The Mustard Seed And The Birds

(A popular Bible Teacher) teaches that there is some prophetic significance in the Kingdom Parables i.e. the mustard tree is only normally 4 ft. high and for it to hold the birds of the air was a prophecy of the church harboring pagan practices. Can you explain this teaching with a little more detail?

Q. (A popular Bible Teacher) teaches that there is some prophetic significance in the Kingdom Parables i.e. the mustard tree is only normally 4 ft. high and for it to hold the birds of the air was a prophecy of the church falling into Roman Catholicism and getting abnormally large and harboring pagan practices. Can you explain this teaching with a little more detail? I didn’t quite follow it for all of the parables. Thanks so much for your patience.

A. All the Kingdom parables describe the Kingdom in its Earthly phase. In His explanation of the first parable Jesus identified the birds as a symbol of Satan. And a mustard seed can grow to become a large bush, but never a tree. By saying that the mustard seed grew into a tree where the birds come to perch, Jesus told us that the Kingdom in its Earthly phase would grow into a large bureaucracy, something it was never intended to be, and that ministers of Satan would find refuge there, a reference to false doctrine.

This was later confirmed by Paul who said that since Satan masquerades as an angel of light, (the Latin word Lucifer means “light bearer”) we shouldn’t be surprised to find that his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. (2 Cor. 10:14-15)