. I love that phrase Alien
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  intrusion. It sounds like something from a
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  science fiction movie, but it's actually the gospel.
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  Grace comes from completely outside of us.
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  It has to. The woman took and hid the
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  leaven. She introduced the foreign
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  power, a living agent, into the lifeless lump to create life.
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  If she just leaves the leaven in the jar sitting next to the
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  bowl, absolutely nothing happens.
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  It has to be inserted. It must be intentionally
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  inserted. This is the sovereign grace of
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  God penetrating the dead human heart.
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  And that word hid anicrypsin is doing a lot of lifting here too.
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  Isn't it? It is the hinge of the entire
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  parable. Once you mix leaven into 50 lbs
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  of dough, what happens to it? Can you see it?
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  It's gone. It completely disappears.
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  If you picked up a piece of the dough, you couldn't point to the
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  yeast anymore. You wouldn't see it.
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  It becomes invisible and this is the direct answer to the
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  disciples crisis and to our crisis as well.
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  The Kingdom of God in this present age is currently in a
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  hidden mode. It's not a geopolitical force
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  with Thunder and lightning and a flag.
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  No, it operates in the secret hidden recesses of the human
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  heart. This is regeneration, the new
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  birth. Yes, a person who has been
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  regenerated, who has been born again, looks exactly the same on
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  the outside. They're the same face.
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  They likely have the same job, the same address.
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  Nothing externally has changed, but inside, a radical,
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  irreversible chemical change has begun.
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  The leaven is working. That is so helpful because we
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  are so prone to judge by the surface.
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  We look at the crust, but God is at work deep inside the dough.
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  And that leads us to the final part of the verse.
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  The result. The parable says she hid it in
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  the flower until it was all leavened.
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  That word until it sounds like a promise.
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  It's not an if. It is a guarantee.
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  The grammar in the Greek implies a completed finished state.
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  It does not say until it might be leavened or until the doe
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  finally decides to cooperate. It says until it was all
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  leavened. It's a statement of certainty.
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  This connects directly to the doctrine of the perseverance of
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  the Saints, doesn't it? The P in Tulip.
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  It absolutely does. It's the same principle.
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  God does not start a work that he does not finish.
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  As Paul writes in Philippians chapter one verse 6, he who
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  began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the
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  day of Jesus Christ. Now we should be careful here.
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  Does all leavened mean that every single person gets saved?
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  Is this teaching universalism? No, and that's a very important
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  clarification. We must be clear on that.
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  The whole lump in the parable refers to the specific lump that
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  God intends to redeem. That is the full number of the
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  elect throughout history. So it's not a universal
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  salvation, not at all. Scripture is overwhelmingly
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  clear on the reality of judgement for those who reject
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  Christ. But what it does mean is that
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  the specific lump God has chosen, the church, His people,
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  will be fully sanctified and fully gathered in.
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  Not one will be lost. It speaks to the utter
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  invincibility of the kingdom's advance.
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  Think again about what Levin actually is.
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  It's a fungus. It's a living Organism.
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  When you put it in dough, it eats the sugars and releases
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  gas. It agitates the dough.
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  It is relentless. It's.
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  Active. Very active.
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  And once that fermentation process starts, you can't really
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  stop it. You can try to punch the dough
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  down, you can put it in the cold, but that living agent is
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  in there and it will keep working.
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  It will rise again. That is a great image.
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  You can punch the dough, but it comes back.
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  The Kingdom of God is invincible.
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  No force of hell, no cultural opposition, no government
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  persecution, no internal failure can stop the fermentation
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  process once God the Baker starts it.
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  That is just incredibly encouraging, especially when we
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  look at the world around us. And that brings us to the
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  polemics. We need to use this text to
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  fight off some bad ideas, some errors that have crept into the
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  church. Our sources identify three main
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  ones this parable refutes. Let's start with the first one,
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  pragmatism, or what's often called seeker sensitivity.
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  Yes, this is a very common error, particularly in the
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  modern West. The logic goes something like
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  this, the dough, the world unchurched people is not
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  interested in church. They're bored by theology,
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  they're offended by the concept of sin, and they're confused by
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  the Bible. So, the thinking goes, to get
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  the go into the bowl, we need to make the church more palatable,
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  more attractive. Correct.
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  So we changed the lighting we get at a smoke machine.
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  We shorten the sermon to a 15 minute motivational talk.
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  We play the latest music. We try to make it look as much
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  like the world as possible to get the world to come in.
