We are returning this morning to Matthew chapter 13 and will be looking at the two short parables that we skipped over last week while covering the parable of the tares among the wheat. For the last couple of weeks we have been going over the parables of our Lord, all of them being in some way or another a revelation about the kingdom of heaven and how it operates in our world. This morning we are going to read versus 31-35 which encompasses these two short parables that need to be understood together and in light of the overall theme of chapter 13 that Matthew makes very clear in verses 34-35.
Let us begin by reading the short passage. I would encourage you to follow along in your Bible or the pew Bibles that we have available. Matthew 13:31-35.
“He presented another parable to them, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full-grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.’ He spoke another parable to them, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like 11 which a woman took and hid in three packs of flour until it was all leavened.’ All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and he did not speak to them without a parable. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: ‘I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.”
Small things can have tremendous effects on the entire world. A single moment on a battlefield may change the course of the war, the nations involved in that war, and even the entire world. Had that one soldier given ground instead of charging blindly at the enemy, the course of history might have changed completely. That is what makes war movies so inspiring, right? We watch as the protagonist makes that one decision, performs that one act of bravery that inspires his fellows to overcome the enemy changing the course of history. Everything hinged on that one soldier.
We can see it in nature. A tiny trickle of water, barely strong enough to move a few pebbles easily bounces off a stone with no visible effect, but over time that continuous stream of water wears away at the rock to create massive canyons and caverns. Small things that, in the end, produce profound results.
That is the spiritual lesson of these two parables. Jesus is revealing to his disciples how God is going to use a tiny group of faithful men and women to generate astounding outcomes for his kingdom and for the world.
Now before we begin to look at these parables, we need to have a better understanding of the mindset of the disciples as it came to the kingdom of heaven. The disciples believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the promised King sent by God. Some time ago we looked at the word “Messiah” and its implications; it is literally translated “anointed one” but in the context of the Jewish scriptures, what we recognize as the Old Testament, it referred to a special person, called out by God to set up his kingdom on this earth. That person would be the greater Son of David, the promised King who would rule over the earth but he would also fulfill the duties of a prophet and a priest, interceding for the righteous and representing God to the world. That is of course exactly who Jesus is.
The problem for the disciples is that they had a very set idea of what the kingdom of God would be. To begin with, it would come in glory and in power. There would be great cataclysmic events in which there would be the judgment and punishment of evildoers and a dazzling display of majesty and power by the messianic king as he established his kingdom. This was the common Jewish mindset around the kingdom, how their rabbis and scholars had explained it to them for centuries based on the prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah.
First, we saw the desire for cataclysmic miracles back in chapter 12 when, even though Jesus had been performing thousands of miracles, healing the sick, casting out demons, giving sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, the scribes and Pharisees came to him asking for a sign. They were not asking for him to heal another person, they wanted some cosmic miracle, the stars to fall out of the heavens or the sun to start moving backward in the sky at his command. And for their lack of faith and acceptance of him, Jesus called them and evil and adulterous generation over whom the men of the wicked city of Nineveh who repented at the preaching of Jonah would stand in judgment.
Second, last week we saw Jesus laying out before the disciples the fact that their ministry and the ministry of the church in this world would be one of evangelism and not as the bringers of God’s judgment and wrath upon the world. We are not to go out and rip out the tares sown among the wheat in this world. God will bring his judgment in his time. Instead, we are to live among them, being in the world though not of the world.
Finally, the disciples believed that the kingdom of heaven would come in all at once with a grand show of glory and majesty. They simply did not understand the plan of God. They recognized that the Messiah was going to come as a king, they even recognized that there would be aspects of suffering to the Messiah’s ministry, but they had no idea that there would be a separation between these events. The Old Testament never fully explains the timeline of the coming of the Messiah. What we see in those prophecies are the mountain tops, the main events and activities of the Messiah and the coming of the kingdom of God. What the Old Testament prophets were not aware of was the distance between those peaks, the valleys that separated these peaks were hidden from their prophetic view. It does not make them wrong, it does not make them false prophets, it just means things were not going to play out exactly how they might have imagined.
That is what Matthew points out in verse 35, “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.” Jesus is revealing to the disciples some of the hidden aspects of the coming of the kingdom of God; he is mapping out some of the valleys in between the peaks pointed to in the Old Testament.
The earthly kingdom and the direct reigning of Christ over the world would have to wait. The longed for and promised times of refreshing and restoration, for the throne of David to once again and forever be established in Jerusalem would have to wait. The punishment of evildoers and enemies of God would have to wait.
