Matthew | 1-5 | 6-10 | 11:1-19 | 11:20-30 | 12:1-21 | 12:22-50 | 13:1-23 | 13:24-43 | 14:1-12 | 14:13-36 | 15:1-20 | 15:21-39 | 16:1-20 | 16:21-28 | 18-28 |

These small group studies of Matthew 13:24-43 contain outlines, cross-references, Bible study discussion questions, verse by verse commentary, and applications. Visit our library of inductive Bible studies for more in depth inductive studies on this and other books of the Bible you can use in your small group.

Matthew 13:24-43 Bible Study – Parables of the Weeds and Mustard Seed

Outline

I. Parable of the Weeds (24-30)
II. Parable of the Mustard Seed (31-32)
III. Parable of the Leaven (33)
IV. Parable of the Weeds Explained (36-43)

I. Parable of the Weeds and the Explanation (24-30, 36-43)

Discussion Questions

• Who is the man who sowed good seed in this parable?
• Who is the enemy?
• Who or what do the weeds represent?
• Why is the destruction of the weeds delayed?
• What are your observations from the explanation of this parable starting in verse 36?
• What does this teach us about God?
• What does this teach us about people?
• What does this teach us about Satan?
• Is there a warning here for us? If so, what?
• Is it our job to judge and predict who we think is the weed?
• What is the difference between the real seed and the weed?

Cross-References

2 Corinthians 11:13-15 – For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

Titus 1:16 – They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

2 Timothy 3:5 – Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

Matthew 7:21-23 – “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Verse by Verse Commentary

1. Satan opposes the work of God –

Matthew 13:25 – But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.

Wherever God and His servants are working, Satan and his servants are also working. He not only actively takes away the good seed like we saw in the last parable, but he also actively is planting bad seeds. He is raising up evil crops to infiltrate the church as pretenders in order to damage the good crops. A weed is a destructive force in a garden. It zaps nutrients and chokes out good plants. Weeds in the church are also destructive. How?

2. Satan works in secret –

He did this while they were sleeping. Sin loves the dark. If someone is doing something secretly in the dark, it is likely nefarious.

3. God is patient, kind, and wise –

He knows that weeds are present. Allowing them to be present for a time is not confirmation of His acceptance of these people. Neither is a lack of immediate judgment confirmation that He approves of them or their actions.

Rather He does not act immediately against these people because it may damage the true believers. How? First of all if God were to judge all of these people immediately they would have no more opportunity for repentance and turning to Him. In a garden a weed cannot turn into a good plant. But in real life a false believer can potentially still become a real believer.

2 Peter 3:9 – The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

It is also not the job of men to weed out (no pun intended) these weeds. We cannot see their hearts and make a definitive conclusion about the true condition of their hearts. If we were to judge and cast out those whom we viewed as false believers, inevitably some true believers would be caught up in it. And that is what the owner of the field says in verse 29, “While you are pulling out the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them.” This would be the result if we were to do this. Therefore God will give this job to angels.

4. A final judgment is coming – This passage is a warning to false believers. We need to test our faith. We need to evaluate our motivations. We need to test our own actions. We need to examine our fruit. We need to meditate on the thoughts of our heart. We do not want to be like a goat who thought he was a sheep when they are separated in the last judgment. How can we make sure this doesn’t happen?

The final judgment will be severe –

Matthew 13:42 – And throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

5. Then the righteous will shine like the sun – God hates sin. He will root it out completely and there will be no sin in His final kingdom. At the same time, God wants us to shine like stars even now.

Philippians 2:15 – That you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.

Are you rooting sin out of your life?

Consider Daniel as a positive example.

Daniel 6:4-5 – Then the high officials and the satraps sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom, but they could find no ground for complaint or any fault, because he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him. Then these men said, “We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God.”

We see a powerful statement about Daniel’s character. These people tried every method for finding out Daniel’s secrets. Surely they spied on him and followed him. They investigated him. They would have done things like checking his projects and paperwork, asking questions of his co-workers, examining his house and possessions. Throughout history political adversaries are very good at bringing out the secret sins of their opponents. It is said that “Everyone has a skeleton in their closet.” It means that everyone is hiding something they don’t want others to know about them.

But Daniel was not. Although they tried as hard as they could, they could find nothing even remotely shady in Daniel’s personal or professional life. In fact, the only thing they could find to accuse him about is that he was too zealous for serving God! Wow! Isn’t that amazing? Daniel had a shining testimony. It wasn’t an act. It wasn’t faked. He wasn’t one person at the office and another person at home. He wasn’t one person at church and another person in front of his friends. He wasn’t one person on Sunday and another person the rest of the week. Daniel was the real deal. This is who he was. He was a righteous person who lived like it no matter where he was or who was watching.

