[aron]

Originally Posted by OBW

You misunderstand on two counts.

First, you are requiring that all references to leaven must be on the same terms and in the same thought. So if the kingdom is the leaven in Matt 13 that permeates and alters the world (the dough) then Paul must be referring to the same aspect of leaven in 1 Corinthians.

I think you are being a little too strong here. I don't require that all references to the leaven must be on the same terms and convey the same valence, either negative or positive. But I do look at similar terms for help in understanding. The question is: how is this term used in scripture? I don't say that it must be used in exactly the same manner every time. But looking for other references is a common christian practice. If I am in the assembly and I speak of "leaven", I can expect some familiarity from my audience. Likewise "sheep", "goats", "shepherd", "wolves", and so forth. Metaphors over time begin to contain generic messages to the populace, based on how they are commonly used to convey information.

Now, in some cases the familiar trope may spin an entirely new meaning, based on the immediate context. And your argument on "leaven", or "yeast", in this context, may certainly be such a case.

Let me give an example. The term "goat" is familiar in the New Testament from the passage on the separation of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25. But I was greatly helped in my interpretation by reading Zechariah 10:3, about improper shepherds being called "goats". I remembered being on a farm and seeing the male goats going off and not shepherding the young, but standing in splendid isolation of some distant crag (if they could find one). And it lent poignancy to Jesus' words to Peter: "Shepherd My sheep".

So I used scripture to interpret scripture. I look for both immediate and larger context. I think it's common practice. It was common practice even as the NT was being composed. Some may think that doesn't wash in Matthew 13 with leaven, but still the term "leaven" and the associated concept are familiar enough to the general christian public that my idea of "the introduction of leaven" still stands, without specific reference to the parable in Matthew 13.

Originally Posted by OBW

As for reading something into it all about the failure of Christianity even by the time of the letters to the seven churches in Asia, that is something that you keep coming back to over and over. Is it part of the tint and focus of the lens through which you read scripture? I do not suggest that I have no lens. But you seem to have an answer searching for evidence. I believe that this too easily colors what you see.

Again, I probably overstate. I have an hypothesis, not an answer. Here is what I see: God made man in His image. Mankind got derailed by Satan and was corrupted, and cast out from God's presence. God made a covenant, nonetheless, with a particular people from among humankind: Abraham's descendents. He took them out of Egypt, and gave them a good land, and gave them laws and statutes and ordinances.

But when the promised Savior Emmanuel arrived, He was rejected, not by the drunkards and thieves, but by the ones who took the law and statutes and ordinances very, very seriously. "We have Moses -- we don't need You."

Now, here is a metaphor: whitewashed tombs. Outside clean, but inside full of dead men's bones.

Fast-forward another 60 years. All of the original disciples (so I presume) are gone; even some of the second wave (notably Paul) have also departed. John remains, on Patmos. He writes a document full of imagery. One of those images is a woman holding a golden cup full of abominations.

Now, unfortunately I am a rank amateur, but I still try to decipher. I remember the white tombs, clean on the outside but dirty within, as I look at the golden cup full of abominations.

So I hypothesize. Maybe John is referring to christianity. Seems to be religion of some sort. Outwardly clean, inwardly not. Buddhism? Judaism?

That's where Revelations 2 and 3, the seven epistles to the messengers of the assemblies in Asia, come in. The Asian believers are good, fundamentally sound groups of believers. And six out of seven messengers are told to repent. So I sense a trend, and I see a possible conintuation of a trend from Genesis chapter 3 all the way to the Golden Cup; just as the Hebrews got the straight skinny from Moses the prophet and failed abysmally by not recognizing their reality when it arrived among them, so too would the christians.

Now, that is just a hypothesis. I see data points, and a trend, or meta-trend of smaller trends, and try to construct a story line.

And yes, I will keep coming back to it, until someone a) shows me how it doesn't work, or b) provides a more compelling hypothesis/narrative based on the evidence before us.

And I do suspect the answer is systemic. Satan the subtle one slipped something into the fellowships, and once it was accepted he had a way to frustrate them from following God, and serving Him according to His purpose in Christ Jesus.

So I began to look in the record for deviations from the message and example of Jesus, and I found them coming far earlier than I had supposed. Mayhaps Constantine was merely the crowning jewel on an edifice long in the building.