3 Bible Tips: How Is Sin Like Leaven?
Leaven is a substance, like yeast, that when put into bread dough, spreads throughout the dough and makes it rise. This enables bread to be puffy and soft. In some scriptures, sin is compared with leaven. Why?
1. Sin grows relentlessly.
"Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death" (James 1:15).
2. Sin spreads insidiously.
"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned" (Romans 5:12).
3. The sin of pride puffs us up.
A candidate for the ministry must be "not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil" (1 Timothy 3:6).
For more about the analogy of leaven representing sin during the biblical Feast of Unleavened Bread, see "The Feast of Unleavened Bread: The Lesson of Leaving Sin" from the booklet God's Holy Day Plan: The Promise of Hope for All Mankind.