Instead of announcing the coming judgment that the disciples were expecting, Jesus was telling them that he was going to have to suffer at their hands. This is why we will see Peter responding so violently against Jesus when the Lord tells his disciples about his coming death in Matthew chapter 16. In verse 21 we read, “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”
Why would Peter react like this? He had just confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God back in verse 16, now only six verses later he is rebuking Christ! What would cause this kind of reaction? Even after hearing these parables and the new revelation of the coming kingdom of heaven, Peter still did not understand. He could not let go of his preconceptions. He was seeing in the teaching of Jesus the crumbling of his kingdom vision.
This is why so many people walked away from Jesus, they recognized his miracles, they recognized the wisdom of his teaching, but he was talking about humility and meekness, giving to Caesar what is due to Caesar and giving to God what is due to God. “You not supposed to given to Caesar, you are supposed to conquer him.” They were looking for kingdom of glory, kingdom of power, kingdom of majesty, a kingdom of fantastic miracles, a kingdom where unbelievers and unrighteous were judged and destroyed; so Jesus had to explain through parables the truth of how the kingdom of heaven would be established on earth. That is what Jesus is doing here in Matthew chapter 13.
With the parable of the soils, the Lord explained to them that there would be many people who might show initial interest in the kingdom but eventually walk away. He was showing that the kingdom would include rejection. With the parable of the tares among the wheat, Jesus was explaining that not only would that rejection exist, it would continue to grow alongside the righteous all the way until the end of the age when God would harvest all within the world at the same time.
The Lord is explaining to them that instead of coming in majesty and power, the kingdom of heaven is going to start small and unassuming, looking to the rest the world as something completely insignificant and only grow into something larger over time. That is the lesson behind the parable of the mustard seed. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is a smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full-grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”
Now before we go on to talk about the lesson of this parable I have to take just a moment to explain a controversy that surrounds these two verses. For quite a long time those who seek to discredit Christ and the word of God have looked to this parable as an example of the errors within Scripture. Jesus says right at the beginning of verse 32 that the mustard seed is “smaller than all other seeds.” And they say, “see, there are smaller seeds in the world, the mustard seed is not the smallest and therefore Jesus spoke in error so he cannot be an all-knowing God and the Bible is not inerrant and so it cannot be the Word of God.” Others will use this parable to support their claim that Jesus knew there were smaller seeds in the world but was teaching in a way that accommodated the ignorance of his hearers and therefore knowingly distorted the truth. They make this claim so that they can say Jesus accommodated much of his teaching to the people of his time and that his teachings were never meant to be universal in scope. Therefore, they can be changed and adapted to fit our times and our culture when prudent.
Now there is quite a bit that can be said about this. And I do not want to take the time right now to go into all the little details that defend the legitimacy of the Lord’s statement here. If you are really interested, you can ask about it in our discussion time later, but simply put I am convinced by the simple explanation that Jesus is using literary hyperbole in making a point. This is normal conversation both now and in the time of Christ; for example, Friday was the Selby homecoming parade and football game and you might read in an article about it in the Selby newspaper next week that “the whole town showed up to cheer them on!” Now, was the whole town of Selby at the parade, no of course not. But no one would accuse the newspaper of lying or intentionally misleading the public about the truth. Everyone would understand that the writer was just making a point. Jesus was using a common metaphor of the day to make a point. He will later use the minuscule nature of the mustard seed again when talking about faith.
So what was Jesus saying with this parable? He is explaining to his listeners through this parable that the kingdom of heaven that he is come to announce, the kingdom that he had come to initiate in their presence is as small as a mustard seed. As Jesus was giving this parable, the kingdom consisted of Jesus and his immediate disciples. It was tiny, especially if you compared to the other kingdoms of the world. Both the secular kingdoms and the religious kingdoms. There were hundreds of religions in the Roman Empire, hundreds of different systems of belief. Everything from the paganism of the Romans to the different cults dedicated to deities of individual locations like streams and forests, and all the different mystery religions that abounded around the Mediterranean Sea.
In light of all those other religious movements, Jesus and his little band of followers were nothing but a mustard seed. Why would anyone pay attention to one man and his handful of disciples? What kind of kingdom is that? Jesus was telling his disciples, the kingdom of heaven is not going to come in glory and majesty, it is going to grow. Right now the kingdom was small and insignificant, even if you are looking for it you could easily miss it. Just like the mustard seed that you can hardly see while you are placing it in the dirt.
But as time passes, as the rains fall, a tiny shoot sprouts up from the earth, and it begins to grow. And from something so small, so tiny, the growth just continues. It goes on and on, growing ever higher ever larger until it reaches the size of a tree, large enough for birds to come and make their nests in its branches. To find rest and shelter and food. Out of that tiny seed a tree grows.
If you look at the expansion of the Christian church throughout history, it is unfathomable without the direct hand of God. Jesus told his disciples that the little mustard seed he planted was going to grow. The world put him to death, and it grew; they executed all of his apostles but one, and it grew; the world tried everything in its power to exterminate the kingdom of heaven from the face of the earth, and failed spectacularly. Now you may be thinking that the church is in decline. And if you look at our own country, if you looked at Europe and western culture you may begin to lose hope in the growth of this mustard tree.
