Mark 4:30–34

Only Mark's Gospel has this beautiful expression, which joins the apostles with the Servant of Jehovah in divine ministry. Matthew and Luke both give the pronoun in the singular: "To what shall I compare it?" And in fact the Lord, as we know, supplied the comparison Himself. He needed no prompting from the twelve. Yet it is good for us, as it was for them, to learn the lowly grace of the Saviour. He put the matter this way so that the apostles might learn that they were chosen to share His service of declaring the kingdom of God.

When emergencies arose He at times consulted them as to what should be done. Not that He needed advice from any, but to question them as He did was to educate them in the understanding (1) of their own natural inability in matters of the kind, and (2) of the vast resources at their Master's command. For example, seeing the hungry crowds He asked Philip, "Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?" — yet He Himself knew what He would do (John 6:5-6). He spoke of His plans the same way: "Let us go across to the other side" (Mark 4:35).

Here we do not find the whole story of the kingdom, as we do in Matthew 13. We find only its great principles: the Lord's work, set against His public appearing and the setting up of the kingdom by His own presence. It grows during His absence, and no one knows how — at least as far as human knowledge goes.

Though small in this country, the shrub reaches a good size in the southern lands where Palestine lies. Travellers report seeing it grow as high as a man on horseback. This is no great height for a tree. But remember: the main feature of the comparison is not the huge bulk of the tree. It is how tiny the seed is next to what it later becomes. Judging by the size of the seed, you would expect no more than a garden herb. In fact it becomes a tree.

One of the prophets compared the Assyrian empire to a cedar of Lebanon, taller than all the trees of the field. The birds of the heavens nested in its boughs, and great nations lived in its shadow. The same prophet applied the picture to Pharaoh and the armies of Egypt (Ezekiel 31). The rapid rise and vast reach of the Babylonian empire came to its king, Nebuchadnezzar, in a dream, as a tree that "grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth" (Daniel 4).

At its beginning Christianity was very small in man's sight, like a "grain of mustard seed." In the hands of man it becomes a great power on the earth. But in its greatness, it becomes a shelter for evil. "The birds of the air make nests in its shade." That which at the beginning gathered souls out of this world around the Lord, in the end becomes a vast system which shelters every evil thing.

This taught them that great size would be the result. The Lord's work would not keep its first simplicity and small extent. Yet spiritual power is the real greatness, and the only true greatness in this world. The moment anything in the Lord's work becomes striking to the natural eye, you can be sure that false principles have somehow got a footing inside.

The mustard shrub is small in this country. But in the warmer south, where Palestine lies, it grows to a good size. Travellers report seeing it as tall as a man on horseback. That is no great height for a tree. But remember the main feature of the comparison. It is not the huge bulk of the tree. It is how small the seed is next to what it later becomes.

Christianity, a little seed, the seed of a man despised by the world, has become a great power upon the earth, and spreads its branches everywhere.

At its beginning the kingdom bore the character of its Founder. He "made Himself nothing." He came not to be served but to serve. He taught His disciples that the least among them, the one who could become the servant of all, was the greatest. The apostles understood their Lord's teaching and obeyed it. As a result they became "like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things."

The mustard is called the least of all the seeds — of the ones that people plant, I take it. The growth here is abnormal. In nature a mustard seed never becomes a great tree. People may treat this natural growth as if it were divine and perfect. Yet any simple soul can see that the growth is abnormal.

The teaching of the parable is that the kingdom of God would become raised up in the earth and suitable for agents of Satan to find protection under its shadow…

The Lord Himself tells us, in the earlier parable, who the "birds of the air" are. It is the same word used in both places. As the sower sowed the seed, the birds came and devoured it. The Lord explains it: "When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart." So by the birds of the air that devour the seed, the Lord means Satan and his angels.

It seemed a small thing to men when the Saviour of the world lay as a Baby in Bethlehem's manger… At first the preaching of the gospel reached no further than the cities of Israel. Yet even in the days of the apostles it went into all the world, to every creature under heaven. And, according to the Lord's own word, men came from the east and the west and the north and the south, and sat down in the kingdom. God chose the weak things of the world to shame what was mighty.

The grain of mustard seed was there merely to show the great change from a little beginning into a vast system. That hint was all-important for the guidance of the servants. They were taught that material size would be the result, instead of the work of the Lord keeping its first simplicity and small extent. Spiritual power is the real greatness, and the only true greatness in this world. The moment anything at all in the Lord's work becomes striking to men's eyes, you may be sure that false principles have somehow got a footing within.

All three parables in this chapter picture the ministry of the kingdom of God by the Servant of Jehovah under the figure of growing seed. The first shows that fruitfulness depended on how suitable the soil was where the seed fell. The second shows that the seed's growth and final fruitfulness owed nothing at all to human help. In the third parable, however, quite a different feature stands out. It says nothing about fruit for God, which will matter so much in the day of harvest. It brings forward the man-ward side of the kingdom, not the Godward side. The rapidly growing tree is the look the kingdom was to take on in human eyes.

What had been sown as a grain of mustard seed becomes a great tree; a symbol that represents a great power on the earth. The Assyrian, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, are set before us in the word as great trees. The kingdom would take that form. It began small, through the word sown by the Lord, and later by His disciples. What this seed produced would slowly grow into a great power. It would make itself prominent on the earth, so that others would shelter under it, as birds shelter under the branches of a tree. This has, indeed, been the case.

