Other Parables of the Kingdom
The tare was a species of rye grass, which in its earlier stages, closely resembled wheat. In this world, and in the Church, professors are closely mingled with possessors. But there come great times of revealing, in the trials and difficulties of life, and in fact Satan and his angels never sleep. Let us beware of them, but be not afraid: Christ is stronger.
The mustard seed and the leaven represent the extensive and intensive, the outward and inward, the objective and subjective, aspects of Christianity. Sometimes when the Church is reaching its branches to the farthest, its heart is being corrupted by the slow spread of evil. See 1 Corinthians 5:7-8. See what stress our Lord lays on unnoticed beginnings! What seed is smaller than the mustard! Yet it may be the gateway through which Nature may pour her inner energies, forcing the rootlet down and the green shoot up. And it requires but a very small amount of leaven to permeate a large quantity of meal. Bigness is not greatness. Watch the first speck of sin; cherish each grain of holy impulse.