Yes, there are many tares among the wheat, I do not like being cynical but more than enough polls have shown that, especially in western culture very few people who call themselves Christians believe in the actual fundamentals of the Christian faith the sufficiency of Scripture and that salvation comes by grace alone through faith alone. Ligonier Ministries does a State of Theology survey every two years to take the theological temperature of the United States. What they found this year is that 30% of Christians who call themselves “Evangelicals” deny the deity of Christ. But even when you take out the tares, even when you take out the false Christians and the wolves who clothe themselves and wool, there are millions of Christians around the world. In fact, by sheer weight of numbers the church has grown faster in the last 150 years and then it did in the previous 1700. Though Biblical Christianity seems to be slowly fading in the West, in Asia it has been exploding in numbers that are hard to fathom. Especially within China where being a Christian often leads to state sanctioned persecution.
The kingdom of God has grown and expanded to every nation on the face of the earth. The tree of the kingdom of heaven has grown and expanded out across the world so that the birds of the air come and make their nest in its branches. The dedicated student of the Old Testament, as the Lord’s listeners would have been would have heard this parable and been reminded of Daniel chapter 4 where Nebuchadnezzar has a very similar dream interpreted for him. In this stream he saw a tree in the midst of the earth and its height was great and it grew to become strong, producing fruit for all the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky. In his interpretation of the Kings dream, Daniel explained that the tree was Nebuchadnezzar and that his empire had reached out into the earth to produce great advancements for all the world to benefit from. The Babylonian empire saw great advances in agriculture, architecture, education, literature, economics and in many other areas. It brought incredible prosperity to large parts of the known world at that time. In this vision, the birds and animals who benefited from the tree’s shade and food were the other nations of the world.
In the same way, Christianity, as it has grown and influenced the world has brought good in immeasurable ways. When Christians live in obedience to the Lord, they are a blessing to those around them, even to unbelievers. When Christians are serving the Lord as they have been called, they will be salt and light to those around them. Purifying and preserving the world, standing as a barrier against evil and illuminating all those around them. Nations who have been highly influenced by Christians throughout the ages have been blessed in economic, legal, cultural, moral, and social ways. It is from Scripture through the witness of obedient Christians that the high standards of education and judicial systems, the abolition of slavery, the dignity of women, the rights of children and countless other social benefits have come.
What the church has been to the world is as a believing spouse is to an unbelieving husband or wife. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul describes how an unbelieving partner sanctified through a believing spouse. When God blesses the believing half of a marriage, the unbelieving half will receive the overflow.
This goes directly into the parable of the leaven. “He spoke another parable to them, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three packs of flour until it was all leavened.” At that time, baking yeast was not something you could just buy anywhere and so the way bread was infused with the rising agent it needed was similar to the way someone might make sourdough now. When the person responsible for baking had a loaf ready to go into the oven, they would take a small piece of it and set it aside. When they made the next batch, they would knead the previous days bit into the new dough the leaven from the last batch would then be spread into the new dough and make it arise. And before when into the oven, they take another piece from this batch and so continue the process.
What Jesus is saying with this parable is that the kingdom of heaven is right now being hidden in the new dough, hidden from view but still very much effective. That tiny mustard seed, that little bit of leaven is going to grow and as it grows it is going to influence everything around it. It is going to be an influence for the better. The power of the kingdom of heaven is far greater than its tiny size might suggest. The smallest part of the kingdom that is placed in the world is sure to have influence because it contains the power of the Spirit of God, the influence of the kingdom flows from the King of kings, it flows from the power of his Holy Word, and it flows through his faithful disciples.
The idea “hiding” the leaven in the new dough is not so much about keeping it secret but rather sense of penetrating deeply and completely permeating the world as the leaven permeates the dough. Christians are called to be in the world but not of the world because that is the only way the gospel can reach and affect the world. When the kingdom of heaven is faithfully represented by the disciples of Christ, the influence in the world around them is undeniable. The most effective form of evangelism is not to have some national leader or famous entertainer draw the crowds because they come for the show or the personality of that individual. The most effective form of evangelism is when the unassuming Christian obediently shares the gospel with the people that they interact with in their everyday life.
That is the focus in the meaning of these two parables. The disciples were a small and insignificant group in a backwater district in an insignificant province of a vast empire. The purpose of these two parables was to encourage the disciples and all those who would follow in their footsteps throughout the generations. Our local church may be tiny and its reach insignificant when compared to the mega-churches and TV preachers who draw in thousands every week and broadcast around the world, but that by no means makes us incapable of having tremendous impact for the kingdom when all involved serve the Lord faithfully in discipleship and evangelism.
God does not require the great and wise of this world to accomplish His purposes. “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that he may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.”