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The Four: A Survey of the Gospels
Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom
From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John
Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
Postmillennialists like to point out that leaven doesn’t always represent evil or corruption, which is true enough. But it’s hard to avoid the fact that leaven often does represent evil. That might form some of the background to Jesus’ parable of the leaven.
David Garland writes: “The parable is not simply a meditation on insignificant beginnings. No reference is made to the small amount of leaven as in 1 Corinthians 5:6 and Galatians 5:9. To compare the kingdom of heaven to leaven is to invert the common images of sacred and profane. . . . It would be like saying that the kingdom of heaven is like ‘rust’ or a ‘virus.’ It is a rather iconoclastic image, but it accords with Jesus’ assertion that the tax collectors and harlots enter into the kingdom of heaven before the chief priests and elders (21:32) and Matthew’s conviction that one must believe that the kingdom has come in Jesus, the son of God who was crucified. The question is not: ‘Can something so contemptibly small be representative of the work of God?’ but ‘Can something so contemptible be representative of the work of God?’”
Postmillennial interpretation of the parables has to beware of stumbling over the offense of the cross.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, May 23, 2008 at 8:09 am
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