"Growing God’s Kingdom", Sunday School Lesson for June 24 2023

Pentecostal Power of Deliverance Video Sunday School 284 Weyl Street – Rochester, NY 14621 Overseers and Founders: Bishop Melvin C. Cross Sr., & Pastor Beleader D. Cross Sunday School Lesson | June 24, 2023 “Growing God’s Kingdom” Matthew 13:24-33 – aka “The Parable of the Wheat & Tares, Mustard Seed, and Leaven” Teacher: Elder Deborah Miller In spite of the ever-increasing modern technology, old-fashioned storytelling still remains popular. Whether it’s a bedtime story, storytime at the local library, or the various storytelling festivals that attract adults, this time-tested storytelling, of you sitting down and listening to one tell a story is still alive and well today. So, in today’s Sunday school lesson, we find Jesus, sitting by the seaside, preparing to tell a story (aka a parable) to a great multitude of people, from an agricultural culture, (aka farmers) or people whose living is concerned with cultivating of soil, and who works the land, especially on a farm. It is these types of people, who had come to the “storytelling festival” to hear the Master storyteller. Jesus steps on the stage (which happens to be a ship) and begins his story, using a parable narrative, about farming and farmers. This lets us know that wherever you are God knows your language. So Jesus starts His story with “the Kingdom of heaven is likened to” (aka symbolically compared to). Then He proceeds with three short parables of wheat & Tares, a mustard seed, and leaven. Within this lesson, I will focus briefly on the symbolic meanings of the wheat & tares, the mustard seed, and the leaven, and attempt to answer the question, what does each have to do with growing God’s Kingdom?