The Life of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels
LESSONS BY THE WAY
The Life of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels
LESSONS BY THE WAY
Lesson Plan:
1. Parable of the Mustard Seed (vs 18, 19)
2. Parable of the Leaven (vs 20, 21)
3. Why We Need to Strive to Enter into the Kingdom (vs 23-30)
Lesson Setting:
Time: Probably January, A.D. 30.
Place: Perea beyond Jordan on the east.
Place in the history: Jesus was evangelizing Perea and was gradually moving toward Jerusalem. It
was now about three months before His crucifixion.
Research Thoughts: The kingdom of heaven. The method of its growth, illustrated by a mustard seed. The method of growth taught by the parable of the leaven. Who can enter the kingdom of heaven? Why is it necessary to strive to enter? Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity. The last first, the first last.
Scripture Reading: Luke 13:18, 19
1. Parable of the Mustard Seed
The Parable Jesus begins with a question, in order to call attention to His teaching “Unto what is the Kingdom of God like?” (v 18) The Kingdom of God is (a) within the individual, and (b) in the world, as a kingdom distinct from the world, but there to transform it. However, the principles of growth are the same in both.
v 19 ... “It is like a grain of mustard seed,” which, as Matthew states, “is the least of all seeds.” Not the least of all seeds which botanists know, but the smallest of the seeds people daily used; and the smallest of these in contrast with the plant which grows from it. “Small as a mustard seed was a Jewish proverb ... Stanley is inclined to follow Royle and others in identifying it with ‘Salvadora Persica,’ called in the East ‘Khardel,’ the very word used in the Syriac version to translate the Greek word for ‘Mustard.’ It is said to grow around the lake of Gennesareth, and to attain the height of twenty-five feet in favorable circumstances” (Int. Crit. Com.). The Talmud states that Rabbi Simeon said, “A stalk of mustard was in my field into which I was wont to climb as men are wont to climb into a fig tree.” Hence, it was natural to speak of the mustard plant as ...
v 19 ... “great,” so large that “the fowls [birds] of the air lodged in the branches of it.” This seed “a man took and cast into his garden” (v 19). The garden into which the Lord cast His seed was Israel, whom He had been preparing for many centuries to receive the seed. It could not have grown and flourished amid the moral thistles and thorns of any other nation in the world at that time. Not only were the early disciples liable to be discouraged, but many people are today, because of narrow, limited and mistaken views. The evils loom up larger than ever before, because they are measured by higher standards of right. Why? Because the light of Christianity has revealed many evils hitherto hidden. And the Christian and the church of our Lord are today seen in more unfavorable light, because they are tested by higher standards regarding what they should be. It is good, strengthening, full of encouragement, to clearly see to what size the little mustard seed has grown, to note the whole realm of results accomplished already. (a) The emphasis here is on the smallness of the beginnings of Christianity. No sect, no party in Palestine, no known nation began in so small, unnoticed, and apparently feeble a manner, i.e., the teaching of a poor, unlearned man, without army, money, political influence; a teaching hidden in the hearts of a few disciples, unseen and unrecognized as a power (Compare Dan. 2:35, 45; Ps. 72:16). (b) The seed was small, but it was full of life. It was filled with the Holy Spirit, who inspired them with life, devotion, love, light, truth, and power. In that small beginning not only was every after-development already determined to a finality, but it also contained the stored-up inheritance of untold generations. (c) The plant represents the outward organized kingdom of God, which is today the greatest and most powerful kingdom in the world, and has not yet attained its growth. This parable gave a new vision and ideal to the early Christians. (d) The illustration of the ‘branches’ is given fuller in Mark, where it says that it ‘shooteth out great branches.’ This is true of every tree, and useful and necessary to its best existence and fruit bearing. It is equally true and good in the kingdom of Christ. Very early in Christian history there were branches of the church in Jerusalem, Antioch, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece and Rome. Various branches but all of one tree; all filled with the same Gospel and life. In any kingdom there must be many departments, but all working in harmony for the good of the people. For instance, in America there are under the national government many state governments, districts for various purposes, town and city governments, but only one country. Such are the branches of the kingdom of heaven. The real unity of true, faithful churches of Christ throughout the world is not a unity of form (or it shouldn’t be).
