Matthew 13:33-35 Sharing A Little Leaven

Matthew 13:33-35

33 He spoke another parable to them, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.” 34 All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable. 35 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.”

As a Christian in the church since 2002, I have never really come across this parable before, and it is an oddball to me. It is like the mustard seed parable where Jesus tells His followers the kingdom of God will grow from a small, tiny grain of seed and expand it. I see this parable from a mother’s point of view, how she tries to prepare a meal for her family and stretches a small amount to feed many people. When people follow Jesus, He gives blessings, and when one of His followers gives to help the many, it expands just like leaven stretches out a little flour and makes a whole loaf of bread. Take the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes of his followers. Which are all four gospels; (Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:33-44, and John 6:1-14). When Jesus sees you have a desire to follow Him and you love His spiritual words and spiritual food, He blesses your efforts, and the kingdom of Heaven expands. In the story of the major feeding of many, Jesus turns and looks at those following Him, and He is moved with compassion.  

Mark 6:34 When Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things. 35 And when it was already late, His disciples came up to Him and said, “This place is secluded and it is already late; 36 send them away so that they may go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37 But He answered them, “You give them something to eat!” And they said to Him, “Shall we go and spend two hundred denarii on bread, and give it to them to eat?”

Your hope should be to follow the one true God and help His desire to increase the heavenly kingdom. When you show Him your willingness to share spiritual bread you eat and consume with other children of God, He gives you a leaven that makes a cracker into a gospel loaf of bread. Like a loving wife and mother who wants to feed her husband and children and may have extended family like her parents or in-laws, she doesn’t have much money. Still, she prepares her meal with love, and the Lord blesses her effect when she prays for help, and her family is eating a banquet. A little boy was among the congregation, hearing Jesus preach the sermon on the mount. When the hour was late,  the disciples of Jesus knew the crowd was hungry, and they starving as well. Stomachs grumbling and children crying calls, they were hungry. Jesus took the little boy’s offering, blessed it, and told His following disciples to pass out and share the boys’ offering. About 5,000 men were fed, and about 10,000 more women and children. Our blessings will be so much more when you and I are faithful with a little. The message in this parable is only hidden if we do not read and study it for ourselves. The Lord wants you and me to be like the little boy, and share our little blessings, and God will amplify the blessings with a little faith. I am willing. How about you? God bless you all; the Lord Jesus loves you, and so do I. A bondservant of the Lord, Samuel Jerry Head.

Luke 13:20 And again He said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? 21 It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.”

Matthew 18:2-5 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3 and said, “Truly I say to you unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of Heaven. 4 Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven. 5 And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me;