At full growth the tree becomes the haunt of independent agents. They do not come out of the seed as fruit would. They are wholly separate from the tree as a living thing. The birds find protection in the tree, but they are in no sense part of it. When it was a seed, they were its natural enemies. The first parable shows the birds eating the good seed in some cases. The Lord took that act of destruction to mean that Satan sometimes carries away the word of the gospel after it is preached. So suppose the birds of the air in the first parable stand for the agents of the devil. Then in the third parable of the same series we may fairly take them to stand for powers of evil.

Here is the "mystery": what is sown as "the smallest of all seeds" becomes a tree. In other words, Christianity was little and despised among men at its beginning, and it becomes great and glorious on the earth. That religion began with the death of Christ as a criminal. What greater mystery could there be than to see it linked with all the dignity, wealth, power and splendour of this world? Only one thing could be stranger. By this remarkable change, the birds find shelter in the branches of the tree that began with the sowing of the seed — the same birds whose first work was to snatch the seed away before it took root.

In man's hands Christianity becomes a great power on the earth, and in its greatness it becomes a shelter for evil. What at the beginning gathered souls out of this world around the Lord, in the end becomes a vast system which shelters every evil thing.

Christianity is essentially a heavenly system. The Church of God does not belong to the present evil world, but to the scene of glory where Christ dwells. Christians once walked apart from the way things go here, with hearts devoted to their Lord. Their testimony was unmistakable, and God could bless it to the salvation of souls. Then the Christian community became influential on the earth. Its spiritual usefulness declined, and it became a powerful tool in the hands of Satan.

In line with this principle of teaching fitted to the time, the Heavenly Teacher considered the capacity of His disciples and the degree of their spiritual growth. He chose the "measure and manner" of teaching that suited them best. The parable and its explanation were the means the Lord used to give them the "word of the kingdom." He gave it in the proportion that their minds and hearts were ready to receive it, giving them "food at the proper time." Their capacity for hearing was the measure.

"With many such parables he spoke … to them"; here we have "to them" again, because He has not been speaking only to the disciples. But they still stand here as objects of the word, not as blasphemers. And He explained everything to His disciples in private.

"As they were able to hear it" shows, I think, that He had begun to speak in parables when the rulers and scribes showed their blasphemy against the Spirit. Yet He continued doing it in mercy — patient mercy, in which He never failed. He fitted it to them, so that whoever had ears to hear might find what was suitable for them.

So we also have what stupid, most stupid, rationalists would call contradiction. He spoke to them in parables as they were able to bear it. Yet He spoke to them in parables, so that hearing they might hear and not perceive. It was perfectly suited to them in grace. But it met a nation that refused truth given in this way, so that where the will was prejudiced, everything stayed dark. Those who had judged themselves, who had repented, believed and glorified Him.

By such a method of teaching He tested everyone in the vast crowd who heard what He said, to see who wanted to learn. For we read: "he did not speak to them without a parable"; yet He spoke, as Mark alone tells us, "as they were able to hear it" (4:33). The profit of souls was His aim, and all who desired it had the interpretation.

We see, then, that the Lord recognised spiritual growth in His hearers. On one occasion He had many things to say, but the apostles were then unable to bear them (John 16:12). When the Spirit of truth came at Pentecost, He led them on into all truth. But in the letters, as in the Gospels, we find that the ministry of the truth took each person's progress into account. Paul fed some with "milk," and others with "meat" (1 Cor. 3:2; Heb. 5:12).

When we preach the gospel to the unconverted, no sensible person would think we ought to bring in the deeper mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, or of the Church of God. The Lord Jesus spoke the word to the people "as they were able to hear it" (Mark 4:33). … Should not every wise teacher adapt his instruction to the condition of those taught? Who would teach conic sections or Euclid's elements to a child who had only learnt his alphabet?

Even the apostles could not see what the parables meant without the Lord's own explanation, and that shows the parables were not used the way we normally use figures of speech. They were not like similes or metaphors or allegories brought in to light up a talk, decorate it, or make it simpler. The parables did the opposite. However deeply they stuck in the memory, they wrapped the truth in a veil, and neither the disciples nor the crowd could see through it. The Prophet lifted that veil to teach His followers. As we read, "He did not speak to them [the crowd] without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything." So when He asked them, "Have you understood all these things?" they could answer, "Yes, Lord."

One expresses lack, or non-existence; the other expresses only separation, being apart. Matthew 13:34 and Mark 4:34 only claim that apart from parables He spoke nothing then.

It suited them exactly, so that anyone who had ears to hear could take it in. But it was darkness to the stubborn and disobedient. Besides that, He made everything clear to the disciples in private, because they had given up their own will to His, slow though they might be.

The explanation is for those who desire to take the truth to heart: others are left in their ignorance.

They came to Him alone to ask why they could not cast the demon out of a young man. Later, near the end of His ministry, some of them wanted to know more about the destruction of the temple, and what the sign of His coming and of the end of the age would be. They came to Him with their questions in private, as He sat on the Mount of Olives. These were not rare exceptions. Teaching like this in private was their normal experience, as we read, "He did not speak to them [the crowd] without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything."

This fits the plan of the Gospel, which shows not only the ministry of the Servant of Jehovah Himself, but also how He prepared His followers to carry on a divine witness on earth when He would be gone. The Lord had chosen and appointed them to preach the gospel of the kingdom. But how could they do that work well if they could not see the mysteries of the kingdom themselves? He set the new features that were to mark the people of God before the crowds in parables, but He explained the truths underneath them in full to the believing remnant.

Whatever the disciples failed to keep of the parables and the explanations opened up to them during their Master's ministry, the Holy Spirit would bring back to their memory after He came at Pentecost. That was the Lord's promise (John 14:26).