Analogies in the Parable – The small seed represents the small beginning of the church. The large tree represents the size of historic Christendom. The birds represent evil, extraneous elements associated with the kingdom. The garden represents the world. The one who sowed the seed represents Christ or God. The seed sown represents the Word of God. The mustard tree represents the visible church of all ages. This parable and that of the leaven immediately following are not exactly like those in Matthew 13, ‘garden’ instead of ‘field’ being used by the Lord here. The garden is the world where the Kingdom has been planted by the Father, that the growth represents the spread of the kingdom, and that the good size of the mustard tree shows the future might and power of Christianity. Also, it is invariably pointed out that just as a mustard seed is small, so were the beginnings of the Lord’s kingdom. If all this is ‘one point,’ then a porcupine is one quill.
Scripture Reading: Luke 13:20, 21
2. Parable of the Leaven
vs 20, 21 ... “The kingdom of God ... is like unto leaven.” The likeness does not end at this word, but it is like unto “leaven ... hid in three measures of meal.” It is like leaven working in the meal.
First: The method of working, by leavened individual particles coming in contact with unleavened particles and changing them into leavened particles with the same power to leaven others. Leaven in the Bible is exclusively a piece of sour dough, i.e., disseminated through it in great numbers. They are now known to be single-celled plants, each one having the capacity to produce a new group of from two to six or eight members. Pasteur found that two cells produced eight in two hours at a temperature of 13 degrees C. (above 55 degrees F). The multiplication is more rapid at a higher temperature. Thus the process goes on in geometrical progression (From Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels). Three Measures of Meal The Greek word for ‘measure’ here denotes a Hebrew ‘seah,’ a measure equal to five or six quarts, the original measure for household purposes. The three measures would therefore contain an ‘ephah,’ or about a bushel. The meal represents the whole world of men, to the permeated and transformed by the Gospel.
The parable speaks of three times the usual amount in order to represent the vast extent of the work to be done by the Gospel. The leaven that does the work must itself be alive, with the same character that it implies to others. Imitation virtues, words and advice that one does not feel, and live up to, can never make others good. “Your actions speak so loud that I cannot hear what you say” (Emerson).
Illustration: At one time, in the Harvard University museum, were some remarkably beautiful glass flowers. They were made in Germany, and used to illustrate the structure of the flowers. Some years ago the maker of these glass flowers took some glass, a lamp, a blow-pipe, coloring material, and constructed a flower. It was then packed in cotton and sent to Harvard University; a finished product. These flowers were not alive and could not give life to other sand of which glass flowers are made. This is a powerful motive for trying to be good ourselves. For the only hope of the worst is from contact with the best. We should ourselves be what we want our boys and girls to be. This is the reason that especially young people should have intimate friends who are good. We tend to become like those whom we admire.
Second: The arrangements of society, business, homes, schools, and many other factors, are such as to give special opportunities for exerting the power of the spiritual leaven. Jesus was able to come in contact with great numbers through their sicknesses, troubles and needs. And it is very noticeable that He always did more than heal the body. He inspired faith, love, gratitude to God, the desire to follow Him. His spiritual influences on the soul were greater than those on the body. This parable not only tells us of the method by which the world is to become better, but is a promise that the leaven of Christianity will transform the world. Besides all the visible manifestations of the Gospel represented by the growth of the mustard seed, there is a deeper underlying progress of the Gospel which operates silently, without observation, but with constantly increasing pervasiveness till the whole mass of mankind, all hearts, all nations, all commerce and business, social life, and political institutions, shall be transformed. The leaven represents the teaching of Christ. The meal represents the people who receive the truth. The quality of leaven that changes the whole mass into one kind represents the transforming power of the Gospel. Leaven rising silently represents nature of church’s progress. Little leaven, given time, can change a great mass represents the vast power of historical Christianity. A woman took the leaven represents the church as the teacher of the kingdom message. Three measures represent three divisions of humanity. William Barclay gives an outline of the teaching of this parable thus: (a) God’s kingdom starts from the smallest beginnings, a tiny pinch of leaven. (b) The power of the kingdom works unseen, as leaven. (c) The kingdom’s power works from the inside, as leaven. (d) The power to change humanity (the lump) must come from outside itself, the leaven being a power not of the lump at all, but from without. It is not in man to transform himself. The leaven of God from without must do it. In both of these remarkable parables, there is evidenced the ultimate power and extent of Christ’s kingdom. The teaching in both of them is stamped with an originality and power which only Christ could have implanted. As Major said [The Mission and Message of Jesus], “There is a quality in this teaching which marks it as his; it is above the level of his contemporaries and his reporters.”
