Inevitable Growth in Matthew 13:33
KJV Matthew 13:33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
One often-neglected parable simply compares the Kingdom to yeast hidden in dough until the dough is leavened. Those who have worked with yeast or sour dough can easily imagine what Christ teaches in only 19 words.
Just as we see in the True Vine, Christ gives us such a lively picture that we can no longer see the same image again without thinking of His words. The typical picture at the time of Jesus was one of a woman blending sourdough with the flour to make bread. The amount in the parable is a very large batch, a bushel basket of dough.
In Kitchener, Ontario, the women at St. Peter Lutheran Church often talked about Herman. Someone started sourdough, named it Herman, and passed samples to various women in the congregation. Herman grew and spread throughout the congregation, a parallel with the visible growth of the Gospel through the Means of Grace. Sourdough is an easier way to cultivate and preserve yeast than the yeast we buy in stores today. Yeast, once hidden in the dough, reveals its power in time.
More than one person has forgotten leavened dough in a warm place with a heavy metal lid over the pot to keep it moist. Rushing in to check the dough, the baker finds the dough risen, the lid pushed off the pan. Dough may even crawl out of the pan and rise on the kitchen floor. Yeast is humble and tiny but powerful in its mission over time. Professional bakers will save old dough in the freezer to add to the new batch, simply because it adds to the quality of the finished product.
Dough without yeast cannot be made into a worthwhile product. Our lives without the leaven of the Gospel are as spiritually lifeless as unleavened dough. The progress of the Gospel’s leaven is slow but unstoppable. If we remain in Christ, the Gospel permeates every aspect of our lives. We see many examples of this in the lives of faithful elderly Christians. They have spent so much time with the Word that their speech is permeated with Biblical wisdom. They know too well that they are sinners, but their patience, generosity, gentleness, and wisdom are remarkable to younger generations. When an elderly saintly person dies, we are to look upon the sight as an example of Christ displaying to us in advance a foretaste of heaven.
One woman in her nineties had endured extreme hardships, including a previous husband who had kicked her mercilessly while she was pregnant. She was filled with cancer and barely able to function at the end of her life, yet she was filled with love, joy, and peace. Her highpoint each week was receiving the Lord’s Supper. She had an uncanny ability to predict the day I would visit to give her Holy Communion. When she appeared to be wrong once, her kindly second husband gently kidded her for several days. She smiled with great joy when she learned that I had driven almost to her house, then turned around, after remembering a medical appointment. For her, death meant giving up her infirmities while enjoying the fulfillment of all the promises made in Christ. She was an excellent example of the Gospel yeast working through her entire being, until she was completely leavened.
In our society, too, we receive the benefit of the slow working of the leaven of the Gospel. Although our sinful condition remains, sincere believers reject and suppress sin through the Holy Spirit working in the Law. More importantly, the Holy Spirit works through the Gospel to make people more generous, patient, loving, forgiving, and selfless. The leaven of the Gospel in the preaching of Wilberforce in England moved the English to reject human slavery.
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“Here again we see divine power, again wholly spiritual, and while operating altogether invisibly, producing any number of tangible effects, every one of them wholesome. The Gospel cannot but succeed, and the one work of the church is to preach, teach, and spread it in the world. The parable teaches faith, patience, hope, and joy.”
R. C. H. Lenski, Matthew, Columbus: Lutheran Book Concern, 1932, p. 516. [Emphasis in original]
The Mustard Seed in Matthew 13:31-32
KJV Matthew 13:31 (Mark 4:31-32; Luke 13:19)Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: 32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.
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“This parable shows the Kingdom in its visible growth. A number of thoughts are directly involved or necessarily implied. The power of this Kingdom is divine. It is a living organism, and its life and power are undying—all other growths of earth have the germs of decay and death in them. The growth continues all through time (Matthew 24:14).”
R. C. H. Lenski, Matthew, Columbus: Lutheran Book Concern, 1932, p. 513.
History has shown the truth of this parable. The Christian Church began in its embryonic stage with the promise of the Messiah in Genesis 3:15 when Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise and deserved nothing but condemnation for violating God’s clear command. When God became flesh, born of the Virgin Mary, the first believers were a few shepherds and some foreign astronomers. Surely no religious group was smaller, weaker, or less impressive at the birth of Christ. Multitudes flocked to pagan temples with gifts of gold and jewels. Judaism was reaching a highpoint as Jesus grew up, with a splendid temple in Jerusalem, built by Herod.
Jesus attracted crowds with His loving-kindness, spiritual wisdom, and astonishing miracles, but His impact was numerically small during His public ministry. The Christian Church grew miraculously across the civilized world during the brief lifetimes of the apostles, thanks to the timely construction of the inter-continental Roman road system and the use of ships. Persecution spread rather than hindered the Gospel by scattering the surviving believers in world cities like Jerusalem and Rome into new territories. Tertullian said, literally, “The more you mow us down, the faster we grow.” Historians have modified the statement to: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”
The Roman Empire first executed Christians for their belief, then suffocated the Church with approval, marble temples, and a Roman bureaucracy. The Gospel persisted in Europe and, according to legend, in India, where Thomas preached. The growth of Islam during the Medieval Age threatened to devour Europe and the Church. The Turks were at the gates of Vienna in 1530, when the tide turned. The newly invented printing press sped Luther’s writings across the world on the heels of ferocious persecution.
The modern age, spurred by the freedom of Luther’s Reformation, has added every technological advantage to the spread of the Gospel, from television and radio to the Internet and video tapes. The Gospel shelters many souls, encompassing tribes in Europe that once worshiped trees and natives in Africa who once dined on their enemies.
