Lesson 81: What is the Kingdom of God Like? (Luke 13:18-21)

Most of us feel pretty far removed from kingdoms with their castles, knights, and various nobility and class systems. So when Jesus begins talking about a kingdom, namely God’s kingdom, we may require immediate help in order to even grasp the kind of imagery such language is meant to invoke, let alone understand the meaning of the parables these words are in. Pastor Daniel takes us through this passage, helping us to better understand this kingdom language and how God’s kingdom can be compared to things such as grains of mustard seeds and leaven. He puts forth the central point that, “The kingdom of God is being established and growing even as we speak. What it looks like at the end isn’t what it looks like at the beginning.” And then, with a look at the parable of the mustard seed, he puts forward, “The kingdom of God is small then large.” And finally, concerning the leaven hidden in the flour, “The kingdom of God is hidden then pervasive.”

Summary by Seth Kempf, Bethany Community Church Staff