I want you to put yourself in Daniel’s place for a moment. Imagine that a team of detectives investigates your life. Their goal is to dig out your secret sins. They want to expose you. They want to prove that you are a different person during the week than on Sundays. So they dig into every aspect of your lives.

What will they find? If they were to check your credit card bills and banking account history, what will they find you spend money on? What will they find out about your truthfulness in paying taxes? If they were to look in your internet browsing history, what would they see there? If they were to check out what kind of movies you watch, music you listen to, or books you read when no one else is around, what would they discover? If they were to observe how you treated your family members and recorded a video of it, would you want to play it here? If they had the ability to go even deeper, and record the thoughts you think when you are all alone, would you feel comfortable to play those in front of all of us?

So what would the final report be? Think for a moment about what you would be most afraid of them finding. Brothers and sisters, if you could think of anything, then today take it to the Lord. Repent. God can help you be righteous. God can help you have a testimony as pure and blameless as Daniel’s.

I don’t know about you, but I want to be like Daniel! I would want to pass an investigation like he did. I would want for people who are looking to accuse me to say, “We can find no corruption in Jason. His only problem is he is too zealous for serving God.” (Can add other people’s names here.) A person of integrity and righteousness can live with no fear of being caught.

II. Parable of the Mustard Seed (31-32)

Discussion Questions

• How is the kingdom of God like a mustard seed?
• How big is a mustard seed?
• How about the mustard “tree” that grows from it?
• What does this illustrate to us about the kingdom of God?
• How does God’s kingdom grow so fast and large?
• Who causes this growth?
• What is our role in this?

Verse by Verse Commentary

Background: A mustard seed is one of the smallest seeds in the world at just 1/20th of an inch in diameter. The “tree” that grows from this seed is technically a bush. This bush can grow to be up to 20 feet (6.5 meters) high. Oftentimes, it towers over the other crops or smaller plants growing around it in fields. The mustard “tree” has a lot of branches and it is a popular place for birds to make their nests even today. Jesus was giving a parable that would have been easily understood by His audience.

1. The kingdom of God has a massive potential for exponential growth –

Matthew 13:32 – It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

Jesus founded Christianity. This movement started from a core of twelve disciples. How could these few men fulfill the Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18-20)?

Jesus said that the gospel would be proclaimed throughout the whole world before His second coming.

Matthew 24:14 – And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

In Revelation, a countless multitude of believers from every tribe, nation, and tongue are standing before the throne of the Lamb, worshipping Him (Revelation 7:9-12).

The movement which started with Jesus and His disciples would change the world.

Acts 19:10 – This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

In a period of only two years all the people in ancient Asia (modern-day Turkey) heard the gospel.

Now there are around 2.38 billion professing Christians in the world.

The kingdom of God has experienced massive growth just as Jesus predicted.

2. Those outside the kingdom of God are blessed by it – Because God extends grace to believers even those around them can taste of or share in some aspects of this grace.

Christians have been influential in stopping the slave trade, ending abuse of women, raising the status of women, building hospitals, helping the sick, taking care of the poor, looking after orphans, building schools, instituting one-man, one-woman marriage, disaster relief, and more.

The worldwide church stands on the foundation of Christ. Their constitution is the Bible. This is a holy, moral, and righteous document. Believers stand for absolute truth. While the church is far from perfect and every believer is a sinner, to some extent, it still acts as a conscience for the world, restraining sin. This is done not by our power but by the power of the Holy Spirit in us.

2 Thessalonians 2:6 – And you know what is restraining[the man of lawless] now so that he may be revealed in his time.

In simple terms, the kingdom of God is a blessing to the whole world, even to unbelievers.

Application – What should you do because of this parable?

A. Live in awe of the power of God.

B. Keep spreading the seed, even little ones, knowing that God can cause them to grow. Even a little seed can bring about exponential growth.

III. Parable of the Leaven (33)

1. Parable of the leaven – The word we normally use for “leaven” is “yeast.” The parable of the yeast is basically a restatement of the same principles from the parable of the mustard seed. Yeast is powerful and can completely transform its host. The kingdom of God may be small at the start, but it will increase. It influences from within, not without. Therefore people are changed from the inside out. The change will be comprehensive, touching every aspect of a person, and the kingdom of God itself will finally expand around the world. It does its work invisibly and slowly, but little by little will accomplish its purpose.

Reflect – Have you seen a family where one person came to faith and then many others did one by one?

My mom was the first believer in her family. Over the decades, her family members came to Christ one by one. It didn’t happen in a day. Slowly but surely her influence and prayers bore fruit in her family and most of them were finally saved.

Application – You can influence others for God. Perhaps you are the only person in your family to follow Jesus. Do not despair. Pray for them. Be a testimony to them. Live out Christ’s love for them. Share the gospel. The yeast of your life could permeate your entire family.