Leavening the Whole Lump: The Growth of Sin

Flour frosted the kitchen like snow. A flour bin, a half-empty bottle of vegetable oil, and baking pans fought for territory on my counter. Little fingers thick with dough punched and kneaded gooey mounds. Lined up, varying heights on chairs and stools, three children made a ragged profile of chattering bakers.

“Pooooof,” the littlest voice boomed. Caked hands reached up together like a rocket and then spread apart so that dollops of wet dough plopped onto the counter.

“Not like that,” the oldest instructed, wise in the ways of rising bread dough. She put on her teacher voice for her little brother. “It’s slow. Just a tiny bit at a time.”

“It grows,” the middle child added. “We leave it and come back.”

I pulled out the long rolling pin and laid it next to the first overworked clump. The youngest’s mass looked suspiciously darker and more environmentally influenced than the others.

I came behind my little boy and put my arms around him. His hands lay beneath mine on the rounded wooden pin. I rested my cheek against his soft blond hair, and for just a second the smell of him—his shampoo, his little boy-ness—melted me. I pressed my lips against his soft cheek and tasted the powdered grain of flour. He swiped it away, the gesture spreading another layer of white on his face. Impatient, he bulldozed into the dough, ripping a strip into it.

“Gently,” I reminded him.

We worked the dough, flattened it, and then rolled it into a loaf.

“Now pick it up,” I said, my arms still around him, “and lay it down in the pan like a baby.”

“Like Baby Jesus,” he whispered. “In the animal trough.”

He looked at the lump in awe. Then I drizzled a little oil over it.

“Soft like a baby’s bottom,” I told him. His hand pasted itself against his mouth where laughter bubbled from around its stickiness. His eyes danced. Tenderly, his hand riding on mine, we spread the oil. Afterward, I swung him up and over to the sink for clean-up.

All three ran off to play. Bread loaves lay side by side like babies in a nursery as the magic of leavening began.

While I stared at those lumps, their lesson took shape in my mind.

The Bible often paragons leaven with something negative, referring to sin’s permeating effect on the whole body of Christ. The apostle Paul warned Corinthian believers, already dabbling in sin, to beware of the widespread effects of a little leaven on the whole church. He wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:6, “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?” (NASB).

I wonder how my own little bits of pride, envy, anxiety, or gossip could possibly matter to a whole church? Do the tiny sins I allow within my heart and mind influence the larger body of Christ? Can the multiplication of harbored hidden sin, like tiny grains of yeast, grow and ferment, infecting the entire gathering?

As part of the very first Passover, when the Israelites were urged to hurry out of Egypt, they carried their dough without leaven. And God commanded them to eliminate leaven from their food and houses each year to commemorate their exodus. Even today one of the most important activities of Jewish Passover preparation entails an elaborate cleansing, removal, and prohibition of any form of leaven.

God used a simple occurrence, the rising of daily bread, to illustrate profound truth: sin grows.

Unless no traces remain, even a small amount of sin will affect an entire portion of new dough.

Paul reminds us of sin’s permeating influence in 1 Corinthians 5:7: “Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed” (NASB).

Surely we would be overwhelmed with gratitude and desire to live free of sin’s dominion if we could fully grasp the wonder of a properly leavened life. As we are redeemed from the curse of iniquity’s insidious pervasion, Christ offers grace and forgiveness.

Our interrelation within the body of Christ is significant. Encouraging one another to live God-honoring lives, to be willing to admit failings and turn from them, stops evil’s spread.

Scripture also presents the powerful effects of good leavening: God’s kingdom grows.

In both Matthew 13:33 and Luke 13:21, Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven as also being like leaven, “which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened” (NKJV). Kingdom transformation spreads its jubilant message the same way a tiny bit of yeast swells through a batch of bread dough. Benefactors of the gospel, our privilege is to extend its good news over all the world.

We are parts of a whole, belonging to one another. “Properly leavened living” as Christ intends produces immeasurable growth in mutual edification.

My spiritual growth matters to the body of Christ. How I walk with Jesus daily influences the whole family of believers. Like tiny grains of kingdom leaven, lovingkindness, joy, and peace multiply and reproduce.

The smell of fresh bread baking brings little feet running. One loaf is mutilated as I cut into it too soon, but that’s worth the pleasure of a hot slice with melted butter. The children stand around the table chewing and making satisfied murmurs of deliciousness. Like something from above, their smiles spread, contagious.

Sylvia Schroeder serves as Women’s Care Coordinator at Avant Ministries. Mom to four, grandma to 13, and wife to her one and only love, she enjoys writing about all of them. Find her blog at When the House is Quiet. Like her Facebook page or follow her on twitter.

Photograph © Salomé Watel, used with permission