Six parables. That’s all Jesus needed to demystify the kingdom of heaven, making recognizable its continuity from Genesis to Revelation and 2,000 years of bewildering Church history. Having laid the foundation that He Himself is the Sower of good seed in the world, He builds upon it another parable to reveal what else God is doing in His kingdom on earth. Once you see this principle, you’ll begin to see it everywhere!
Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”
Matthew 13:31-32 NKJV
What makes this parable challenging is that Matthew offers no interpretation. Obviously the kingdom of heaven is about growth, but what kind of growth? What are these mysterious birds of the air? Do we figure it out using the nearby parable of the sower, as many do, interpreting the birds of the air as Satan’s minions? Fortunately, God didn’t leave us stranded. Without Jesus furnishing its meaning, a parable is best decoded by the occasion and audience to which it was addressed. Luke’s Gospel supplies this Spirit-breathed context to ground us in truth not speculation.
Luke could have synced his parable of the mustard seed at the same point in Jesus’ ministry as Matthew, but he didn’t. Jesus did tell the same parables in different times and settings. Whereas Matthew groups it with the kingdom of heaven parables, Luke follows a different scheme, choosing a different setting to tease out spiritual truth. Having been a careful student of Luke (I spent two years plodding verse-by-verse through Acts), I’ve observed that he arranges events side-by-side for comparisons and contrasts for us to mine beautiful gems about Jesus. Let’s dive in.
He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”
Luke 13:18-19 ESV
Note carefully how Luke introduces his parable: “He said therefore.” The old cliché for a Bible “therefore” is to see what it’s “there for.” It alerts us to correlate it with the miraculous healing immediately before. This is good news for us, for this interrelationship supplies all we need for interpreting it.
Quite simply, a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Usually Jesus’ parables are familiar scenes of everyday life—a farmer sowing seeds, a shepherd searching for a lost sheep, lighting a lamp. Exhibiting the supernatural is highly out of the ordinary, an outlier perhaps being the camel through the needle’s eye. Yet something miraculous happens with our mustard seed. The Greek has a word for tree and a diminutive word for bush. Tree is used here. Many familiar with botany have pointed out that mustard seeds do not become trees. At best they’re bushes, hardly sturdy enough to support birds’ nests. It would be like planting a marigold or tulip and the birds roosted in them. That just doesn’t happen!
Having never considered Luke’s context to interpret this parable, I’d always envisioned the mustard seed growing gradually. It’s natural to assume this growth process took a long time, but the text doesn’t tell us that. Interestingly, the Bible opens up fast tracking seeds to fully grown trees—all in one day! On the sixth day God planted a garden in Eden and “out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree” (Gen 2:9 ESV). God plants a seed and out pops a tree! That’d be so cool to see! Preceding the parable of the mustard seed is a supernatural, mountain moving event: Jesus healing a bent over woman in a synagogue. Herein we discover the keys to unlocking this parable.
And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.
Luke 13:11-13 ESV
Does anything here start out very tiny (a mustard seed) and end up abnormally large (a mustard tree)? Yes! Jesus sows a tiny word (“Woman, you are freed from your disability”) that explodes into something large: a woman’s crippling infirmity is healed, dethroning Satan’s eighteen long years of tyranny. One little word creates a new world! That’s how it all began in Genesis. “Let there be…and there was.” A word spoken is tiny, a word fulfilled enormous.
The synagogue ruler protested indignantly, prompting Jesus to call out his hypocrisy. Once Jesus straightened out their Sabbath misconceptions, the people erupted.
As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
Luke 13:17 ESV
The birds in the tree nesting in the mustard tree is not just an incidental detail, for not only do Matthew’s and Luke’s parable end with it but Mark’s telling of it as well. “Nests” is a compound word, kataskēnoō, kata meaning “down” and skēnoō “to make a tent or tabernacle in.” Throughout the Old Testament the tent was where God and man rested. When did this healing take place? On the Sabbath, the day of rest! The “birds of the air,” the people, “nest” in that “mustard tree,” that conspicuous display of Jesus’ glory. So this crowd is resting—not a rest of inactivity—but a rejoicing “at all the glorious things” that Jesus did! Rejoicing in Jesus is resting. When God suspends the laws of nature to show Jesus off as glorious, people flock to Him and find rest.
Now, the miraculous healing of the humped over woman is merely the illustration not the main point. It serves to interpret the parable, but what’s the age-abiding, underlying principle? Are God’s mustard trees only miracles of divine healing?
Swapping “King” for “kingdom” in these kingdom of heaven parables I’ve found helpful in discerning their essence. So the King is like a mustard seed. Jesus is the mustard seed. He and His word are one. He is the Word made flesh who does glorious things that people rejoice in. The kingdom of heaven is not some nebulous, abstract idea; it’s King Jesus doing, acting, and working in His world. What’s Jesus doing in the world? He’s sowing (first parable) and He’s showing (second parable).
“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field.” What about the man here? It’s the heavenly Father. “My Father,” says Jesus, “is the gardener” (Jn 15:1 CSB). Many biblical examples can prove this, such as the lame man spectacularly healed at Gate Beautiful. All the people flocked to see him jubilantly jumping and praising God, affording Peter an opportunity to explain what really happened. “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus” (Acts 3:13 ESV). So the man (the Father) sows the mustard seed (the word, Jesus) that grows into a tree (supernatural results), attracting the birds of the air (people) to rest (glorify and praise Him). That’s the animating principle of the parable of the mustard seed.
The extraordinary catches people’s attention. Although in Luke it was divine healing, God wondrously manifesting Jesus is far more expansive. In principle, a mustard tree is any supernatural way Jesus is revealed to the world. The Bible records many such ways. Moses’ mustard tree was the burning bush. For King Nebuchadnezzar it was three men unscathed in the fiery furnace. The Wise Men’s mustard tree was Bethlehem’s star. Acts and Paul’s letters point to a teaching, a prophecy, or many diverse divine manifestations that attract people to Jesus. What’s God’s greatest mustard tree? The cross. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (Jn 12:32 ESV).
Glory Unveiled: Discovering Jesus 