By Todd Paetznick, April 18, 2024

Small beginnings are nothing in comparison to the final result.  We live in a world still struggling in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis.  Undoubtedly, everyone has a story of contracting COVID, knowing people who suffered from the virus, attended school remotely, worked from home, and had other challenges.  All of what people around the world suffered was due to a microscopic virus that started out very small, multiplied, and spread.    

According to Jesus’ teaching, the growth of the Kingdom of God is like yeast, another microscopic organism.  Like the COVID-19 virus, yeast is so small that it cannot be seen using a conventional microscope, yet both have a significant impact.  Billions of people worldwide felt the effects of COVID, which is about .3 microns in size.  Yeast is ten times larger than the COVID-19 coronavirus, coming in at around 3 microns, but is still too small to be seen.  For size comparison purposes, the diameter of a human hair is around 50 microns, meaning around 17 yeast microorganisms will fit across the width of that hair.  Yeast is so small that no one in Jesus’ world had ever seen it.  Despite it being invisible, for all practical purposes, the existence of yeast was known by nearly everyone in the ancient world and it was put to good use.  Yeast was and still is used to make bread dough rise. 

Jesus compared the small size of yeast to the Kingdom of God in Luke 13:20-21.  At first glance, this may seem to be a strange comparison, but the point Jesus wanted to make would be remembered by his disciples and the people hearing him speak.  The usefulness of yeast was well understood as a part of the everyday food preparation tasks in the homes of everyone hearing Jesus speak.  His memorable message was that a little bit of yeast would multiply and spread throughout the available dough to make a nice, airy, and delicious bread.  The illustration was obvious to the people listening and would likely remind them about their encounter with Jesus every time they made or ate bread.  Like yeast, the Kingdom of God will start out so small that it cannot be seen, but it will grow and permeate the whole world, and everyone will feel and enjoy its effects.  

In business terms, Differentiated Value quantifies the perceived worth of competing alternatives.  Nearly all businesses begin as small ideas.  But the people who start those businesses hope their idea will become large and valuable to many people one day.  Business growth is typically thought of as the result of the efforts of the people operating the business and, more importantly, how the idea solves a problem and benefits people better than competing alternatives.  If there is no differentiated value, the business will eventually fail.  When differentiated value exists, the business grows and thrives.

The Kingdom of God must have differentiated value associated with it; the Kingdom has not failed to grow in the centuries since Jesus walked the earth and told people about his Father’s Kingdom.  The Kingdom Jesus spoke of has expanded worldwide and survived for thousands of years.  This tells us much about how the world’s people have perceived the value of God’s Kingdom.  Like yeast expanding through bread dough, the Kingdom of God started small, unseen by the naked eye, but it keeps growing and expanding. What was once microscopically small has grown into something that has benefited millions of people over multiple centuries around the world.