Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Genesis 48-50
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 13:33
Jesus: Imagine a woman preparing a loaf of bread. The kingdom of heaven is like the leaven she folds into her dough. She kneads and kneads until the leaven is worked into all the dough.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Bread making in this part of the world has become a hobby instead of a part of everyday life as it was in Jesus’ day. In fact, a century ago, bread making was part of everyday life in most American households. It’s still a lot cheaper to make bread than to buy bread if you have the inclination and time. About 15¢ worth of material and a couple of hours and you can have a loaf of bread. Or you can even make it easy on yourself and throw all the stuff in a bread maker and four hours later you have a loaf of bread.
But most people in this country, buy their bread today. Bread making is more a hobby than a necessity. We rely on bakers to make our bread for us. So many of us don’t know much about leavening or what it takes to make that yeast bubble and foam and cause bread to have all those little holes inside. But that’s exactly what yeast does. Yeast is a live usually single-celled organism in the fungus family that uses carbohydrates to produces carbon dioxide. It’s this carbon dioxide trapped in the bread that makes the holes. The gluten in the flour holds the fibers in the flour together so those holes can stay in the shape of tiny bubbles.
If you don’t let the yeast activate and eat up some of those carbohydrates before putting the dough in the oven, the yeast gets too hot too fast and the dough won’t rise as much as you want. If you let the dough rise too long, the dough collapses on itself because the gluten isn’t strong enough to support the large bubbles the yeast creates and like bubbles you blow with bubble gum, they reach a point they can’t sustain themselves and burst. So, again, the dough collapses and you have flat bread.
So how do you avoid these problems? The like Jesus says in comparing heaven to yeast, the woman kneads the dough and the yeast spreads through the bread. It rises for a couple of hours and then the woman kneads it one more time to let it rise a second time. This second rise gives the yeast more even rise capacity so that the race horse bubbles which had their heyday now don’t ruin the loaf and the real work horses that will stand up to the heat can take over.
So Jesus says heaven is like that yeast. There is an initial phase of real excitement. A huge bubble of growth that everyone sees happen fast. But life happens and those, like the seed sown in rocky and thorny soil fall away. They don’t stand up to the pressure of the world and succumb to the temptations Satan throws at them instead of living the life God has planned for them. The pressures of the world crush the fast growing, flash in the pan believers, just like the first kneading crushes the bubbles in the first rise of the dough.
Jesus also says yeast spreads through the dough and heaven is like that. If you look at a loaf of bread, there are tiny holes in every slice, top to bottom, end to end. It shows that the yeast has traveled to every part of the dough. Just so, God’s kingdom spreads to every part of the world. Once yeast is put into the mixture of flour, water, salt, and sugar, the other basic ingredients for a loaf of bread, you can’t take it out and you can’t keep it from spreading through the whole loaf. It goes everywhere in the mixture. God’s word and His kingdom is like that. Once His word broke out into the world, there was no stopping it.
Satan has tried in every way He knows how to stop God’s word from reaching people. He tried banning it with government laws. He tried persecution. He tried ridicule of God’s followers. He tried scientific enlightenment. Satan even tried nailing God’s Son to a cross. None of it worked. God’s word spreads whenever and wherever people of faith go.
Bread making also takes work. Perhaps Jesus used the metaphor to remind us that being part of God’s heaven doesn’t mean we sit around and do nothing. God made us originally to tend His creation and worship Him. Building His kingdom means work. If you want to be lazy, you won’t be part of His kingdom. He gave us a day for rest, but only one day out of seven, not six out of seven. He expects us to use what He’s give us and be productive in building His kingdom. Yeast, to be effective, must be worked into the dough. We must get our hands sticky and covered in dough if we are to make that perfect loaf of bread. And we must get our hands dirty and sticky and covered in the kingdom issues if we are to build His kingdom.
Are you ready to smell that good homemade loaf of bread? How about the growing kingdom of God? Then it’s time to get to work!
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.