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  But in doing so, we often remove the Levin itself.
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  That's the danger. We remove the offensive,
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  distinct doctrines of the gospel, the reality of sin, the
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  necessity of judgement, the blood of Christ, the sovereignty
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  of God. We try to attract the dough by
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  removing the very thing that gives it life.
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  We end up with a lot of dough in the building maybe, but there's
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  no rising happening. We get a flat church.
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  It has a lot of volume, a lot of noise, a lot of activity, but no
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  actual spiritual life. The parable teaches us that the
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  potency is in the leaven itself, not in the quality of the bowl
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  or the cleverness of our kneading technique.
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  We have to trust the substance of the gospel, not our
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  entertainment value. That is a hard word, but a very
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  necessary one. OK, the second error our sources
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  point to is the Social Gospel. This is often, though not
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  exclusively, the air of the theological left.
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  This view focuses almost entirely on changing the crust,
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  the external structures of society, the laws, the social
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  systems, the politics. The goal is to create a kind of
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  earthly utopia by imposing Christian morality or social
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  justice principles on the whole of society.
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  So it's working from the outside in.
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  Exactly. But the parable says the Levin
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  works from the inside out. It changes the dough from
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  within, and as the dough changes, it rises and takes a
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  new shape. The reformed view, then, is that
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  regeneration has to come before any lasting structural change.
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  Yes, you cannot have a righteous society that is composed of
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  unrighteous people. It's an impossibility.
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  We change the world by the gospel, changing individual
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  people who then go out and live as salt and light in their
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  various spheres. But we don't change the world by
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  simply imposing Christian laws on unregenerate hearts.
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  That's like painting a beautiful design on the crust of a loaf of
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  bread that has no yeast in it. It might look nice for a moment,
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  but it's still a flat dead lump inside.
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  OK, the third error is one that I have to admit I think I
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  struggle with the most sometimes, and that's
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  pessimistic defeatism. It is so easy to fall into this.
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  We look at the culture around us and it just seems massive.
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  It seems so hostile to the faith.
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  We look at the institutional church and it seems small and
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  weak and fractured. We see those 3 measures of
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  flour, this huge mountain of secularism, and we see our tiny
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  little pinch of leaven. And we despair.
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  We think we're losing. It's over.
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  The culture war is lost. We feel like the ratio is all
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  wrong, but the parable tells us the ratio doesn't matter.
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  The potency of the leaven is what matters.
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  A tiny amount of a powerful leavening agent can transform a
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  massive amount of flour. It's about the chemistry, not
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  the math. That is it.
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  Perfectly put. And this has eschatological
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  implications. While we might hold a
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  premillennial view, meaning we acknowledge the world may indeed
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  get darker before Christ returns, we must never, ever
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  believe the church will fail. The elect will be gathered.
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  The leavening process that God started will reach its
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  completion. Despair is actually a form of
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  unbelief. It's a failure to trust in the
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  strength of God's leaven. That is a significant shift in
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  perspective. It's a call to stop wringing our
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  hands and start trusting the chemistry of grace.
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  Yes, we are called to wait with what one of our sources calls
• 19:48
  hope filled urgency. We are active, but our
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  confidence is not in our activity but in his.
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  I want to pivot now to application.
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  We've talked about the theology, the history, the errors, but
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  what does this mean for you, the person listening right now?
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  Let's break this down into three groups.
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  First, for the non believer, if you're listening and you're not
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  a Christian or you're just not sure, what does this parable say
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  to you? It gives you a diagnosis first
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  and foremost. The Bibles diagnosis is that
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  without Christ you are unleavened dough.
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  You might be successful by the world standards, you might be a
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  moral person, a good person, a nice person, But spiritually you
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  are heavy, flat and dead. And the really hard truth in
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  that is the impossibility of self help.
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  Correct. You cannot rise by trying
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  harder. You cannot generate spiritual
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  life by reading more self help books or meditating, or giving
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  more money to charity. Those are all fine things in
• 20:39
  their own right, but they are not life.
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  Flour cannot command itself to become bread.
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  So the call is to stop trying to need yourself and instead to
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  call out to the Baker. That is it.
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  You need a new nature. You need that alien intrusion of
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  grace we talked about. The application for the non
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  believer is to cry out to the sovereign Baker to God and ask
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  him to hide the leaven of the gospel in your heart.
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  It's a call to repent of your self-sufficiency and rely
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  completely on His work, not your own.
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  Now let's talk to the believer. You're already leavened.
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  The new life has begun, but the process isn't finished.
