In this video, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke discuss the parables of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast from Luke 13. They explore the meaning behind these parables and how they relate to the growth of the Kingdom of God. Clint and Michael invite viewers to reflect on the slow and steady growth of faith and the role of individuals in spreading the Kingdom. Join them in this insightful discussion on the transformative power of the Kingdom of God.
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Transcript
00:00:00:55 – 00:00:25:24
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Starting the week with us on Monday as we continue through the gospel. Luke, grateful to have you with us. We are in the about the halfway point of Luke 13. Couple of short parables today and then a sort of parable for us to end up with. The first two, I think are both going to be familiar.
00:00:25:24 – 00:00:49:16
Clint Loveall
If you’ve been a Bible reader, if you’re a New Testament gospel reader, you’ve heard these, Luke tells them as kind of their own standing text uses them a little bit different than, say, Matthew, but they’re not they’re not appreciably different. So we’ll jump into the first one here. The parable of the Mustard Seed. We’re at verse 18 of Chapter 13.
00:00:49:21 – 00:01:23:15
Clint Loveall
Jesus said, therefore, what is the Kingdom of God like? To what should I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden. It grew and became a tree and the birds of the air made nests in its branches. So if you’re you probably if you know the mustard seed parable, you’re probably more familiar with it in Matthew, where it talks about the value of a small thing and the kingdom growing here, Luke gives us a condensed version.
00:01:23:20 – 00:01:56:53
Clint Loveall
Interestingly enough, he ties it to the text before with this. Therefore the word therefore, as he had been criticizing the hypocrites and the woman. And essentially here you have the idea that the kingdom grows, that the kingdom begins small, that faith begins small, that spirit, all things have a kind of growth cycle and eventually they become big mustard seeds.
00:01:56:58 – 00:02:25:45
Clint Loveall
You know, some people get caught up on details. Mustard is not a tree, it’s a bush. But the word here just means that it grows and that birds make this space. It in other words, it does something for some. But the point here is growth. The kingdom of God grows. And that Michael seems like probably a tame thing for Jesus to say.
00:02:25:49 – 00:02:46:09
Clint Loveall
But it’s it is surprising, as it would have been understood in Jesus day, the idea that God’s kingdom is sort of advancing and growing slowly and getting bigger. That is not what most people in Jesus Day would have conceived of when they thought of God’s kingdom.
00:02:46:13 – 00:03:06:07
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, well, some of that is because of the difference that Jesus is making in His interpretation of what that kingdom would be. And some of that is maybe elementary, but let’s make sure that we all are on the same page, that in first century Judaism there was this idea that the Messiah would return. There was this long expected hope.
00:03:06:07 – 00:03:26:06
Michael Gewecke
And in that day, and for those people that had a particular meaning, it meant that this person would come much like David was king of Israel. This person would come and would save the people from the oppression of Rome. They would no longer be a people held under the thumb of a world power. This was the hope. This was the dream.
00:03:26:11 – 00:03:58:28
Michael Gewecke
And so when Jesus talks about Kingdom, he is not the only one in first century Israel having conversations about kingdoms. But when Jesus is doing it and he begins talking about the Kingdom of God, he’s not ever talking about that kind of military overthrow that people would have been accustomed to, let’s be honest, would have been hoping to hear the idea, Hey, finally we’re going to get someone with the leadership strength to rally the troops and to get this thing done with we can finally move forward.
00:03:58:28 – 00:04:29:42
Michael Gewecke
The Messiah will save us from this oppressive force, and we’ll be the kind of people who experience freedom like we believe God desires for us to have. So here there’s a kind of scandal. I would I would say, Clint, the idea that this kingdom is going to be this tiny thing that will grow in only one day, will it be a place that will be big enough and strong enough for the birds to nest It be a place where other people can find a place of rest or a place of hospitality, a home.
00:04:29:47 – 00:04:50:22
Michael Gewecke
And and this is the hope that it will grow in that way and that I think it does defy some of the expectation. I think that this is in some ways a text that the disciples must have remembered Jesus teaching and post his death and resurrection thought, Oh, that’s what he’s talking about, this idea that it’s going to grow through the church.
00:04:50:34 – 00:05:08:33
Michael Gewecke
Luke You know, it just is. Part one acts as part two. And when I read a parable like this, I can’t help but think of that, that thing that the church experienced, that slow growth from Jerusalem. And I don’t think that this took on a new meaning to them when they remember that as something that Jesus taught.
