Summary
The Leaven Response: Christian Witness in a World That Is a Mess
The world is a mess, and that is no breaking news. Sin permeates everything, and we ourselves contribute to the mess because we are sinners. Yet God does not call His people to be depressed, discouraged, or despondent. He calls us to be determined to do what He has given us to do, and to delight in what He is doing. The question, then, is how a Christian can be a positive influence in a world like this. Jesus answers with a homely picture from the kitchen: leaven worked into dough.
In Luke 13:20-21, Jesus asks, "To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened." Three measures is roughly fifty pounds of flour—enough to feed a crowd. The point is the quiet, thorough working of the leaven: a small amount permeates an enormous mass. So the reign and rule of God spreads through hearts and through the world.
This is striking because almost every other reference to leaven in Scripture is negative. Jesus warns His disciples to "beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees" (Matthew 16:6; Luke 12:1)—not their bread, but the permeating influence of their teaching. Paul tells the Corinthians that "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" and urges them to clean out the old leaven of malice and evil, "for Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" 1 Corinthians 5:6-8. He uses the same proverb against the legalism creeping into Galatia Galatians 5:9. Leaven, whether good or bad, works the same way: a small thing thoroughly transforms the whole.
What is the answer to a world that is a mess? Sin is the diagnosis, and Christ crucified is the cure. On the cross, Jesus bore the sin of the world—your neighbor's sin and your own—and by the shed blood of the Paschal Lamb He won forgiveness and reconciliation. Luther captured the comfort of Jesus' parable: once the gospel, like a piece of new leaven, has mixed itself with the human race, it will not cease until the end of the world but will make its way through the whole mass of those who are to be saved, despite all the gates of hell.
The gospel, then, is the leaven that actually changes things, because it changes the heart. There is an old picture of this in ancient Jewish households: on the eve of her wedding, a bride received from her mother a piece of dough from a freshly baked batch—a cherished gift to carry into her new home, where she would now bake bread for her own household. Christians have been given a far greater treasure to carry: the gospel of Jesus Christ. Proclaim it. Live in it. Let it work.
So be encouraged. The world is a mess, but the leaven of the kingdom is already at work, hidden in the dough, permeating until the whole is leavened. That is the Change in the World: "Leaven Response" to which Christ calls His people: determined, doing, and delighting in what God Himself is doing.
Video citations
- Change in the World: "Leaven Response" 3-15-26 — Would you open your Bible's please with me to the Luke 13th chapter if you're using a Pew edition of Holy Scripture this morning? You're going to find that in the New Testament page 66. Luke 13th…