PT-2 "The Parable of the Mustard Seed" (Matt. 13:31-32)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/12/2022 10:07 AM

 

My Worship Time                                               Focus:  PT-2 “The Parable of the Mustard Seed”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  Matt. 13:31-32

 

            Message of the verses:  “31 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; 32  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.’”

 

            I have listened to the sermon that goes along with this section of Scripture a couple of times as I do my daily walking, and there were many things that I learned from it, things like MacArthur talks a lot about things that have to do with the fact that what Jesus was talking about in a botany sense is all true, although that certainly is not the point of the parable.  Also we don’t know if our Lord explained this parable to His disciples or not, but there is none recorded in the gospels, so as with most Scripture  we have to rely on the true Author of Scripture, the Holy Spirit. 

 

            During our Lord’s earthly ministry, the kingdom was almost imperceptible, but because of its few citizens and because it was spiritual and invisible, but as we have mentioned the part of the Kingdom of God that we are living in is the Church age, which is described as the mysterious part of the Kingdom of God. The word “mystery” is a word that in the New Testaments means that it was not revealed in the Old Testament, but is now revealed in the New Testament.  The apostle Paul uses this word to describe what we call the “Rapture of the Church” when he wrote to the Thessalonians.   

 

            In his commentary John MacArthur writes about the manger that Jesus was born in, and his description of the manger is not how I believe was where Jesus was born.  I have stated before that I believe Jesus was born in a cave, a cave where all the Passover lambs were housed, and not in what people traditionally believe He was born in.  When my wife and I were living in Aruba, we were there over Christmas time and we went into a cave where they had the nativity set up and I believe that this was close to the idea of where our Lord was born. MacArthur was making a point in that section of his commentary of how supposedly this place where Jesus was born and where He was raised in Galilee was insignificant backwaters of the Roman Empire.  Philip asked Nathanael “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46).  As mentioned in an earlier SD at the time when Jesus was crucified and then raised from the dead there were only 120 believers as seen in Acts 1:15, so think about that for a moment, and then think about how Christianity today has many millions in it, but for sure not all of them are true believers but the effects of Christianity are seen in most places around the world.  Now as we compare these 120 people to the millions who were on the earth at that time it can indeed be compared to a mustard seed.  I want to look at Psalm 72:8 at this time to show that there will be a time when the Lord will truly be much larger than He is even today:  “May he also rule from sea to sea And from the River to the ends of the earth.”  Truly the church age began very small but has now become great in size.

            So the first lesson we have learned from this parable is that the kingdom of heaven started out small but grew, and the next lesson is that it will be a blessing to the rest of the world, something that I have eluted to.  The tree that grows from the small mustard seed represents the kingdom of heaven, which in the present age corresponds to the church.

 

            MacArthur writes “Some interpreters have held that the birds of the air represent demons or other evil forces, as they do in the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:19).  But there is no reason to expect a given figure to always represent the same thing, and the idea of evil is alien to the context of this parable.

            “The figure of birds making nest normally calls to mind that which is positive and helpful.  Nesting carries the idea of protection, safety, refuge, and sanctuary, which the mother bird provides for her young.”

 

            It is my desire to finish looking at this parable in our next SD, and in that we will be looking at some Old Testament passages that speak of trees, the first will come from the 4^th chapter of the book of Daniel, and then we will go into the book of Ezekiel’s book.

 

4/12/2022 10:40 AM