00:05:08:43 – 00:05:36:07
Clint Loveall
You know, this is a fascinating comparison for Jesus to make and for the disciples to grab on to, for Scripture to highlight that the kingdom is a small thing that gets bigger, that the kingdom is not flashy and bold and amazing. It is the steady growth of a seed. It is a thing that happens in the garden that eventually makes a difference in the world.
00:05:36:07 – 00:06:02:31
Clint Loveall
And I think, you know, use words like organic or natural. These are these are images that I think are fascinating because if we were to say, what is the kingdom of God like, most of us wouldn’t come up with a tiny seed that eventually gets bigger. We we would fish for a more dramatic metaphor. We would want a more exciting image.
00:06:02:36 – 00:06:27:16
Clint Loveall
And yet Jesus gives us this very mundane, very common, but very powerful picture. The same is true of the of the next comparison. Jesus makes verse 20 year and again he said to what should I compare the Kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.
00:06:27:21 – 00:06:51:22
Clint Loveall
Yeast is another familiar image in the Scripture. The idea that it sort of mysteriously has an effect on the whole batch. There are other parts of scripture where talks about a little yeast makes a difference in the entire batch of dough. And that’s the idea here again, that the kingdom is like yeast. It’s it’s at work in the world and it’s growing, its leavening.
00:06:51:27 – 00:07:15:43
Clint Loveall
And it doesn’t just do that in one area. It it is doing that in all of life. It is doing that to the whole batch until all of it was leavened and we could, we could shrink that down, Michael, and say that that’s also a picture of the way the gospel is to work in our life. That the truth of Jesus goes to work on us.
00:07:15:48 – 00:07:37:21
Clint Loveall
And it it grows in us and it leavens us. It is to affect all of the areas of our life. And we are to grow as people of the kingdom. And so I think, you know, again, try to point out those devotion or texts. These aren’t these aren’t long texts, but I do think there’s a lot in here.
00:07:37:21 – 00:07:46:59
Clint Loveall
I think they can be read devotional. I think they’re a challenge to individuals and to churches. And an interesting thing here that Luke has done with them.
00:07:47:04 – 00:08:26:51
Michael Gewecke
On one hand, texts like this seem pretty simple. We can blow through them really quickly. And I think realistically, most of us, when we are reading Scripture, would be done with this. In the first 45 seconds. And I think that the danger of that is because we in 45 seconds miss what Jesus is talking about over a lifetime, that the idea that this small thing grows is actually not just encompassing our own lifetime, but it’s actually encompassing this idea of the kingdom growing generation over generation, a thousand year over a thousand years has been our experience.
00:08:26:51 – 00:08:54:42
Michael Gewecke
Now in the course of history, this this gospel takes time. And we are finicky people. We, by definition, want things to go quicker than they do. And sometimes we find ourselves in life’s most difficult seasons and their seasons punctuated by grief and anxiety or fear. And we would love for that to be gone right now. But by the definition of how it works, trees take time, use takes time.
00:08:54:46 – 00:09:19:13
Michael Gewecke
One has to live with a kind of patience. If we’re going to be people of faith because God works on a longer time frame than what we’re comfortable with if we’re going to be honest as humans. So I think on one hand we read this the meaning is not particularly hidden. It’s not particularly helpful for us to somehow try to find a fun or, you know, off the wall interpretation of the text.
00:09:19:15 – 00:09:45:09
Michael Gewecke
The interpretation is straightforward, but it’s one of those classic cases where knowing what it says and living what it means are two entirely different tasks. And I would invite you to consider today maybe this is a particularly devotional text in the sense that you could take a moment and ask yourself, you know, if I’m being honest, what are the areas of my life that haven’t been leavened yet or what have the areas of my life?
00:09:45:09 – 00:10:07:00
Michael Gewecke
I’m impatient in the work of the kingdom as that grows slowly, and that might be a place for all of us to have some heartfelt conversations with God, an opportunity, an invitation for us to consider that it is a journey. It does take time, and we may need to recommit to the journey that’s required.
00:10:07:04 – 00:10:31:19
Clint Loveall
I think as we as we dig in here, Michael, there’s kind of a a meta lesson or a lesson in some ways outside of the text and it’s an encouragement for us in terms of just how we read scripture. Those of you who are with us today, we’re grateful for the time you would put into Bible study. But these are the kind of verses that a person could read through.
00:10:31:19 – 00:10:53:38
Clint Loveall
You know, we’ve got a total of three or four verses, four verses here, it looks like, and you could read those in under a minute and go, oh, mustard seed and some yeast and you could go on to the next thing. But I think if we teach ourselves to read carefully, Jesus is saying, what should I compare the Kingdom of God to?
