156 - One of These Things is Not Like the Others

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink.

Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. So, Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, and it's like a pearl, and it's like a fishnet. A fishnet? That's, what? One of these things is not like the others.

Well, let's find out why today on More Than Ink. Well, we are so glad you've joined us around our dining room table. I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we are continuing our walk through Matthew, and we're in the parable section of Matthew, and I have to warn you a little bit about the background sounds you might hear. It's raining.

It's raining outside. You'll hear drippy sounds, and you might actually, if we get lucky, get a little lightning and thunder. There was some a little while ago. Let's hope that it's dramatically timed for what we read.

That would be really cool. But we are reading today in Matthew's Gospel, and we're in the parable section, the kingdom parables, and today we are flying without a net, which means, well, actually there will be a net. There's a net in one of these parables. What are you talking about?

Like trapeze artists, if they're really daring, they do their trapeze stunts in the air without a net. Well, the net in this case is Jesus interpreting for us. He's not interpreting these parables for us.

Oh, that's true. So we warned you this was going to come, and we did this a little while ago. Jesus is going to give us some parables, and we're going to have to put on our thinking caps and see what we can glean from these parables based on what we already know about the kingdom and what he's revealing to us that's new. And so that's the challenge for today. And we don't know that he actually told all these parables lined up exactly this way.

Might not. But Matthew has grouped them together for a reason. So that is kind of always helpful when you come and read a whole bunch of parables that are lined up together.

The writer of the gospel has put them together for a particular reason. And so that kind of ought to go into our interpretive toolbox as we start thinking about this. Exactly.

Exactly. So with that prepared, and I know you're all sitting there just chomping away ready to hear them, here we go. We're in the kingdom parables. If you're following, we're in chapter 13, and we're picking up kind of in the middle of the chapter around verse, well, verse 44. Verse 44.

That's where we are. So here we go. Let's talk about some parables about the kingdom.

Okay. And here we have two little bitty parables that just smack right up next to each other for a reason again. So listen, we'll read them both. Verse 44, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. The end. We should stop there and talk about these two, because they clearly go together because of the commonness of the theme, and yet there's some contrasts in them too.

Yeah. And it needs a little setup on the first one, the treasure that's hidden in a field that's buried in the ground. You might recall the parable of the talents. And do you remember that in the parable of the talents, and this is still to come, this is going to be at the end of Matthew, but in the parable of the talents, the one guy who didn't invest the talents and invest the stuff, he buried them in the ground. That's because at the time, the bank of Palestine at the time was the ground.

And I went looking on this to see how common it was. Josephus, a contemporary historian at the time, wrote about the fact that in Palestine there, you took your valuables and you buried them in the ground, because there was just so much fighting going on, you weren't sure you could get back to it. So he wrote, and I looked this up, the gold and the silver and the rest of that most precious furniture which the Jews had, and which the owners treasured up underground against the uncertain fortunes of war. So when we're talking about this treasure hidden in a field, it sounds odd to us, but that's where you put your most valuable stuff.

It's for safekeeping. I think it's more obvious than maybe you might think, because it's apparent that the issue is he's put it there for a reason, and then at a very extravagant cost to himself, he buys the whole field. And he gets it back.

In fact, you know what this made me just think of as I was sitting here? My brother John had bought gold coins and had buried them in his backyard. And once he passed away, we went looking for him. Well, no, we thought he had buried them under the house. The first one was in the backyard.

Oh, that's interesting. And we scanned the backyard, then we scanned it. So anyway, yeah, this is where you put your valuables. And it's hidden in a field. So in order to get this valuable, you have to buy the field. And the point, which is quite obvious, is that whatever this is that's hidden in the field is so valuable, it's worth buying the entire field. Okay, it's really something precious.

Very precious. And that's a common factor between these two parables, right? There is something that a certain character in the parable regards as very, very valuable, so valuable. And this is almost the same words in each one that he sells everything he has and buys it. Right.

It's that valuable. In the first case, he buys the field. In the second case, he buys the item, the pearl.

The pearl itself, yeah. Yeah, so there's actually two ways you can interpret this. I mean, if we start with the first one, that the purchaser is yourself and you find something like the gospel and it's valuable and you go pay for it and get it. I don't really go for that interpretation. I go for a different interpretation.

Okay, well I do too. And that's because Jesus had told us in the previous parables when he was interpreting them that the field is the world. And in those previous characters, the sower was God or the word was being sown.

So I wonder if Jesus had laid out that guide previously that maybe it's a good idea to say, okay, the field here is very likely the world, right? And so we have a main character. We have a man who found the treasure or who knew the treasure was there.

Knew the treasure was there, right. And then we have a merchant in search of something in the second one. So I think it's probably safe to say that that character represents God because he sells everything he has to buy it. And we know from other scripture that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, right? So this is where you can mix what you know in scripture together because you just took John 3 and applied it here and it fits. So Jesus is telling these little stories to indicate that there is something of great value that's worth selling everything he has to obtain it.

