Self-Portraits of God

Studies in the Life and Work of Jesus

Lesson 2: Pictures from the Parables

Parable 2

Another parable He spoke to them: The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened (Matthew 13:33).

The Bible introduces this story by saying that the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. And the great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and whole multitudes stood on the shore. Then He spoke many things to them in parables (Matthew 13:3).

One of the parables that He told them on this occasion was the parable of the sower; one of the longest of the parables, when one seeks to explain it, for every detail in the story about the seed, the soil, the birds, the thorns, the sun, even the depth of the seed in the soil, is very significant to the message the story carries. No ingredient can be omitted without doing violence to the parable’s life-application.

Our parable, which compares the kingdom of heaven to leaven, is, by contrast, one sentence long! This leaven parable assumes the setting is understood. The many people surrounding Jesus are of all types; there are the rich and influential who were always near to see what Jesus was doing; the sick and lame, who were hoping for healing; and the curious who had time to go and observe, plus all those who were there, again, because of the spiritual blessings they received as they listened to Jesus’ teachings and observed His works for the multitude.

The subject of interest is again the Kingdom of Heaven. The implied question being, how could Jesus set up a kingdom from this type of following? There were no soldiers and no state support. This question Jesus seeks to answer with the parables about the Kingdom of Heaven, parables which are never illustrated by the governments of this world.

Our parable, or story, about leaven suddenly becomes very central to finding the answer to the question as to how the kingdom can come from this kind of people, for it introduces an element that is not part of any of the kingdoms appearing in history, up to this time.

By this parable about leaven Jesus tells His hearers that His kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, is invisible! “The Kingdom of a Heaven is like leaven.” This means, in part, that it comes from without, and must be introduced into its subject by some outside force; “the woman hid the leaven in the meal.” This done the leaven was invisible; it would only become visible by result; “she hid it in the meal till all was leavened.”

Therefore the matter of the setting up of the Kingdom is perhaps as interesting an issue to Jesus’ hearers as are questions like, what kind of people will be in the kingdom once they have been leavened? And, once the kingdom has been set up, to what purpose is the kingdom and membership in it?

Often when Jesus had told the people stories, like the stories of the soil, and the wheat and the tears, in answer to questions from the hearers He explained the significance of each element appearing in those stories. But it seems no one asked the question that appears to be the central one in our story—what is the leaven? Therefore Jesus did not explain the story of the leaven, directly.

However there is another short parable that indirectly may give us an answer to our question, what is the leaven? It is the account of the withered fig tree.

To learn the information this story might contribute to an understanding of the parable of the woman hiding leaven in the meal, we will just hold our study of the leaven parable until we have examined this other story.