In this second part of Chapter 13, Jesus continues to teach in parables concerning this new mystery kingdom. He explains how that this new kingdom (the church) will begin pure and end in impurity; begin small and end great; begin with right doctrine and become saturated with false doctrine.
Chapter 12 begins a pivotal moment in the ministry of Jesus. It is the national rejection of Jesus as Messiah by the leaders. And because of this, Jesus withdraws His offer as Messiah to the nation and begins to speak of a new “mystery” kingdom”. So, Israel will not receive the kingdom at this time, but instead, a kingdom that was not foretold will now be birthed.
In the previous section of chapter 12, we saw where the pharisees were rejecting Jesus because of what He was doing on the Sabbath and that they had determined to kill Him. In this last section, a mute, demon-possessed man is brought to Jesus and He heals him.
In this section of chapter 12, we are confronted with Jesus teachings and works on the Sabbath day. His teachings were fundamentally different from those of the pharisees because He only taught how to understand the Sabbath from the Mosaic Law alone and not the rules of the pharisees.
After Jesus sent His disciples to minister in Galilee, some disciples of Jon cam to Him, asking if He truly was the Messiah (being sent by John the Baptist). Jesus kept working wonders and told them to go back to John and report the things that they have seen.
The final words of Jesus in chapter 9 was to pray that God would send workers into the harvest; and this is exactly what Jesus does in choosing twelve men to send them into the harvest of Israel. In this, He tells them not to carry additional provisions for themselves, but to rely of God working through those who hear them to provide for their needs.
