Seven Parables and Seven Letters to the Churches

Jesus introduces a remarkable set of seven parables in Matthew 13 that are quite unique in their application and portent.  What is more remarkable is that these seven parables in their listed order would correlate perfectly to the seven letters to the churches found in Revelation 2-3 that the Apostle John would receive years later.

These seven parables regarding the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven are for a specific period of time.  The key to understanding them is that these seven parables represent the age in between the two advents of Jesus Christ.  They describe the spiritual conditions, both past and present, during the church age, or more commonly, the “Age of Grace.”  They include parables such as the sower, the wheat and the tares, the mustard seed and the dragnet.

 “He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given…Therefore, speak I to them in parables; because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand….But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears for they hear.” (Matthew 13:11,13,16)

Just as the book of Acts provides a history of the earliest years of the church age, Revelation 2 and 3 provides a preview of its future, that is an overview of the entire church age.  But the letters found in Revelation are also prophetic and bring closure to the church age. If the seven parables and/or the seven letters to the churches were in any other order it would not make sense.  They are in a precise order for a reason.  Although we cannot discuss the paring of each one, here is their listing:

 “The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.” (Revelation 1:20b)

As an example, the parable of the mustard seed, which is the smallest of seeds for garden plants and herbs.  Although it is such a small seed it can grow into being one of the larger garden plants.  Jesus even uses the mustard seed as a basis to describe a person’s faith in Matthew 17.  But in this parable, there is a lesson of humility.  Why?  Because the parable describes a mustard seed that grows into a large tree enabling birds to nest in its branches.  Have you ever seen a mustard tree?  Of course not.  Because a mustard plant was never intended to grow into a large tree.  Not only could it bear no fruit, but it would be a monstrosity.   Who were the birds?  According to the earlier parable of the sower, the birds represent Satan’s minions.

Likewise, this third parable from Matthew 13 aligns directly with the third letter to the church at Pergamos in Revelation 2 which governs the general period of 300 A.D. to 600 A.D.  It was during this time that the Roman emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be the state religion of the Roman Empire.  You might view that as a positive moment, but was it?  Unfortunately, when this occurred thousands of pagan priests became Christian priests almost overnight.  As a result, there were many pagan practices and other Gnostic teachings that were codified and co-opted into the Church.  The Church was never intended to be a government entity.  It was designed to be a body of believers based on the choice of their free will.  “Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world…” (John 18:36a)

Today we cannot help but acknowledge that we are now in the Laodicean age.  It is the seventh and final church age that is the “lukewarm” church.  Unlike the first six churches, this church is not named precisely but Jesus describes it in Revelation 3:14 as “the church of the Laodiceans” as if the people exercised some claim on the church.  In effect, it has come under the influence of the outside world and its values.  It is “neither cold nor hot” and seemingly accepts any doctrine for the sake of compromise as it denies the verbal and literal interpretation of Scripture.  This church believes it is rich and “in need of nothing” but the Lord says it is “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”

In one of the most scathing remarks found in the letters to the churches, Jesus says in Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”  Used so frequently on other occasions to prompt a non-believer to ask the Lord for their salvation, in this final letter to Laodicea it suggests that the Lord sees Himself OUTSIDE the doors of the church and desires to be INSIDE the church, if only the congregants would invite Him in.

Today, the Church has lost much of its identity as a transforming agent by allowing the influence of the world’s values to come inside.  Once the Church stood strong on so many social and moral issues but today is frequently seen bowing to secular pressures.  And finally, today the Church is losing its grip on the assured Word of God in its preaching and teaching. We live in a time when academic scholarship has seriously attacked the integrity of the Biblical text.  No generation in history has been more skeptical of the notion that the Bible is nothing more than a construct of folklore and traditions.  Biblical illiteracy is rampant in today’s churches.

Certainly not all churches today are Laodicean, and there are many churches alive and well that might better resemble the more desirable attributes of the church at Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-13).  And our brothers and sisters in China, Iran, Egypt and North Korea might surely identify more with the persecuted church of Smyrna (Revelation 3:8-11).  But the reality of this Laodicean age remains as a general condition.

The seventh and final parable from Matthew 13 that applies to Laodicea is the parable of the dragnet.  It describes a harvest whereby a net is cast into the sea and drawn ashore with the net full of fish that will be sorted.  The “good fish” will be kept and the “bad fish” thrown away.  It is a picture of an impending and final judgement that requires no further analysis.  “He that has an ear, let him hear…”

“..that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding: That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.” (Colossians 1:9b-11)