The Inevitable Empire of a Tiny Seed Text: Matthew 13:31-35
Introduction: The Strategy of God
We live in an age that worships size, speed, and spectacle. Our politics, our entertainment, our ambitions, they are all driven by a lust for the immediate and the colossal. We want revolutions that happen overnight, movements that go viral in an afternoon, and solutions that are as big and loud as the problems they purport to solve. And because this is the air we breathe, many Christians have unwittingly imported this worldly mindset into their understanding of the kingdom of God. They are either discouraged by the apparent smallness of the church or they are trying to gin up a plastic imitation of worldly power, complete with celebrity pastors, smoke machines, and marketing campaigns.
But the kingdom of God does not arrive like the 82nd Airborne. It does not operate according to the principles of a corporate takeover. The strategy of God, from the beginning, has always been to work from the small, the overlooked, and the seemingly insignificant. He chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. He chooses a stutterer to confront Pharaoh, a shepherd boy to fell a giant, and a virgin's womb in a backwater town to incarnate Himself. And here, in these two paired parables, Jesus tells us that this is the essential nature of His kingdom. It is an empire that begins as a speck. It is a global transformation that starts as a pinch of yeast.
These parables are a direct assault on every form of eschatological despair. They are a rebuke to the doomsayers who believe the church is destined to be a cowering, defeated remnant, huddled in a corner waiting for a last minute rescue while the world burns down around them. But they are also a rebuke to the triumphalists of glory, those who want to build the kingdom with the tools of Babylon. Jesus gives us a third way. The kingdom is not a frightened mouse, nor is it a roaring lion of political might. It is a seed. It is leaven. Its power is organic, internal, pervasive, and utterly inexorable. It grows according to God's design, not ours, and its final form will be glorious, comprehensive, and shocking to all who despised its small beginnings.
These parables teach us to see the world as God sees it, to measure power as He measures it, and to have a long-term, unshakeable confidence in the victory of Jesus Christ in history, before His return. This is the very heart of a robust, postmillennial faith.
The Text
He presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is the smallest of all seeds, but when it is fully grown, it is the largest of the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that THE BIRDS OF THE AIR come and NEST IN ITS BRANCHES.”
He spoke another parable to them, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three sata of flour until it was all leavened.”
All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and He was not speaking to them without a parable so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, “I WILL OPEN MY MOUTH IN PARABLES; I WILL UTTER THINGS HIDDEN SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.”
(Matthew 13:31-35 LSB)
The Disproportionate Kingdom (v. 31-32)
First, Jesus compares the kingdom to a mustard seed.
"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is the smallest of all seeds, but when it is fully grown, it is the largest of the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that THE BIRDS OF THE AIR come and NEST IN ITS BRANCHES." (Matthew 13:31-32)
The central point here is the contrast, the radical disproportion between the beginning and the end. Jesus says the mustard seed "is the smallest of all seeds." Now, botanists might quibble and say that orchid seeds are smaller, but that is to miss the point with a pedantic flourish. In the common understanding of the Jewish farmer, this was proverbial. It was the tiniest seed you would handle. The kingdom of God starts small. It starts with twelve men, a handful of disciples, a sermon on a hill, a crucifixion that looked like the most pathetic defeat in human history. It begins with a gospel message that is foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews. Do not despise the day of small beginnings.
This tiny seed, once planted, "becomes a tree." Again, the botanists will tell you that the mustard plant is technically a shrub or an herb. But it can grow to ten or twelve feet high, a massive, treelike structure from a nearly invisible seed. This is not natural, linear growth. This is explosive, supernatural growth. The point is not botanical precision; the point is the shocking transformation. The kingdom that began in obscurity in an oppressed corner of the Roman Empire would grow to become the defining civilizational force of the world. It would outlast Rome, and every other empire that has set itself against Christ. This is a parable of certain, worldwide success.
And what is the result of this growth? "THE BIRDS OF THE AIR come and NEST IN ITS BRANCHES." This is a direct echo of Old Testament prophecies about great empires. Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom was a great tree where the birds of the air nested (Daniel 4:12). Pharaoh's kingdom was a great cedar of Lebanon where "all the birds of the heavens made their nests in its boughs" (Ezekiel 31:6). Jesus is deliberately taking the language used for pagan world empires and applying it to His kingdom. His kingdom will grow to such an extent that it will provide shelter, structure, and a place of rest for the nations. The Gentiles, the "birds of the air," will come and find their home in the shade of this great tree which is Christendom.
But we must also remember the first parable in this chapter, the parable of the sower. There, the birds of the air were agents of the evil one, snatching the seed away (Matt. 13:4, 19). Is that a contradiction? Not at all. It is a brilliant stroke of divine realism. As the kingdom grows into a massive, visible, historical structure, it will become a place where both good and evil reside. Just as the wheat and the tares grow together in the same field, so too will the great tree of the visible church provide branches for true believers and for opportunists, heretics, and hypocrites. The kingdom's external success does not guarantee the internal purity of all its inhabitants. We should not be surprised or dismayed when we find corruption in the visible church. The tree is so large that all kinds of birds, both clean and unclean, can find a perch there. But notice, the birds are nesting in the branches. The branches are not birds. The structure of the kingdom remains what God made it, even if unwelcome guests take up residence in it.
