During the 1970s, I served one of the poorest churches in a very small community in southwest Louisiana. No one would be so arrogant as to believe that, out of that congregation, a world-changing ministry would emerge.
Even though I was impacted and blessed by my time there, no world-changing ministry arose from that congregation.
Jesus was surrounded by a group of nobodies in a very insignificant area of the world. People looking on would have thought that nothing good could come out of Galilee, a band of misfits, and a Messiah figure who didn’t fit the picture that had been long prophesied.
Jesus used parables to get people to think thoughts they would never have imagined if directly addressed. By telling a story, he gained the assent of the audience.
This time, the audience was his followers. He encouraged them to believe that even though the kingdom began small, it was going to grow.
He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field;
“It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches” (Matthew 13.31-32).
My mother carried around a mustard seed in a tiny glass pendant to remind herself of God’s activity in her life. I remember the seed being about the size of a grain of black pepper.
In 2024, we can look back at Jesus’ words and realize how they came true. Christianity, which began with a small group of faithful followers empowered by the Holy Spirit, has grown to be the largest religion in the world.
Millions of people call Jesus their Lord and Savior. Their lives have been transformed by God’s kingdom, and they are looking forward to a great forever with Him.
In today’s YouTube video, Rudy Ross makes faith the size of a mustard seed very personal. He says that even his small faith allows God to move mountains in his life.
Rudy takes the next parable and relates it to his experience as a Jewish person who has become a follower of Jesus.
He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened” (Matthew 13.33).
Yeast, or leaven, represents wisdom. It can never be offered on the altar because human wisdom can never compete with God’s activity of grace on our behalf.
Similarly, there is a time in the Jewish calendar when all of the leaven is cleaned out of the house. It’s a great reminder for us to remove all of our human wisdom before our encounter with God and His grace.
When I apply Jesus’s parable to my life, I think of how people who love Jesus and serve him actively may be invisible in the workplace, school, home, or community. However, their relationship with Jesus permeates the relationships and makes a difference for all.
Jesus’ Use of Parables
I believe Jesus used parables in an attempt to reach the minds of people who resisted him or needed encouragement. Matthew notes this about Jesus’s use of parables.
Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable, he told them nothing. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet:
“I will open my mouth to speak in parables;
I will proclaim what has been hidden since the foundation.” (Matthew 13.34-35)
Most of the best preachers are storytellers. They tell a story and get the audience connected with them, and then they drive home their point.
Jesus is our example of using parables to get people on his side, to listen to him, and then to deliver the punchline.
Sometimes his words encouraged people, and other times they confronted people, but they were used to get people to better respond to what God was doing.
YouTube Video
Rudy Ross and I discussed this passage on YouTube today. It is on the Bob Spradling channel.
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