-The Pervasive Power of God’s Kingdom

by Brett Jacobsen

He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened." (Matt 13:33)

It may seem to some a little odd that Jesus used leaven to describe His Kingdom, as leaven usually speaks of corruption: “Being bred of corruption and spreading through the mass of that in which it is mixed, and therefore symbolising the pervasive character of evil…” [1]. It most often speaks of one of two aspects of corruption:

• Corrupt doctrine – as in the corrupt doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees which mixed itself with sound doctrine, therefore polluting it. See Matt 16:6, 11-12, Mark 8:15, Gal 5:7-9, Luke 12:1-2.
• Corrupt practices – as in pride, malice and wickedness, and the like, which also mixes in with good practices to corrupt them. See 1 Cor 5:6-8.

We must understand that Jesus didn’t say that the Kingdom ‘is leaven’ (as in, sinful or corrupt). Any corruption that has manifest “in Christ’s name” during church history has not been of or from ‘His Kingdom’, it has been from man’s kingdom: carnal Christendom. It is erroneous to assert that in Matt 13:33 Jesus was talking about sin and heresy spreading throughout ‘His Kingdom’. He was, however, saying that the Kingdom “is like leaven” in that it has a pervasive nature to it: it can spread organically throughout communities. Thus, sinful leaven is actually a great metaphor to portray the Kingdom’s capacity to permeate a people or culture. As we all well know, you don’t have to try to sin, it just works its way through both personal lives and society without much effort at all. While we do have to “set [our] mind on things above” in order to walk upright, we need not strive or set ourself to sin; it spreads thoroughly and insidiously. (Col 3:2)

In stark contrast to Jesus’ Kingdom teachings like our main text, much of modern Christianity has given itself to the pragmatic striving of the spirit of this age. Too many believers and Christian leaders buy into the error of Cain as they present the best of ‘their’ productivity to the Lord as an idolatrous, self-sufficient sacrifice. Like the prophets of Baal who “leaped upon the altar” and “cried aloud, and cut themselves” much church activity is awfully busy but produces a similar heavenly inactivity to Baal’s striving servants: “there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded.” (1 Kin 18:26, 28-29)

Knowing that “[our] faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” we must be utterly reliant on God and His Kingdom to prevail. (1 Cor 2:5) We must give full credit to “the Kingdom of heaven” rather than to the craftiness of our own wisdom and methods. This, of course, does not mean that we should be inactive or passive in our Kingdom living and advancement. We should however, be activated only by Holy Spirit prompted Kingdom exploits. We must learn to rely on the leavening attributes of the Kingdom which cause it to spread throughout society “until all of it [is] leavened”. It is significant that the King James Version says of the leaven that “a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal”. Jesus also said “the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hid in a field; the which when a man has found, he hides, and for joy thereof goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.” (Matt 13:44) The Kingdom needs only to be hidden in a person who is willing to live-out a full measure of that Kingdom; it is this scenario that sees the Kingdom spread. If the saints would just “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness…” the Kingdom will do the work. (Matt 6:33) Remember that Jesus said “I will build my church” not ‘would you please build my church’.  (Matt 16:18)

Yes there are people called to “go […] into all the world and preach the gospel” but for the majority of believers their best mode of Kingdom advancement is still to daily live the Kingdom, which allows it to permeate their surrounding world. Of course we sow seed as the Lord leads, and we pray “that God would open to us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ”. (Col 4:3) However, it is the leaven-like Kingdom of Heaven that will grow and expand throughout our world, needing only our obedient cooperation on a daily basis.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 5th, 2007 at 1:32 am and is filed under Reformation/ Revival, Evangelism / Discipleship, Biblical Leadership, Living Christianity, Brett Jacobsen's teachings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.