00:10:53:38 – 00:11:34:00
Clint Loveall
And that should catch our attention. And then he says, it’s like a mustard seed. And that’s an invitation for us to think, that’s an invitation for us to learn something. And so there are in these short moments, maybe not supremely memorable. I don’t know if anyone would say these are their favorite text, but I think if if we are encouraged to slow down, to think as we read and to ponder what we’ve read, then I think these are the kind of texts that surprise us with how much there is here when on the surface they’re just ten, 20, 30 words a piece.
00:11:34:04 – 00:11:52:00
Clint Loveall
There is depth here beyond the the brevity of the text. And I think it helps us remember that sometimes when we don’t hear something in Scripture, it may be because we’re not taking the opportunity to fully listen.
00:11:52:04 – 00:12:18:39
Michael Gewecke
And I think it’s worth noting and it needs said. But there are some people who’ve had a very radically different experience of the Christian faith than you have, whatever your experience has been. And some of us are going to actually struggle to imagine that that mustard seed of faith is our own. There are some people who have grown up in the church and taken the church for granted, and the church has been a relatively large and important thing.
00:12:18:39 – 00:12:44:13
Michael Gewecke
If you grew up in America in the fifties and sixties, seventies, the church did occupy very, very substantial, certainly in size and an influence kind of place in society. And so for us, that may look like growing up in the tree. That was large a thing that was huge. And we might struggle to imagine the idea of this mustard seed, this small and tiny thing.
00:12:44:13 – 00:13:04:08
Michael Gewecke
But I would I would put to us maybe the challenge of a text like this is that sometimes there are people who are going to come to the faith and say, you know, I didn’t grow up with faith that I grew up with doubt, I grew up with anger, I grew up fighting back against this gospel, but this small thing grew on me over over time.
00:13:04:08 – 00:13:27:00
Michael Gewecke
This thing, it like 11, touched every part of my life. And when that happened, I knew the truth of it. And so depending upon your story, depending upon how the faith has been a part of that story, I do think that a parable like this may also naturally land differently, and it’s worth seeing it from another person’s perspective, because I think that has something to teach us.
00:13:27:01 – 00:13:58:19
Clint Loveall
The only thing I’d add to that, Michael, is that I think it is almost impossible, probably impossible that most of us get through a life, even a life of faith and at some moment don’t think I don’t see much of the kingdom around me. I’m in the midst of hardship. People seem bent on destruction and negativity and judgment and abuse and oppression.
00:13:58:24 – 00:14:25:55
Clint Loveall
The world seems to be headed the wrong direction, and I find it very difficult to see evidence of the goodness of God around me or the working of God around me, and I think there’s a word here, you know, Dole has to prove and seeds have to germinate. And sometimes we don’t see results immediately. Sometimes we don’t see the results we would like.
00:14:26:00 – 00:14:56:00
Clint Loveall
The kingdom is slow, steady, and much of its work is hidden. Much of its work in its growth is mysterious. And I think even even that there’s an encouragement here to say part of what we declare in faith is that when it appears not to be obvious, we still believe the kingdom is at work. We still believe the kingdom is growing and that God is doing something in the world.
00:14:56:00 – 00:14:59:24
Clint Loveall
And I think both of these parables in their own way, speak to that as well.
00:14:59:38 – 00:15:35:17
Michael Gewecke
You know, there’s one more element I just want left out here and that look in verse 19, note that it is someone who took and sowed that seed, right? And then in verse 21, it’s yeast that a woman took and mixed it. These are both actions taken by a person. There’s a kind of active transplanting, there’s an active sort of kneading and making process happening here, and that has something as well to teach us about our role and responsibility in this kingdom work.
00:15:35:22 – 00:15:59:55
Michael Gewecke
In other words, Christians are not only supposed to see the kingdom as this thing that grows, but there’s a kind of implicit invitation in that to be seed planters and and bread makers, to be the kind of people who are actually doing things in the world. Jesus just never talks about faith as an affiliation. It’s just never a thing that you believe.
00:16:00:00 – 00:16:14:31
Michael Gewecke
Jesus always talks about faith as the thing that drives your action. Faith is a thing that we live in our lives and with our bodies. And I think that both of these parables include those elements. And that’s worth noting.
00:16:14:36 – 00:16:27:45
Clint Loveall
Yeah, it’s it’s a lot for a couple of short verses. I thought we’d go farther today, but Will hold on. We’ll look at another teaching section, parable ish section tomorrow. Hope you can be with us. Thanks for being here today.