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  This is about sanctification. Yes, we sometimes call this
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  totalitarian grace, and I mean that in the best way.
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  The Levin claims every single inch of the dough.
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  It doesn't just stay in one corner.
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  Its nature is to spread until the whole lump is changed.
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  So the uncomfortable question we have to ask ourselves is this.
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  Are there lumps in my life where I haven't let the Levin go?
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  That's the question we have to live with.
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  We are so tempted to compartmentalize our lives and
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  say, Jesus, you can have my Sunday morning and you can have
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  my theological bookshelf. But stay out of my finances,
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  stay out of my entertainment choices, stay out of my temper
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  or my secret thoughts. We try to keep those parts of
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  the dough unleavened. We do, but the nature of grace
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  is that it is invasive. It is relentless.
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  It will eventually conquer those areas too.
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  And for the believer, this is also a source of great
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  encouragement. Sanctification is slow.
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  Very often it's invisible, just like the leaven.
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  That is so valuable for the weary St. who might be
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  listening. Absolutely.
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  You might look at your life and think I am still struggling with
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  the same short temper I had five years ago.
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  I'm not really growing, but just because you don't see the rising
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  right this second doesn't mean the chemistry has stopped.
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  Trust the process. Trust the leaven.
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  It is working in the dark. It is working in the silence.
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  God is faithful to complete what He started.
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  Finally, let's talk about the church as a whole.
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  We touched on this with the pragmatism error, but let's get
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  very specific about methodology. If the Kingdom really works like
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  leaven, how should we do church? We should rely on what
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  theologians call the ordinary means of grace.
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  Look at the woman in the parable.
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  She didn't put on a show. She didn't hire a marketing team
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  or a rock band. She simply took the leaven and
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  hid it in the flower. It was a simple, quiet, faithful
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  act. So for us in the life of the
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  Church, that means. It means we rely on the things
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  God has specifically promised to bless, even if they seem boring
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  or outdated to the world. We rely on the faithful,
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  consistent preaching of the Word of God.
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  We rely on the right administration of the
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  sacraments, Baptism in the Lord's Supper.
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  We rely on prayer. It's a call to reject the
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  constant itch for novelty. It is.
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  We love lasers and smoke machines.
• 23:24
  We love new buzzwords and five year vision casting plans.
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  But the truest, most potent Kingdom work often looks like a
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  father sitting on the couch catechizing his young child.
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  It looks like a quiet prayer meeting with five elderly ladies
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  in a church basement. It looks like a faithful sermon
• 23:42
  that simply explains the biblical text and applies it to
• 23:44
  the heart. It's hidden, but it's powerful.
• 23:46
  That is where the real chemical reaction of the Kingdom is
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  happening. We need to have the courage to
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  be ordinary. The courage to be ordinary.
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  I like that it actually takes a lot of faith to believe that
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  those simple, quiet things are the potent things.
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  It does. It requires us to believe God's
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  definition of strength over the world's definition of strength.
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  So as we wrap this deep dive up, let's just summarize where we've
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  been. The Kingdom of God is here.
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  It is, for now, mostly hidden, but it is absolutely
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  unstoppable. That is the core message.
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  The silence of God is not His absence.
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  He is at work in the dough of history, and He is at work in
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  the dough of your heart. And the final charge to you, the
• 24:24
  listener, is this Do not judge the loaf by its current
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  flatness. Spot on.
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  We are called to walk by faith, not by sight.
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  We wait with patience. The Baker is coming back.
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  And when he returns, he will not find a flat, ruined mess.
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  He will find a fully risen loaf. He will find a church that has
• 24:43
  been completely sanctified and prepared for him.
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  I want to leave you with a final thought to chew on.
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  We spend so much time and energy worrying about our failures, or
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  at least what we perceive as failures.
• 24:53
  The small turn out at the Bible study, the awkward gospel
• 24:56
  conversation that went nowhere, The personal struggle that just
• 24:58
  won't seem to go away. What if?
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  What if those things we think are failures are actually the
• 25:03
  leaven doing its best work in the dark?
• 25:05
  Perhaps the hiddenness of the Kingdom is not a bug, but a
• 25:07
  feature of God's plan. That is a very stimulating
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  thought. Success in the Kingdom of God
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  rarely looks like success in the kingdoms of this world.
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  Thank you for diving into this with us today.
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  This has been a really beneficial discussion.
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  It has been a pleasure. Keep trusting the leaven.
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  We will see you next time on reformed thinking.