The Parable of the Yeast

       Hello everybody, my name is Dean Davis and this is “Multiply,” the podcast that

provides a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters.

My wife Gail and I love to bake bread. It’s quite a process. First you have to

gather the ingredients: flour, water, oil, often a little sugar, salt. But in some

ways the most important ingredient is the smallest: yeast. Yeast is a

microorganism that is alive. When it comes into contact with water and

carbohydrates like flour or sugar, the tiny, microscopic single cell creatures we

call yeast start to grow and reproduce. They are hungry, but they don’t eat

much. Even so, as they begin to digest tiny bits of flour and sugar, they give off

carbon dioxide, the gas that causes bubbles to form in bread dough. As they

grow, the multiplying yeast give off more and more carbon dioxide gas, so the

bread dough begins to rise. What started out as a small ball of dough outgrows

its bowl. Then we mash it and express a lot of the gas. But the yeast is not

finished; it keeps giving off gas and makes the dough, the whole lump of

dough, expand. When the yeasty bread dough is baked, it has beautiful

bubbles inside, a wonderful aroma around it and that nice texture that we

love.

As much as Gail and I like to prepare bread dough, we love to bake bread and

to eat bread while it’s still warm from the oven. The aroma of baking bread

comes from the carbon dioxide the yeast produces. Even before the bread is

fully baked or ready to serve, that aroma tells us, “Something good is coming.”

Jesus taught a parable about a lady who worked with yeast. He said, “The

kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about 27

kilos of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

Just like today, it only takes a little bit of yeast to transform a massive amount

of dough. I can’t imagine what it’s like to make dough with 27 kilos of wheat

flour. Gail and I usually make a batch with about a one-half of a kilo of flour.

27 kilos would make about 120 large loaves of bread! That’s a big lump of

dough!

But the truth is, it only takes a tiny amount of yeast to transform a huge mass

of dough. That is why Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like yeast. God’s

kingdom may look small and weak, even powerless, just like a tiny amount of

yeast used to transform dough. But it only looks that way. Because of the

power of multiplication a little becomes a lot. Soon the whole, big mass of

dough is saturated with the yeasty goodness those microorganisms produce.

In the same way, Christians, members of the kingdom of heaven, often appear

small and weak, a tiny part of the world’s population, even a tiny part of a

village. But the transforming power of the kingdom of heaven goes with us

wherever we go, transforming, giving off a new aroma, the aroma of hope,

making of that which is ordinary something wonderful.

My brothers and sisters, never doubt the power of living yeast. And never, ever

doubt the power of the kingdom of heaven. Go through the whole world

transforming it by the grace of God. Carry with you the wonderful aroma of

God at work. Don’t be discouraged if your church is small. Like yeast, multiply.

Multiply disciples, leaders and churches. Go transform the whole world!

This has been “Multiply,” and I’m Dean Davis asking, “Who will you share this

encouraging word with today?

#EncouragementForVillageChurchPlanters #Yeast #MultiplyDisciples