The Preacher's Homiletical Commentary
Luke 13:18-21
CRITICAL NOTES
Luke 13:19. Like a grain of mustard seed.—So small in size as to be a proverbial comparison among the Jews for anything exceedingly small. Garden.— Matthew 13:31 has “field.” A great tree.—Omit “great,” omitted in R.V. The plant in question sometimes grows as high as a man on horseback. The points of comparison are the insignificant beginning and the great outward extension of the kingdom of God founded by Jesus Christ. Birds of the air.—I.e., birds attracted by the pungent seed of the plant. Lodged.—I.e., found a shelter (cf. Luke 9:58). The Church is a place of shelter and of food.
Luke 13:21. Leaven.—“Except in this parable, leaven in Scripture (being connected with corruption and fermentation) is used as a type of sin. See Luke 12:1; Exodus 12:15; 1 Corinthians 5:6; Galatians 5:9. Here, however, the only point considered is its rapid, and unseen, and effectual working” (Farrar). The idea, too, of the wholesome effect produced by leaven in the making of bread may be associated with the figure. Three measures of meal.—Probably the amount usually kneaded at one time (Genesis 18:6). The various allegorical explanations of this detail that have been given are more than usually frivolous and farfetched. Till the whole was leavened.—The process of change resulting in a complete transformation. This is a companion picture to that of the mustard seed, the latter setting forth the outward extension of the kingdom, the former the inward transformation effected by it. The comparison may also be extended to the effect produced by the gospel upon the character of the individual believer, when external life and habits, and the whole inner being, come under the influence of Christian truth.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Luke 13:18
In these two parables our Lord sets forth a bright and cheering aspect of the future of the kingdom, exhibiting in the first of them its growth from small beginnings to great magnitude, and in the second its transforming influence on the mass in which it is deposited.
I. Outward growth.—The parable of the little mustard seed, as that of the sower, takes the process of vegetation as emblematic of the growth of the kingdom; but the sower barely appears, though His agency is part of the essence of the representation, and the place where the plant grows is “His garden.” But the seed is now the kingdom itself, and the only points brought into notice are the contrasted smallness of the beginning and bulk of the growth at the end. Jesus does not speak as a botanist, but in popular language; and it is enough to know that the mustard seed was a common proverbial illustration of extreme minuteness, and that the herb was a miracle of growth as compared with its tiny origin. The application is too plain to need any interpretation. It strikes home at once to the many among the first listeners who had recoiled from the (as it seemed to them) dreadful down-come from the long-cherished national hopes to the obscure Galilæan peasant and His handful of followers. He stole into the world in a despised corner of a despised land. He gathered a few believers, spoke some gentle words, laid His hands on a few sick folk, and then died. What proud incredulity would have curled the lips of men of influence and culture in that day, if they had been pointed to Him and His disciples, and bidden to see there the mightiest force, destined to universal dominion! The lesson is not less needed now than then. God’s great things have ever small beginnings, even as the seed of the “big trees” in California is smaller than that of many a much humbler conifer. The world’s great things begin large and dwindle fast. We have to learn reverence for the smallest seed which has vitality, and confidence that the quantity, and still more the quality, of the life in the little black packet of latent possibility is not measured by its size. So we shall not be led away by vulgar admiration of the big, which we mistake for the great and Divine, nor discouraged and impatient if a heritage be not “gotten hastily at the beginning.” The parable brings the small seed into sharp contrast with the large results, and implies the world-wide spread of the kingdom. The picturesque touch of the birds lighting on the branches is probably an allusion to Ezekiel 17:23, and a definite prophecy of the coming of the nations to partake in its blessings. The fowls of the air sing among the branches. Souls weary of flight fold their tired wings, and find rest, shelter, and joy there.
