Jesus Cares About Doctrine
This is a continuation of series on the Kingdom Parables and focuses on lessons and warnings given by Jesus to "walk the narrow path" of doctrine. Seeing forward in "history" our Lord knew many heresies and false teachers would arise attempting to steal His prize -- the church.
Revelation 2:14-6 But I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to place a stumbling block in front of the Israelites: to eat meat sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality. In the same way, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore repent! Otherwise, I will come to you quickly and fight against them with the sword of My mouth. HCSB
The warning to Thyatira came with a death sentence for those who fail to repent of false teaching:
Revelation 2:20-23 But I have this against you: You tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and teaches and deceives My slaves to commit sexual immorality and to eat meat sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she does not want to repent of her sexual immorality. Look! I will throw her into a sickbed and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her practices. I will kill her children with the plague. Then all the churches will know that I am the One who examines minds and hearts, and I will give to each of you according to your works. HCSB
Following are two cautionary Kingdom of Heaven parables for the church today.
Parable of the Mustard Seed
This is important enough to also be recounted in Mark 4:30-32 and Luke 13:18-19.
Matthew 13:31-32 He presented another parable to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It’s the smallest of all the seeds, but when grown, it’s taller than the vegetables and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the sky come and nest in its branches.” HCSB
This parable describes the historical
growth and progression of the church. This parable, as all others, is a
fulfilled prophecy in our times. The traditional interpretation of this parable
is summarized as follows:
The tiny mustard seed literally grew to be a tree which attracted numerous birds because they loved the little black mustard seed it produced. God's kingdom works in a similar fashion. It starts from the smallest beginnings in the hearts of men and women who are receptive to God's word. And it works unseen and causes a transformation from within. www.dailyscripture.net Copyright © 2014 Don Schwager
While the visible church has taken on
enormous proportions and has influence with most governments of the world, this growth has mutated, and does not resemble the original pattern that was
intended by its seed (the Word of God).
Note within the structure of the visible church there is a habitation
for birds, which are symbolic of the servants of Satan! Today there are many institutions claiming to be the "church" that have large numbers of servants of evil nesting in their branches.
This ties in with the parable of the Tares and the Weeds as the counterfeit church have taken the original teaching of Christ and corrupted it until it is unrecognizable. The visible church has become the home to many cults, and even occult elements and married to the world's pagan religious practices and beliefs.
This ties in with the parable of the Tares and the Weeds as the counterfeit church have taken the original teaching of Christ and corrupted it until it is unrecognizable. The visible church has become the home to many cults, and even occult elements and married to the world's pagan religious practices and beliefs.
These false
doctrines always have two things in common:
- They serve to deny the Deity of Christ (or at least replace Christ with another)
- They serve to glorify man and justify his sin
Here
is an alternative interpretation of the parable using symbolic meanings
consistent with other parts of Scripture.
According to J Vernon McGee, the mustard tree
is not a "good" symbol for the church. Mustard is of no nutritional value; the Bible
consistently refers to good things as bearing fruit, such as fig trees or
wheat. We are instructed to be
"salt" to the world, not mustard.
Matthew 7:17-19 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. HCSB
Other
than bearing fruit through their own testimony, it is not the
responsibility of the Sowers to create fruit in others. The Sower
(Christian) is responsible to spread the word to fulfill the great
commission, but God will cause the seed to take root through the Holy
Spirit Who convicts the hearts of hearers. God will bring the growth
and produce the fruit of holiness and praise.
Parable of the Woman with the Leaven
A parallel passage is in Luke 13:20-21.Matthew 13:33 Another parable He spoke to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.” HCSB
The
conventional interpretation of this parable is well summarized here:
Leaven
is another powerful agent of change. A lump of dough left to itself remains
just what it is, a lump of dough. But when the leaven is added to it a
transformation takes place which produces rich and wholesome bread when heated
-- the staple of life for humans. The kingdom of God produces a transformation
in those who receive the new life which Jesus Christ offers. www.dailyscripture.net Copyright © 2014 Don Schwager
Leaven Symbolizes Corrupted Doctrine
This is a beautiful interpretation and has merit. However, a careful application of the
meanings of the symbols used consistently by Jesus in other teachings yield a
very different interpretation, and this study aims to learn the meaning the speaker intended. While many interpret leaven as the Gospel, nowhere
else in Old or New Testament teaching is leaven used to represent good. Rather, in 98 other places in the Scripture
leaven symbolizes pride, corruption and evil.
Jesus even used the analogy of the "leaven of the Pharisees"
to describe their corrupted doctrine.
Matthew 16:11-12 How is it you do not understand that I did
not speak to you concerning bread?—but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees
and Sadducees.” Then they understood
that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine
of the Pharisees and Sadducees. HCSB
These
corrupted doctrines were criticized by Jesus in detail in Matthew 23 with a
seven-fold judgment of "Woes" against their hypocrisy and pride, and
the twisting of God's Law. One woe is
pronounced by Jesus here:
Matthew 23:23 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. HCSB
Looking
also at the three measures of meal, recall it is made of harvested grain. Since the Parable of the Sower was explained
to us by Jesus, we know the seed or grain is the Word of God. So, interpreting this by the previous
explanation of the symbols yields a different meaning: namely, that the dough is the Word of
God being secretly corrupted with false doctrine. Why else would the woman need to
"hide" the leaven in the dough? We are commanded to proclaim the gospel in and out of season publicly and
shine the light, not hide it.
This interpretation also has practical application to our lives today as it resembles the current state of world. Everywhere the Gospel is preached, forces are at work to corrupt the message and grow it into legalism or allegorize it to destroy its power. Leaven makes the bread more palatable than unleavened bread. Similarly, we are warned by Paul that many will be led astray by false doctrines that are more 'appetizing' than the True Word of God.
This interpretation also has practical application to our lives today as it resembles the current state of world. Everywhere the Gospel is preached, forces are at work to corrupt the message and grow it into legalism or allegorize it to destroy its power. Leaven makes the bread more palatable than unleavened bread. Similarly, we are warned by Paul that many will be led astray by false doctrines that are more 'appetizing' than the True Word of God.
2 Timothy 2-4:
Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke,
exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but
according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap
up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. NKJV
The "three measures of meal"
is also an allusion to Christendom dividing into Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox
and Protestant factions. The parable does not seem to have a
happy ending, because the leaven eventually affects the entire lump of dough.
In the end times, corrupt doctrine will affect the entire church and eventually lead to apostasy for all three traditions. This is prophetically described in the final church age of Laodicea in Revelation 3.
Paul also warns of the coming apostasy (or
"falling away") by the church:*
2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon
shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if
from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that
Day will not come unless the falling away comes first... NKJV
_____________________
*Another less plausible interpretation of this passage describes the rapture. However, many who firmly believe in the Rapture find this passage problematic because "first" the "falling away" must take place, "then" the Lord comes and gathers His own. This seems out of order.
Scripture citations are from: Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) © 2009 Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville TN or New King James Version®. (NKJV) Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson
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