Yes. So might you say that that treasure is us? Well, I would definitely say that because I don't know if you tracked down this line, but the idea of a treasure, if you pull out your concordance and look up treasure, you'll turn up some really interesting things. God way back in Exodus 19 had told his people, if you continue in this covenant relationship with me, you will be my special treasure. And so since Jesus' audience is Jewish primarily, I wonder if he's not touching on that saying, oh, the special Israel is her, is God's special treasure.

And she is in the world, right? And God buys the whole world. Yes. And the purchase price is the blood of Christ himself.

Yeah. So there are a couple of other passages I will just put on the table here. I won't read them, but if you're taking notes, you might wanna jot down Psalm 135 verse 4, Deuteronomy 26, 18 and 19, which is actually a restatement of that covenant statement from Exodus 19. And then Jeremiah 13, 11, where God says he created Israel specifically to be near him like a man wears a belt in order to be glorified, that God would be glorified in them. So they are his special treasure.

So what about the pearl? Well, I was just gonna say, I wanna stress one thing really quick before we go to the second one is don't stress too much on the details of these parables. Get the general gist of it in that general overall view, because many times people get caught up saying, well, then this word means what, and this is that.

Don't get too hung up on that, but in general... That's a good rule of parables in general. So the general sense is there's something of extraordinary value that's worth everything. And it's our take that the treasure that's hidden in the field is mankind itself, that God then indeed pays the highest price for it to redeem himself. Okay.

And if the treasure is mankind, then the one who is seeking the treasure is God. Right. Right. In Jesus.

In his son. That's right. Okay. So... So we go to the pearl.

Something like... What's that word? Pearl. Pearl. It's a valuable. It's very, very valuable, just like the first thing, the treasure in the field, but it's different in another sense because of his beauty.

Okay. And cultures all over the world from most ancient times regarded pearls as very precious. They're hard to get. They're a little bit rare.

Israel in general didn't have access to pearls except by trade. Right. That's right.

Yeah. But they do show up in the scriptures. And again, if you pull out your concordance and look up pearl, you'll turn up some interesting things. The thing that probably caught me the most by surprise is that pearl shows up in Revelation, both as an ornament on the woman who is riding the beast, right? She's wearing extravagant jewelry.

As jewelry, yeah. But it shows up, pearls show up as the gate. On the gate.

To the city, the new Jerusalem. Each gate is a single pearl. So that's telling us God is using that to tell us about something of extraordinary value. Yeah.

Yeah. And there's, yeah, so you have to think value. And I have to add the thing about beauty because it's the beauty thing. It's beautiful because we don't know anything about the beauty of the treasure in the first one. But there's also more than one pearl here.

This is the best pearl of all the pearls. And that's an important point here because what he's saying is that there's something extraordinarily valuable about the one as opposed to all the others that promise because they're beautiful and maybe valuable because they are valuable, but there is one that exceeds them all. So that's different. And that one that exceeds them all is the kingdom itself, is the kingdom itself, as opposed to all the false promises of the kingdom that you meet on earth that just can't fulfill. So that's what's different there. But anyway, same thing happens. It's of ultimate value and so goes and buys, sells everything and buys it and attains it.

Yeah. And that's, you know, between the two of these, I see a God who is, who, who in a wonderful way, treasures us in ways that we can't even imagine, like a treasure, like a pearl. He values us. He sees us as beautiful and to Him, it's worth everything. It's worth everything to redeem us to Himself. And that's what He does through Christ. We need to press on.

We've got more. Because there's another, another parable is coming up next that actually has some common things in it from one that we've read before. So starting in verse 47, again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers, but threw away the bad. So it will be at the end of the age, the angels will come and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Okay, yikes. So this sounds like the end of the parable of the wheat and the tares.

It does. Because Jesus gives us this little interpretive thing. The parable itself is very short.

Because we have this, this twofold end, this binary end and some will be kept and some will be thrown away and the ones that are thrown away are burned. So it's very similar. But this is, hey, this is a parable, not for farmers. This is a parable for fishermen. So it's interesting that the net that is thrown out gathers up fish of every kind. It's indiscriminate.

That sounds like back to the parable of the mustard seed when it grows into this tree that the birds of every kind come and make a nest in it, right? That there is this period of time in the kingdom when the evil and the good are all mixed up in there together. Right. And in that judgment picture, it tells us that there is, it's indiscriminate.

I mean, it's all men. Some people aren't, it's inescapable. It's inescapable like a gigantic net. Right. And so in the end, there will be a judging between the two and you'll be caught up in that net of judgment. And some is kept and some is rejected. Yeah, yeah.

