The Mustard Tree

Narrator: Chris Genthree
Duration: 3min
 •  3 min. read  •  grade level: 10
“The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened” (Matt. 13:3333Another 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. (Matthew 13:33)). It is the process of leavening which is prominent here, resulting in a leavened mass. The Lord had previously given the reason of His teaching in this way. “Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand” (Matt. 13:1313Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. (Matthew 13:13)). The truth concealed under the parable will be elicited only by the spiritual, and conclusions of the most opposite moral bearing will be drawn from the same parable by the acuteness of intellect and by the spiritual mind. The same parable is like the pillar of the cloud in the night time: darkness to the Egyptians and light to Israel. It blinds the acutest intellect, but it gives deep instruction to the humble, who depend upon the teaching of the Holy Spirit.
Before our eyes Christendom stands out as a leavened mass. The leavening process has gone on and is still proceeding; a result has been produced, and that result is by common consent called Christianity. There are two principal modes of corruption traceable both in the history of Israel and that of the church. Both involved the same principle — the loss of their separation, which was, in fact, their glory and their strength. Israel wanted to be as the nations, when “to dwell alone and not be reckoned among the nations” was their real glory. Israel leaned on an arm of flesh, on Egypt or Assyria, their house of bondage or prison-house, when the arm of the Lord was their strength and salvation. Thus also Israel changed their glory for that which did not profit, adopting the idolatry of the nations into the worship of the true God. “Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the Lord. For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:12-1312Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the Lord. 13For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:12‑13)). It may be difficult practically to separate the two evils one from the other, either in the case of Israel or with respect to the church. There is an intended distinction in the figure of the woman putting leaven in the mass and the harlot with the “golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication” (Rev. 17:44And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: (Revelation 17:4)). It is the difference between what the woman does with that which is committed to her charge and what the woman receives for the favors she bestows, “for they give gifts to all whores” (Ezek. 16:3333They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom. (Ezekiel 16:33)). Both the household woman and the harlot help on to the rearing of Babylon, but in different ways; the quiet plausible way of the housekeeper is less suspected, but not less dangerous, than the barefaced evil of the harlot. In plain words, the gradual way in which the church has insinuated itself into the world is by no means so transparent an evil as the open manner in which the church has received the world into itself.
J. L. Harris