Then He said,"What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and put in his garden; and it grew and became a large tree, and the birds of the air nested in its branches." (Luke 13:18-19)
There were two things supposed to happen once Jesus had ascended to His throne. One of them was His Kingdom was supposed to grow massively. To some degree, this was what happened at the start. We are told by Luke of numerous converts joining the church in Jerusalem (Acts 2:41) after Peter's first recorded public sermon. We are later told of a persecution that arose and scattered the Messianic Jews across the local region (Acts 8:1-4). Of course, the natural result was the spreading of the Gospel. After Paul's conversion, the Word went all over the Mediterranean Basin. We have solid evidence of the Church arising in the Mesopotamian Valley, and circumstantial evidence the Apostle Thomas took the message as far as India.
This Kingdom was supposed to become massive in size, large enough to shelter those who were easy prey outside its wings. There was a sense in which this came true. We know the hordes of Germanic barbarian tribes which swept across Europe in the AD 400s were eventually tamed and civilized by the Church, in spite of her having become fairly corrupt by that time. Soon there were missionaries in the British Isles, in the Nordic lands, all over Northern Africa, and so on. In every place, large numbers made at least some form of commitment to Christ.
We must admit we have no way of knowing how genuine these professions of faith were in most cases. Frankly, judging from the quality of the theology and message, in many cases we can say almost none really came to Christ. Too often there were "conversions" at the point of a sword. Today, we know a majority of those in the world claiming Christianity as their religion are, upon closer inspection, cultural adherents. They are "Christian" in the sense of adopting a certain set of values, not in whole-heartedly following Jesus.
Ignoring, then, the official statistics, we can still say the Church is massive. We know there are true believers all over the world, including places where admitting it means certain death, or at least expulsion from their homeland. It's not because Jesus meant His parable as a prophecy, but as a description of its nature. The church by its nature grows in size. Periods of decline, persecution, even genocide cannot invalidate that teaching. Over the centuries, the number of true believers has increased. If you and I are doing our part to follow Jesus, it will grow even greater. If it fails to grow, you and I share the blame.
And again He said, "To what shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened." (Luke 13:20-21)
This was no small batch of flour the woman was working with. The Greek word for "measure" here is sata, about the same as Hebrew seah. Each was around 6 quarts. Thus, her batch of meal was about 18 quarts. And all it took was just a pinch of yeasted dough from the previous batch, and a warm damp place to keep it for a few hours.
The message should by now be obvious: the second thing which would happen is Kingdom would makes its way into every corner of the world. While it was typical in Hebrew idioms to associate yeast or leaven with sin, in this case Jesus clearly says the Kingdom is like leaven. Given time and the right conditions, the Kingdom will have a dramatic impact on all it touches.
While some of this impact was already recited above in discussing growth in size, there is far more to it than is at first obvious. We have no great trouble with the idea we need to go out and win the world to Christ, and to contribute time and money to the effort of other folks doing the same thing in places where God sends them. What we seem to choke on is the need to make our world a different place. It's one thing to lead souls to Christ; what do we do for those who don't come, or won't ever come? How do we keep them from hurting others with their sin?
The world we live in is generally hostile to our faith, as we all should have realized by now. Every institution in society not actively governed by the Church sets rules and regulations contrary to the commands of Jesus Christ. For some reason, we have bought into the idea it is only fair to let ourselves be governed by the principles we are told give no particular religion an unfair advantage. We are told to keep our faith private, and we ought not to expect government to pay any respect to the Faith.
That's hogwash. How can we make Him Lord over all His creation, while He waits, unless we actively work to subject the world to Him? Hebrews 1:13 pictures the Father saying to the Son, "Have a seat here at My right hand until I put all Your enemies are under your feet." How do you suppose He plans to do that, if He does not intend to do it through us?
It's not a matter of conquering by the sword as Islam intends to do. It's a matter of having an impact, of making sure the agent of God's justice (Romans 13:1-7) does indeed carry out His justice, not something designed and promoted by godless sinners. Primary example: do we not teach that abortion of unborn infants is equivalent to murder? Has any of us ever voted for someone who publicly supports abortion? We don't compel merely by legislation, but appeal to the mind for a changed value system.
It's not simply a single issue, either. There is a godly principle for every aspect of life. Jesus' teachings were built on the common, everyday experiences of humanity. And before Him, John the Baptist made no bones about teaching even soldiers there was a godly way to soldier (Luke 3:14). If we do not seek God's way for every detail of life, we are not participating in the Kingdom Life. Jesus said it was the nature of the Kingdom to change everything it touched. What do you touch that you have not attempted prayerfully to subject to His Lordship?
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Ed Hurst
20 November 2002
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