Mustard Seed
I’ve thought a lot about a couple of Jesus’ parables.
Luke 13:18-21
New Living Translation (NLT)
Parable of the Mustard Seed
18 Then Jesus said, “What is the Kingdom of God like? How can I illustrate it? 19 It is like a tiny mustard seed that a man planted in a garden; it grows and becomes a tree, and the birds make nests in its branches.”
Parable of the Yeast
20 He also asked, “What else is the Kingdom of God like? 21 It is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.”
I don’t know about you but these verses are quite disturbing.
Jesus is giving us a couple of metaphors for the Kingdom of God and the common attributes shake my thinking.
Think about this one point. The kingdom of God as seed or yeast expands or increases in a way that is entirely disproportionate to its beginnings. It grows both rapidly and exponentially.
If I’m reading that right, then I’m not sure I have ever seen the Kingdom of God at work!
Your experience may be different from mine but the more I think about this, the more I think I’ve been duped. I’ve accepted a reality of the Kingdom of God that falls very short of what Jesus taught.
I can’t, you can’t settle for something less than what Jesus says.
- The kingdom of God should RADICALLY change people’s lives.
- The kingdom of God should RADICALLY affect our culture.
- The kingdom of God should RADICALLY shift our cities.
If not, then maybe it’s not the kingdom, or maybe the soil or the bread is bad. Just saying!