Some are kept, some are rejected. Right. And to underscore how the fiery furnace site isn't just oblivion, he says there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Well, and that part's not symbolic. That's Jesus' interpretation.

He's saying there will come the end of the age. Yeah, yeah. That end is coming and judgment will come and no one's going to escape because the net is that big.

Well, and fish swimming in the sea can't escape a net anyway. Right. Right.

The net just comes and scoops them up. Right, right. So we need to press on because Jesus comes to this really interesting conclusion in this next little section when he says in verse 51, have you understood all these things? And they said to him, yes. And he said to them, therefore, every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old. Yeah.

Oh. Right, right, right. So he's telling them if your answer is yes and you're really getting this, then you're getting what a lot of people don't have and it's your responsibility like a teacher, like a scribe, to pass it on. Well, it's interesting that he talks about the scribes because the scribes were the repository of the scriptures, right?

They had most of them memorized and were the ones who were consulted does what does the text say? Right. They were the text dudes and they were more than just scribe writers.

Right. It comes to mind Ezra. Ezra was a scribe who really understood the law really well. And so, yeah, these are people who were well... But they were teachers. Yeah, they were teachers. So they were well versed in the law and what is.

They understand what's going on. But now Jesus is saying because of this new stuff you're hearing, you get to be the one who brings out of the treasure of knowledge both the old and we're thinking like the Old Testament wisdom and the new that I'm sharing with you right now. So it's like a new insight, a new understanding on these old ancient truths. This is the scribe who has been discipled for the kingdom of heaven or trained for the kingdom of heaven.

Well, you know, a disciple is one who follows a teacher but not just so that he can hang out with them, so that he can adopt his way of life and carry on his work. And propagate it. Yeah, exactly. And that's exactly what's going to happen to the apostles.

I mean exactly what's going to happen to them. So when they say, yep, we get it, he says, good, now you have the old and the new. And I like the fact that he doesn't say you can throw away the old and just do the new. He says basically you can carry the two of them together. And Jesus himself has already made reference to Old Testament pictures in previous parables. So I think that's in view here. He's saying you're going to pull out of all those things you already knew, those ancient scriptural references and pictures, you're going to connect a new meaning to them.

You'll tie them together. Yes. You see that so dramatically when Peter is doing his address at Pentecost because he appeals back to the past, that's the old, and then he brings forward to the new what he knows about Jesus first hand. He puts those two together and he brings out of that treasure what they hear and then 3,000 come to the Lord.

Yeah, so that's a great example right there of what they're going to do. So yes, we understand, okay. To those who much has been given, much is demanded. So here we go. Well, let's push on.

We have one final scene before we finish today. Okay, you want to read? Oh, can I? Yeah.

Okay, here we go. It's not a parable, but it's kind of, I don't know, the response to the parables. Well, it's important, yeah.

It's important though. So here we go, verse 53. Now, when Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there and coming to his hometown, he taught them in their synagogue so that they were astonished and said, well, where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?

Where then did this man get all these things? And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household. And he did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief. So great parables, but not very responsive in Nazareth. No, as a matter of fact, Luke's gospel gives us a little more insight. If you can read in Luke 4 about this very event. Yes. When Jesus read... It's dramatic. He read from Isaiah 61 and then said, today this is fulfilled in your hearing.

And they got so irate, not necessarily at that, but at what he said afterwards. Yes. I would encourage you to go and look at Luke 4. I don't think we'll take the time to read it right now.

No, we don't have time. But it's so interesting. It's a lot of more details. He shuts the scroll and he says today it's been fulfilled. Like right now, in your hearing, you're looking at him. That's what ticked him off because they'd seen this kid grow up in their town and now he's making this bodacious claim in front of them. And that's exactly what's going on here because Jesus teaches in the synagogue and they see the wisdom, they see the mighty works and they say, wait a second, this doesn't fit what I know about this kid who we watched grow up in our village in Nazareth. I mean, didn't he work for his dad as a carpenter? I mean, wasn't he making those yokes and those chairs and stuff like that? And isn't Mary his mother?

I mean, we know this kid and look what he's doing now. Okay, and we know from other passages that the whiff of his apparently illegitimate birth kind of dogged him all the way through his childhood, right? In another conversation with the Pharisees they go, well, we know who our father is, implying that he no way knows who his father is.

So it's really interesting because you think why is a prophet not without honor accepted his hometown? Well, because we know where you live. We know where you came from. And in fact, with a little more clarity, if you look in John 6 where this thing happens is go, they have a concrete problem because Jesus says that basically I am the bread that came down from heaven. My origin is heaven. I came down from heaven. So they said, well, wait, is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know? How can he say I have come down from heaven?

Because we know where you come from and we know your parents. So I mean, it's a solid problem that they're having. They can't quite put this together and that's why they're led to kind of walk them off the cliff.

