Although it is the smallest of all seeds, yet it grows into the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”
In these verses, we have, I. Another reason given why Christ preached by parables, Mat 13:34, Mat 13:35. All these things he spoke in parables, because the time was not yet come for the more clear and plain discoveries of the mysteries of the kingdom.
Commenting on Matthew 13:24-43
All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude,.... In the hearing of his disciples, whilst in the ship, the multitude being on the shore, in parables; in the four foregoing ones, and without a parable spake he not unto them: not that he never had preached but in a parabolical way unto them, or that he never did afterwards use any other way of speaking...
Which indeed is the least of all seeds--not absolutely, but popularly and proverbially, as in Luk 17:6, "If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed," that is, "never so little faith." but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs--not absolutely, but in relation to the small size of the seed, and in warm latitudes proverbially great.