II. Inward change.—The parable of the leaven completes the picture of the growth of the kingdom by describing its inward operation, as the former does its outward growth. It spreads in space and increases in bulk; but it transforms inert matter into its own nature, and thus grows by assimilation. The eccentric interpretation of the leaven as the emblem of evil is disposed of by observing that it is the kingdom, and not its corruption, which is like unto leaven, and by remembering that the meal is improved, not spoiled, by it. The main lessons lie
(1) in the addition of the leaven to the meal, teaching that the quickening influence comes from without; that, in a word, if human society is ever to contain a kingdom of heaven, and be transformed thereby, it must be imparted, not developed. They lie
(2) in the hiding of the leaven, by which is taught the same truth of secret beginnings as in the former parable. They lie
(3) in the manner of the leaven’s working, which is fermentation. So the gospel stirs up movement in the dead man. Christ comes to bring peace at the end, but He must first bring a sword. Leaven works from within outwards. The gospel is planted in the depths of the individual spirit, and gradually permeates the whole being. It works underground in society, and only re-models institutions as the result of having remodelled men. The lesson lies further in the assimilative power of the leaven, which changes each particle of the meal, and, by means of each in turn, transmits the transforming power to the outer unleavened particles. It lies, finally, in hopes suggested by that “till the whole was leavened,” which foretells the permeating of the mass with quickening influence, and the complete assimilation of the individual to it.—Maclaren.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luke 13:18
The Kingdom of God.
I. Its rapid growth.
II. Its transforming power.
Emblems of the Kingdom.
I. Lessons from the mustard seed.—
1. Its personal teaching.
2. Its prophetical teaching.
II. Lessons from the leaven.—
1. The source of grace.
2. The secrecy of its workings.
3. The certainty of its success.—W. Taylor.
The Kingdom of God.
I. Its gradual extension.—Our Lord corrects the fatal error of His countrymen, that the kingdom of God would come as a sudden outbreak of Divine power. It is to grow, from small beginnings, in the hearts of men. How gradual it is in the individual we know from sad experience. How gradual among the nations the observation of eighteen hundred years has shown us. Yet we must never despair. Seed has in it the germ of life, a power of endless development, and is certain to fulfil in God’s own time its marvellous destination.
II. Its secret growth.—Not to be inaugurated by pomp and circumstance, or by the literal appearance of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven. Jesus corrects this error in the parable of the leaven. He teaches the quiet, unobtrusive character of true religion—how unnoticeable is its first infusion; how far beneath the human eye its growth. Religion is a hidden life, and it works spontaneously, by its own secret vitality, till it leavens the whole mass of society.—Griffith.
Fulfilment of the Prophesies here Contained.
I. The way in which these parabolic prophecies of the spread of the gospel have already been fulfilled is a proof of its divinity.
II. These parables open up delightful views of the future history of the Church, and furnish us with a call and an encouragement to exert ourselves for the universal diffusion of the gospel.—Foote.
Increase of Bulk and Change of Character.—In the one parable, that of the Mustard Seed, the kingdom is conceived of as a visible society, which is susceptible of increase in its bulk by addition to the number of its membership. In the other parable, that of the Leaven, the kingdom is conceived of as a moral or spiritual power, which is susceptible of increase in the transforming influence which it exerts on those who are subject to its operation.—Bruce.
The Conversion of the World.
I. The process is to take its rise from small and very unpromising beginnings, and yet shall prevail speedily to a vast extent.
II. The change is to be wrought by pacific means only, without the intervention of any force or violence whatsoever.
The Mustard Seed.
There are three great Chapter s in the history of Christ’s kingdom.
I. The germ.—It is something new. It is small at first.
II. The growth.
III. The glory.—The kingdom is one, though belonging to all ages and nations. It is a world-wide kingdom. It blesses and only blesses. It will yet become very great. We may be very hopeful about the future of the kingdom.—Wells.
Mustard Seed.
I. The kingdom of heaven: its apparent insignificance.
II. Its vitality.
III. Its future grandeur.
Leaven.
I. The kind of change which Christianity works in the world.
II. The method by which this change is wrought.
The Kingdom of God has Two Kinds of Power.
I. A power of extension, by which it gradually embraces all peoples, and—
II. A power of transformation, by which it renews gradually the whole of human life. The natural symbol of the first is a seed, which in a brief space of time attains an increase disproportioned to its small size at first; that of the second, a small portion of leaven, which is capable of exerting its regenerative influence upon a large mass.—Godet.
Vitality and Influence.
I. Inherent vitality; development from within.
II. Contagious influence; a change wrought from acquiring a new force from without.
Progress and Growth.
I. Progress from a small beginning to a glorious consummation.
II. The cause of growth—the inherent, unquenchable life of the kingdom.
III. The manner of growth—silent, secret, unobserved.
Hopefulness and Patience Inculcated.—These parables inculcate
(1) hopefulness, and
(2) patience amid circumstances fitted to breed despondency and discouragement.
