Replies

couldn't answer my question.

Leaven in the Bible always represents something negative and to avoided. We have the Feast of Unleavened Bread and other ceremonies that require the removal of leaven from your house. In the New Testament we have Jesus warning his disciples about the leaven of the pharisees (i.e. their false teachings.) Paul in 1 Corinthians 5 has this to say:

5 Your boasting is not good Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?
7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.
8 Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth

This passage is very similar to Jesus' parable. They both say that leaven will leaven the whole lump of dough/flour. Paul has the leaven representing the Corinthians boasting and arrogance, while Jesus used leaven to describe the teachings/hypocrisy of the Pharisees.

Most people interpret the leaven parable as the gospel (leaven) being spread through the world (lump) by his people (the woman) and the end result being the whole world being saved/hearing the gospel/being changed.

I used to believe this at one time. However, once I saw that leaven was never used in the Bible to represent anything good or positive, then the parable made more sense. The leaven is false teaching or sin. The woman is the church and the flour is the body of believers/world. What this parable is saying is that false teaching will enter the church and run rampant. Or something to that regard. It is a negative thing that happens, not a positive one. Paul even speaks of an apostasy or falling away in 2 Thessalonians 2, so its not unsupported.

The main point being, there is no use of leaven that warrants its use to mean the Gospel or something good/positive. Leaven is always to be avoided. Paul even states that we are unleavened bread (1 Cor 5:7), so how then can the gospel be leaven?

JM