Stories About the Kingdom in the World (Matthew 13:24-43)
In the next three parables, Jesus addresses the Kingdom of Heaven in the here and now, the fallen world. He does this using the pictures of a field sown with weeds, a mustard seed, and yeast.
Everyone throughout church history has struggled with the mixture of true believers and posers. After the Roman Empire made Christianity acceptable again, the question arose about what people should do with the people who had abandoned the faith under persecution. Should they be a part of the church? The answers given looked a lot like the parable of the wheat and the tares. Jesus describes the Kingdom in the world as a mixture of God’s people and posers. The way to handle this situation is to not try to determine who is in and who isn’t. Just get on with being the church and let God sort it out in the end.
Similarly, the Parable of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast in the loaf illustrate ways that the Kingdom functions in the world.
On the one hand, you have the small seed of faith that grows up into a huge, strong, sheltering tree. This is reflective of the way the church as a whole ministers in the world. We can help people. We can minister to the needy.
The parallel to this picture is seen in the yeast. The church as a whole can do a lot for a community, but it is also the various members of the church—the citizens of the Kingdom—who go out into the community and infiltrate it with the principles of the Kingdom, lived out in daily lives. This has a transformative effect in the world that is as powerful or more so than the larger, tree-like efforts.
Everyone throughout church history has struggled with the mixture of true believers and posers. After the Roman Empire made Christianity acceptable again, the question arose about what people should do with the people who had abandoned the faith under persecution. Should they be a part of the church? The answers given looked a lot like the parable of the wheat and the tares. Jesus describes the Kingdom in the world as a mixture of God’s people and posers. The way to handle this situation is to not try to determine who is in and who isn’t. Just get on with being the church and let God sort it out in the end.
Similarly, the Parable of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast in the loaf illustrate ways that the Kingdom functions in the world.
On the one hand, you have the small seed of faith that grows up into a huge, strong, sheltering tree. This is reflective of the way the church as a whole ministers in the world. We can help people. We can minister to the needy.
The parallel to this picture is seen in the yeast. The church as a whole can do a lot for a community, but it is also the various members of the church—the citizens of the Kingdom—who go out into the community and infiltrate it with the principles of the Kingdom, lived out in daily lives. This has a transformative effect in the world that is as powerful or more so than the larger, tree-like efforts.
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