I. General reference.—In the general sense, the insignificant beginnings of the kingdom are set forth; the little babe cast in the manger at Bethlehem; the Man of Sorrows, with no place to lay His head; the crucified One; or, again, the hundred and twenty names who were the seed of the Church after the Lord had ascended. Then we have the kingdom of God waxing onward and spreading its branches here and there, and different nations coming unto it.
II. Individual reference.—The individual application of the parable points to the small beginnings of Divine grace; a word, a thought, a passing sentence, may prove to be the little seed which eventually fills and shadows the whole heart and being, and calls all thoughts, all passions all delights, to come and shelter under it.—Alford.
Luke 13:19. “A tree.”—The greatness of size attained by the mustard plant in the East causes it to rank as a tree as compared with garden herbs, though not as a great tree as compared with other trees.
“Lodged in the branches.”—Christ’s kingdom shall attract multitudes by the shelter and protection which it offers; shelter, as it has often proved, from worldly oppression, shelter from the great power of the devil. Itself a tree of life whose leaves are for medicine and whose fruit for food, all who need the healing of their soul’s hurts, all who need the satisfying of their soul’s hunger, shall betake themselves to it.—Trench.
The Lesson of the Parable.—The lesson of the parable obviously is:
(1) that the kingdom of heaven was to be, and was, small and apparently insignificant in its beginning; but
(2) that it was to rise into a magnitude that would far overtop all rival institutions. The Jews expected that it would begin as a full-grown tree, and they were scandalised at the apparent insignificance of our Lord’s position and following.
Luke 13:19. “A man … a woman.”—The two actions of sowing seed and of making bread are appropriated and assigned to a man and a woman respectively, in accordance with the different occupations usually followed by those of each sex. Any identification of the woman with the Church is therefore out of the question.
I. General reference.—In the penetrating of the whole mass of humanity, by degrees, by the influence of the Spirit of God, so strikingly witnessed in the earlier ages by the dropping of heathen customs and worship—in modern times more gradually and secretly advancing, but still to be plainly seen in the various abandonments of criminal and unholy practices (as, e.g., in our own time of slavery and duelling, and the increasing abhorrence of war among Christian men), and without doubt in the end to be signally and universally manifested.
II. Individual reference.—In the transforming power of the “new leaven” on the whole being of individuals. In fact, the parable does nothing less than set forth to us the mystery of regeneration, both in its first act, which can be but once, as the leaven is but once hidden, and also in the consequent renewal of the Holy Spirit, which, as the ulterior working of the leaven, is continual and progressive.—Alford.
Luke 13:21. “It is like leaven.”—The leaven—
1. Only acts upon meal—it would produce no effect upon sand—so there is an affinity between the gospel and man’s nature.
2. It penetrates to every part of the mass in which it is placed.
3. It operates gradually.
4. It produces a wholesome change—renders the meal more suitable for food.
“Took and hid.”—“Took” from without, “and hid”—i.e., put it where it seemed lost in the larger mass.
“The whole was leavened.”—
1. The whole heart of each man (1 Corinthians 10:5).
2. The whole world (Luke 24:47).
A Secret Influence.—The gospel has such a secret, invisible influence on the hearts of men—to change them and affect them, and all the actions that flow from them—that it is fitly resembled to leaven; so mixed thoroughly with the whole that, although it appeareth not in any part visibly, yet every part hath a tincture from it.—Hammond.
A Permanent Change.—Just as it is impossible that the leaven, after it is once mixed with the dough, can ever again be separated from it, because it has changed the nature of the dough; in like manner it is impossible that Christians can be severed from Christ.
The Spiritual Leaven.
I. Christ, the Son of God, became man and dwelt among us.
II. Converted men, women, and children, are let into the openings of corrupt humanity, and hidden in its heart.—Arnot.
“Leavened.”—The parable indicates that the influence is internal and noiseless, not dependent upon external organisation so much as upon quiet personal agency and example, since the leaven transforms the dough lying next, until it is all leavened.—Popular Commentary.
“The whole.”—
1. The individual.
2. The family.
3. Society at large.
The Two Main Ideas Illustrated by the Parable are—
(1) that the kingdom of heaven, when Divinely introduced into the mass, did not attract attention, but
(2) it began silently to operate, and will continue to operate until the whole of human society is brought under its influence.