Scripture Reading: Luke 13:23-30
3. Why We Need to Strive to Enter into the Kingdom
v 23 ... “Then said one unto him, are there few that be saved?” This man had just been listening to the two parables which foretold the great numbers which should grow from a little seed, or be leavened by the little piece of leaven, and he seems to say, “Then it is not true, as some teach, that only a few shall be saved. Is it true?” Jesus does not answer the theoretical question, for that would do no good, and would certainly be misunderstood. But He points out to all, how they can decide the question for themselves; He makes plain the conditions which determine the answer.
v 24 ... “Strive to enter in.” The Greek word is ‘agonize,’ a word descriptive of the intensity of the contests in the Greek games, where the athletes strove even to death. Anyone who has watched world class soccer, baseball, football or Olympic Games sees something of the intensity of the struggle.
First: because the way is “by the strait” (v 24), i.e., narrow, as we speak of straits, “gate” or door, to all that is best in life, to the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven. (a) Note that Jesus did not make the way narrow; He only stated the fact, and used it as a motive. (b) The gate is as wide as the love of God can make it. A gate is made to enter in by, not to keep men out. It is a standing invitation to enter. In the Revelation of Jesus Christ the city of God is pictured with twelve gates, three on each side, to express the wide welcome from every direction, for every race and condition. They are never shut, but each one of these gates is so narrow that “there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written the Lamb’s book of life” (Rev. 21:27). And they must be so, or the city would not be the city of God. (c) The narrowness of the gate is a necessary fact. The gate to every best good must be narrow; as the gate to knowledge, to success, to wisdom, to courage, to culture. There is one direction to the North Star if you wish to go north, and a million directions away from it. One would like to join the choir, but the gate is narrow. No one can really enter it without learning to sing, no matter how many other things he/she may do. There is one right, and a thousand wrong ways. There is one way to be a Christian, and many ways to go astray. A wider way to heaven means a poorer heaven; a wider way to virtue means a weaker virtue or none.
v 24 ... “For many ... will seek to enter in and shall not be able,” because they are not willing to fulfill the conditions, and pay the cost. Example: Once in two Sunday Bible school classes the subject of business temptations were discussed. Young men in both classes were required by their employer to do dishonest acts in the store regarding dealing with customers, to mingle second-rate goods with the first-rate, all to be sold as first-rate. In one of the classes, it was not proposed that the young men take themselves away from the employer. In the other class, after a debate lasting two Sundays on the question of temptation, it was voted by the class that the young men, members of the class, should refuse to do the dishonest act, even if they lost their job.
Second: they could not enter because they waited till it was too late ... “the master of the house ... hath shut to the door” (v 25). They had refused the invitation, and to comply with the conditions, till there was no hope of a change of character and life.
Third: they could not enter because of their evil life and character. The master of the house said to them, you do not belong to this house.
v 25 ... “I know you not whence ye are.” But they replied, How is that?
v 26 ... “We have eaten and drunk in thy present, and thou hast taught in our streets.” We are well known to you, we have talked religion, and in thy name have cast out devils (Matt. 7:22).
But the master answered “I tell you I know not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity” (v 27). However much mankind may live in Christian lands, and among Christian people and influences, unless they repent, strive to obey God’s Holy Word and have Christian principles in their hearts and lives, they do not belong to the household of Jesus, “For there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie” (Rev. 21:27).
Fourth: Jesus warns them again their course, and the sorrows that will follow it when they find themselves shut out from the kingdom of God because they had nothing of its spirit and life. They had been “first” (v 30) in appearing good, in the forms of religion, in profession, but they were “last” in the heavenly character, and all that belonged to the kingdom of heaven.
