The descriptive word in the third parable is mustard (v. 31). These are parables, figurative records that we must understand in a figurative way. We must learn to read the figures. Seed grows into wheat, and wheat is good for eating. What is grown in Matthew 13, then, is good for eating. In the third parable we still have a seed, a mustard seed. A mustard seed is very small but good to eat. The mustard seed is Christ, who is small to us in order to be life to us. We have a hymn that says, “So subjective is my Christ to me! / Real in me, and rich and sweet!” (Hymns, #537). Originally, we sang the second line as, “Small in me, and rich and sweet!” However, some said that if we sing it in this way, simple people will not be able to understand. To think this way is the mentality of Christianity.
In a good sense, are we bigger, or is Christ bigger? Some people may eat turkey for dinner. Is the turkey bigger, or are we bigger? I say to you, we are bigger than anything we eat. Anything we eat must be smaller than we are. If it is bigger, we can never swallow it. Rather, it may swallow us. If it is bigger than we are, we have to cut it into smaller pieces in order for it to be food to us. Christ is so small to us. Praise Him! Many times I worship Him, saying, “Lord, I worship You for Your smallness. Because You are so small, I can feed on You.” Christ is fine and small, like the mustard seed that is good to grow into something for people to feed on. Mustard is not a building material; we cannot build a house with mustard, because it can bear no weight. It is good only for eating.
In Matthew 13 the enemy changed the little mustard seed in its form and image to become a great tree. This is against the principle of God’s creation in Genesis 1, which says that living things should be “according to their kind” (Gen. 1:11-12). A mustard plant must be after the kind of mustard, but the mustard in Matthew 13 is not according to its kind. It changed in nature and in form, which breaks the principle set up for God’s creation. The mustard seed changed into a tree, which is good not for eating but as lodging for the birds, which signify Satan’s evil spirits with the evil persons and things motivated by them. Today’s Christianity is mostly good for lodging. If you travel throughout the whole world to find mustard good for eating, you will see that there is almost none. If you go to almost any kind of so-called church, you will get no food. You will only find a place good for lodging in the evil sense. This is the frustrating and damaging work of the enemy.
Still, the Lord is victorious. Some wheat has produced grain, and the grain has been made into fine flour. According to the Scriptures, wheat is for making bread to offer to God as food to satisfy God and man. From the seed comes the wheat, from the wheat comes the grain, and from the grain comes the fine flour to make bread to satisfy God and to satisfy man. Therefore, in the fourth parable in Matthew 13 the characteristic word is meal (v. 33). Even at this point, however, the enemy is not satisfied. He still comes in to frustrate by bringing in the leaven to corrupt the meal. We have the seed sown, the wheat grown up, and the fine flour produced to make bread to satisfy God and man. This is God’s intention. However, there are still the negative things.
This should not be a mere message; we have to check ourselves according to this message. Consider Christ as the seed of life within us. Is it snatched away? Are we the stony ground? Is something within us always choking the seed? Have we been frustrated by false Christians, either by our friendship with them or by following them in certain worldly ways? Are we growing now? Is the fine flour, the meal, produced in us, or is there the leaven? All these four parables reveal life and growth. Without life we cannot have the meal to make the bread to offer to God. Even if we have life, without the growth we still cannot have the meal. We need life, and we need growth.
In the fifth and sixth parables in Matthew 13 we have a treasure and a pearl (vv. 44-46). The treasure hidden in the field must be gold or precious stones. Both the precious stones and the pearl are transformed items. After the growth in life there is transformation. If we read the Bible carefully, we can see that both precious stones and pearls are good for God’s building. The New Jerusalem is built with precious stones and pearls (Rev. 21:19-21).
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