Well, and that's exactly what happens. Luke is the one who tells us that. They were so angry they kind of marched him to the edge of the cliff. We've actually been to that place and the cliff falls away in a remarkable way.

They took him to the edge of the cliff to throw him off, says Luke. Now, Matthew doesn't include that because he's zeroing in on the fact that the mighty works that Jesus had done, he didn't do many there because of their unbelief. Yeah.

And up to this point, we've seen a lot of mighty works, but not there. Now, do they – I mean, let's explore that for a second. Does Jesus need their belief? Does he need their faith in order to do his works? Is that what he's saying? That's an interesting question, isn't it?

Is it necessary? Well, this word unbelief means faithlessness, a lack of trust, non-acknowledgement that this one is who he claims to be. Right, right. And I think that's the key issue. When you talk about belief or faith, what is it you're believing or not believing? You're believing or not believing the true identity of who Jesus is.

That's what you're not believing. And so since they would not believe that he actually is the Son of God, who's come down from heaven, from John 6, then he's not going to try and force him by doing miracles. Well, because a miracle by itself is not going to persuade anybody just by itself. If you refuse to believe that Jesus is who he claims to be, there is no miracle that's going to persuade you of that, right? And Jesus himself told this story in Luke 16.

Do you remember? It's not exactly a parable, but it's a story of Abraham and Lazarus, the man who dies and goes to this place and says, no, go and tell my brothers. Yeah, go warn them. And Jesus says, they have Moses and the prophets. If they don't listen to them, they won't believe even if someone rises from the dead.

Even if they rise from the dead, yeah. So he's not going to try and twist their arms with more works. So then for whom does Jesus do those mighty works? What part does faith play in that?

Yeah. Well, yeah, and how do the works fortify the faith? We do know that the works give credence to who he is in his identity, right? But it seems like you have to already be predisposed to be open to the fact of who he's claiming to be.

Well, it's kind of like the parables. He says, if you've got ears to hear, let them hear. If you are predisposed to pursue God, then the miracle is going to draw your attention and will affirm the faith that you already have and make it more concrete.

Yeah, I put more contrast on it than that. What I think is he will not do miracles in places where people have stuck their fingers in their ears, where they deliberately decided not to hear. But those who haven't stuck their fingers in their ears, who are willing to hear, willing to listen, then he'll do it. But these people have already stuck their fingers in their ears and say, we're never going to listen. So why do miracles?

That's people who are just totally resistant. You know what this makes me think of? Just an odd connection point before we finish. We have a nephew who recently finished medical school in his residency. Now he's near us here and he's practicing as an anesthesiologist. And there's something inside of me that says, that can't be. We know this kid. We know this kid since the day he was born.

This just can't be. Now he's all grown up and he's a doctor? Now he's all grown up and he's giving these dangerous chemicals to people to pass them. So it's like that, but a thousand times worse because Jesus is making claims that they clearly get what he's claiming, clearly get what he's claiming. And they're saying, I don't think so.

We know this kid. Those two just don't connect. That can't possibly be.

Can't possibly be. Yeah. And so that's what we're seeing right here. So he's rejected in Nazareth, his hometown. And it's funny too because ironically Jesus put the name of Nazareth on the map.

That's right. And yet they're the first people in this entire account to say, we don't want to have anything to do with him because we know where he came from. But if it weren't for him, no one would know where Nazareth is. I think that's just wonderfully ironic.

Well, any final thoughts as we just got a minute or two here? Well, it's interesting to me that Matthew groups these parables together and then says, and when he finished the parables, right? So he has established this reputation of being a teacher of parables as well as a doer of miraculous things. So this is engaging.

This requires some thought and some, who is this guy? Question bubbling around. Right. And so then Matthew tells us, you know, and he went to talk to his own people and they said, huh, who do you think you are?

Not going to happen. So I just find that interesting. But also this historical reference to his mother's name and his brother's name.

How about that? And there were sisters. Cause I know there are religious traditions that hold that Mary had no other children. Right. This is clearly not true.

Kind of a perpetual virginity thing. And yeah, and I don't have to explain this. Right. We have their names. Cause, cause the people around are basically saying here's his brothers and sisters and his mother and father. And, and this kid himself was pretty ordinary.

His father is not mentioned here. Joseph has gone out of the picture by now. We don't know exactly.

Yeah, that's right. Well we're out of time. We're out of time. Next time, we're going to start into chapter 14 and we're going to start with a very sad piece of news, but it's going to trigger some events that well, they're going to be amazing all around, but we start with sad news and then we go to the most fantastic miracle probably in the entire New Testament. I don't know that I would say that, but it's definitely an intriguing one. And it's covered by all four gospels.

So that's usually the figure of merit. So it starts with something sad and then we'll move on to something miraculous. And we'll do that next time on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you are there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. I suppose, I guess. You're good at it.

Okay. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Rhythm City.