A Small Thing That Changes Everything. Matthew 13:33

Continuing in the parables of Matthew. I remember the first time the words of this short parable truly settled into my heart. It was during a quiet morning, when the house was still and the coffee was steaming, and I read once again:

“Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.” (Matthew 13:33, KJV)

Just one verse. A handful of ancient words. Yet how profound they are! In a chapter filled with stories of seeds and soils, treasures and nets, the Lord Jesus gives us this domestic picture—one so ordinary that any woman listening that day would have smiled in recognition. A woman. A bit of leaven. Three measures of meal (enough flour for a large household loaf, perhaps thirty or forty pounds). And the quiet, hidden work that transforms the whole lump.

I have come to love how the Saviour chooses such humble things to unveil the mysteries of the kingdom. He could have spoken of armies or kings or mighty winds, but instead He points to a woman’s hands kneading dough in the corner of her home. There is something deeply comforting in that. The kingdom of heaven does not always arrive with trumpets and banners; very often it arrives hidden, small, and working silently from within.

In my own life I have seen this truth unfold more times than I can count. When I first began to follow Christ, the change felt tiny—almost invisible. A whispered prayer here, a verse read in secret there, a moment of forgiveness when my flesh wanted revenge. It was but a morsel of leaven placed into the heavy, resistant lump of my old nature. I could scarcely see the difference at first. Yet day by day, week by week, the Spirit worked. Attitudes softened. Desires shifted. What once seemed impossible—loving my enemies, rejoicing in trials, finding contentment in little—began to rise and spread until the whole of me was touched.

And it is not only in the individual heart that this happens. I look around at the world today, and I marvel that the gospel, starting with twelve ordinary men in a backwater province of the Roman Empire, has permeated nations, cultures, languages, and centuries. A small beginning, hidden in the lives of fishermen and tax collectors, yet it has leavened entire societies. Hospitals were born of this influence. The dignity of women and children was lifted. Slavery was challenged and abolished in many places because the gospel worked its way through the conscience of men. Though the work is often slow, unseen, and opposed, the promise remains: “till the whole was leavened.”

Of course, there are days when I grow impatient. I see the hardness of hearts, the divisions among God’s people, the way evil seems to rise faster than good. In those moments I must return to the parable and remember: the leaven does not strive or shout; it simply is placed within, and then it works. Patiently. Inevitably. Irresistibly.

I am reminded also of the mystery of the “three measures.” Some see echoes of Abraham’s hospitality to the Lord in Genesis 18, when Sarah prepared cakes from three measures of fine meal. Perhaps the Lord is gently showing that the kingdom comes in continuity with the promises of old, yet hidden in a new way—through the quiet influence of grace rather than outward power.

Whatever the deeper layers, the lesson for me is clear: do not despise the day of small things. Do not grow discouraged when progress seems imperceptible. The same Lord who hid leaven in meal has hidden His kingdom life in us, and He will not fail to bring it to completion.

So today I pray: Lord Jesus, keep working in me that good leaven of Thy Spirit. Though I see but little rising at times, I trust Thee to permeate every part—my thoughts, my words, my relationships, my very being—until the whole is leavened. And may I be faithful to carry this same hidden grace into the lives of others, believing that what begins small in Thy hand shall one day fill the earth.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Discovering the Path of Salvation