The Pervasive Kingdom (v. 33)
Next, Jesus gives a complementary parable, this time from the domestic world of a woman baking bread.
"He spoke another parable to them, 'The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three sata of flour until it was all leavened.'" (Matthew 13:33 LSB)
Many commentators, particularly those with a pessimistic bent, get hung up here. They correctly note that leaven is often used in Scripture as a symbol for sin, corruption, or false doctrine, like the leaven of the Pharisees or the leaven of malice and wickedness. And so they conclude that this must be a parable about the corruption of the church. But this is to handle the Word of God like a clumsy oaf. Context is everything. Is a lion a symbol of Christ or of Satan? It depends on the context. Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and the devil prowls around like a roaring lion. The meaning is determined by how the symbol is used.
Here, Jesus explicitly says, "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven." He does not say the corruption of the kingdom is like leaven. He is the preacher announcing the good news of the kingdom. In the previous parable, the growth was external and visible. Here, the growth is internal, hidden, and pervasive. The man plants the seed in the field, a public act. The woman hides the leaven in the dough, a domestic, unseen act. These are two sides of the same coin.
The power of leaven is its potency. A tiny amount can transform a massive lump of dough. A "saton" was a large measure of flour; three sata would be somewhere around 40 or 50 pounds, enough to make a massive batch of bread. The kingdom works in the same way. The gospel is introduced into a culture, a family, or a heart, and it begins to work its way through everything. It does not just affect the "religious" part of life. It transforms law, art, music, science, business, and education. It works quietly, often unnoticed, until the whole lump is changed. It redefines everything.
This is a promise of total transformation. The leaven works "until it was all leavened." Not part of it. Not most of it. All of it. The gospel will continue its work until the whole world is leavened with the influence of the kingdom of God. This is the Great Commission in parabolic form. The task of the church is to be this leaven, to work the truth of God's Word into every nook and cranny of human existence. The final result is not in doubt. The whole loaf will rise.
The Purpose of Parables (v. 34-35)
Matthew concludes this section by explaining why Jesus taught in this way.
"All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and He was not speaking to them without a parable so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, 'I WILL OPEN MY MOUTH IN PARABLES; I WILL UTTER THINGS HIDDEN SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.'" (Matthew 13:34-35 LSB)
This might seem like a simple transition, but it is deeply theological. Why parables? Earlier in the chapter, Jesus explained that parables both reveal and conceal. To those with ears to hear, they illuminate the mysteries of the kingdom. To the hard-hearted, they are just confusing stories that obscure the truth further, bringing about a righteous judgment.
But here Matthew, quoting from Psalm 78, adds another layer. Jesus is speaking in parables to "utter things hidden since the foundation of the world." What are these hidden things? It is this very plan of God for the kingdom. The Old Testament saints looked forward to the coming of the Messiah, but the precise nature of His kingdom, this age between the two advents where the kingdom would grow like a seed and work like leaven to encompass the Gentile nations, this was a mystery. The plan was there in seed form, in types and shadows, but it is in Christ that the full meaning is unveiled.
The mystery is that God's plan for world dominion would not come through the sword, but through the Spirit. It would not be an immediate political conquest, but a slow, organic, spiritual conquest that would ultimately bear political and cultural fruit. It would start small, work invisibly, and end in total victory. This is the secret strategy of God, hidden from the ages, but now revealed to us in these simple stories about a farmer and a baker. We are privileged to know the plot. We have been let in on the secret. And the secret is that Jesus wins, not just in the sweet by and by, but here, in the messy here and now of human history.
Conclusion: Plant and Knead
So what are we to do with this? We are to have our entire perspective on history, culture, and evangelism shaped by these parables. We must abandon our worldly metrics of success. We are not called to be impressive; we are called to be faithful.
Like the man in the first parable, we are to take the seed of the gospel and plant it. We plant it in our homes by raising our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We plant it in our communities by proclaiming the good news and living lives of faithful obedience. We plant it in our vocations by working with excellence and integrity for the glory of God. Much of this work is small, unseen, and looks insignificant. But it is not. It is seed, and God has promised that it will become a great tree.
Like the woman in the second parable, we are to take the leaven of God's Word and knead it into every aspect of our culture. We are not to retreat into holy huddles, abandoning the world of arts, sciences, and politics to the devil. That is his flour, and we are commanded to leaven it. We are to think Christianly about everything, to apply the lordship of Christ to every square inch of reality. This is slow, patient work. It is often hidden. But it is transformative. It is God's guaranteed recipe for cultural change.
Do not be discouraged by what you see on the evening news. Do not be intimidated by the bluster of godless men. They are building with scaffolding that will be torn down. We are planting an oak tree. They are pumping air into a balloon. We are baking bread that will feed the nations. The kingdom of God began as the smallest of all seeds, and it will end as a tree that fills the whole earth. It began as a pinch of leaven, and it will end when the whole lump is leavened. This is the promise of Jesus Christ, and He does not lie. Our job is to believe it, and then to get on with our planting and our kneading.