Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2020 15:28:42 GMT -5
Slow, but Sure By: Glenn Packiam
Click on this link for the audio message.
Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree.
Matthew 13:32
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Matthew 13:31–35
I ran into an old friend who told me what he’d been up to, but I confess it seemed too good to be true. Within a few months of that conversation, however, his band was everywhere—from charting top singles on the radio to having a hit song pulsing under TV ads. His rise to fame was meteoric.
We can be obsessed with significance and success—the big and the dramatic, the quick and the meteoric. But the parables of the mustard seed and yeast compare the way of the kingdom (God’s reign on earth) to small, hidden, and seemingly insignificant things whose work is slow and gradual.
The kingdom is like its King. Christ’s mission culminated in His life, like a seed, being buried in the ground; like yeast, being hidden in the dough. Yet He rose. Like a tree breaking through the dirt, like bread when the heat is turned up. Jesus rose.
We’re invited to live according to His way, the way that’s persisting and permeating. To resist the temptation to take matters into our own hands, to grasp for power and to justify our dealings in the world by the outcomes they may produce. The outcome—“a tree . . . that the birds come and perch in its branches” (v. 32) and the bread that provides a feast—will be Christ’s doing, not ours.
Reflect & Pray
What small and seemingly insignificant things could you do to encourage or bless the people in your life? Where do you need to turn away from comparison with others or from a false picture of significance and success?
Dear Jesus, thank You for often working in small, hidden, and seemingly insignificant ways. Help me to trust You’re at work even when I can’t see You. Grant me the grace to remain faithful.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Matthew’s use of Old Testament prophecy is often intriguing, and that’s certainly the case in Matthew 13:35. After Jesus had told several parables, Matthew asserts that this type of teaching fulfills prophecy. The statement he cites, however, doesn’t come from one of the acknowledged prophets of Israel but from one of their psalmists—Asaph, the worship leader in Psalm 78:2. This might have surprised Jewish readers in the first century, but it shouldn’t be a surprise to us. In a sense, all of the Old Testament points to Jesus in one way or another. When walking with two disciples on the Emmaus Road on resurrection day, Jesus explained to them, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, “what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Bill Crowder
Matthew 13:31-35
King James Version
31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.
33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
34 All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:
35 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.
Click on this link for the audio message.
Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree.
Matthew 13:32
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Matthew 13:31–35
I ran into an old friend who told me what he’d been up to, but I confess it seemed too good to be true. Within a few months of that conversation, however, his band was everywhere—from charting top singles on the radio to having a hit song pulsing under TV ads. His rise to fame was meteoric.
We can be obsessed with significance and success—the big and the dramatic, the quick and the meteoric. But the parables of the mustard seed and yeast compare the way of the kingdom (God’s reign on earth) to small, hidden, and seemingly insignificant things whose work is slow and gradual.
The kingdom is like its King. Christ’s mission culminated in His life, like a seed, being buried in the ground; like yeast, being hidden in the dough. Yet He rose. Like a tree breaking through the dirt, like bread when the heat is turned up. Jesus rose.
We’re invited to live according to His way, the way that’s persisting and permeating. To resist the temptation to take matters into our own hands, to grasp for power and to justify our dealings in the world by the outcomes they may produce. The outcome—“a tree . . . that the birds come and perch in its branches” (v. 32) and the bread that provides a feast—will be Christ’s doing, not ours.
Reflect & Pray
What small and seemingly insignificant things could you do to encourage or bless the people in your life? Where do you need to turn away from comparison with others or from a false picture of significance and success?
Dear Jesus, thank You for often working in small, hidden, and seemingly insignificant ways. Help me to trust You’re at work even when I can’t see You. Grant me the grace to remain faithful.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Matthew’s use of Old Testament prophecy is often intriguing, and that’s certainly the case in Matthew 13:35. After Jesus had told several parables, Matthew asserts that this type of teaching fulfills prophecy. The statement he cites, however, doesn’t come from one of the acknowledged prophets of Israel but from one of their psalmists—Asaph, the worship leader in Psalm 78:2. This might have surprised Jewish readers in the first century, but it shouldn’t be a surprise to us. In a sense, all of the Old Testament points to Jesus in one way or another. When walking with two disciples on the Emmaus Road on resurrection day, Jesus explained to them, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, “what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Bill Crowder
Matthew 13:31-35
King James Version
31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.
33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
34 All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:
35 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.