Leaven

Don’t you love the smell of baking bread? As a young boy in the 1950s, a trip with my mother to Whites Bakery on Market St. was a pure delight. I can still smell the incredible aroma of baked goods as we entered the shop, and the little tinkling bell on the front door announced our arrival.

Eating a hunk of warm bread with butter is like eating a slice of heaven. It’s fantastic stuff.

It’s also amazing in the Bible too. It is mentioned about 500 times in scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Our first thought about bread in the Bible might be how it symbolizes God’s provision. Exodus 16 teaches how God rained manna down for forty years while the Israelites wandered in the desert. When we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we are reminded that God has already promised to provide what we need day in and day out. He is always faithful.

Most breads have three main ingredients, flour, water and leaven. So, just what is leaven?

Leavening includes yeast and chemical leavening agents, such as baking powder or baking soda.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of leaven is: “1. An agent, such as yeast, that, causes dough or batter to rise, especially by fermentation. 2. An element, influence, or agent that works subtly to modify a whole.”

The first definition of “leaven” is the baker’s friend. It ensures that the bread will be full of tiny air holes, making it light and fluffy instead of flat and heavy. When you add leaven (perhaps a small piece of fermented dough or “starter lump” from a previous batch) to a large quantity of flour and water, the living organisms in the leaven grow overnight so that by morning the entire quantity of dough has been permeated by the leaven. Some bake shops in New York City have been using their original “starter dough” for over 100 years!

The second definition of leaven is used in scripture as an important spiritual metaphor.

Leaven in the Bible is an illustration of influence, sometimes good, but most often it symbolizes the evil influence of sin.

In Mark 8:15, Jesus issues a warning to the disciples. “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”

The leaven of the Pharisees included their false teaching and hypocritical behaviour.

The leaven of Herod was his immoral, corrupt conduct.

In the growing Sunday Morning Growth Group, we’ve been studying 1 Corinthians and the problems of division, carnality, immaturity and sexual immorality within the congregation.

In Chapter 5:6-7 the apostle Paul tells the believers in Corinth, “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ our Passover, was sacrificed.”

“As part of the Passover commemoration, the ancient Israelites were forbidden to bake or eat leavened bread or even have leaven in their homes. This tradition was observed in remembrance of Israel’s hurried exodus from Egypt, which gave no time for preparing leavened bread (Exodus 12:33-34, 39). Knowing Christ is our Passover, Paul urges believers to remember His sacrifice by removing the “old leaven” of sin from our individual lives and congregations.” Got Questions

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17