[OBW]

I'm having a hard time with this topic. Timotheist may be at least partly right.

But as I look at the actual parable, I begin to see something else.

We think that the yeast is something added to the kingdom of God. Now we need to decide whether it is something positive or negative. If this is the correct reading, then I would suggest that nothing negative can be added to the kingdom of God. Negative things may be added to our attempt to play "Kingdom of God, the board game" but the kingdom of God is not subject to error or pollution.

But look at the words. "What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough." Note that the flour is not the kingdom of God. Neither is the dough. It is the yeast that is likened to the kingdom of God.

So all those times that we read this and presumed that the yeast was bad and somehow polluting the kingdom of God, we were "simply" misreading the verse. And who lead that way of reading? Lee. He said that leaven was bad. It was bad when Paul mentioned it, so it must be bad here.

But it is not so. The yeast is the kingdom of God. It is added to something else (maybe mankind, or the new believer — whatever) and permeates it. Maybe it is an indication of the influence of the church throughout the world. It starts as something that comes into a part, then is slowly kneaded until it is found throughout the whole lump of dough.

So there may be some error than men have undertaken with regard to elders, leadership, hierarchies, etc., but I'm not sure this parable has anything to say about it.