31 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. 32 It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
33 He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.” Matthew 13: 31-33 ESV
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.
The Parable of the Pearl of Great Value
45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46 who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.
The Parable of the Net
47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. 48 When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
New and Old Treasures
51 “Have you understood all these things?” They said to him, “Yes.” 52 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.” Matthew 13: 44-52 ESV
Matthew 13: 31-33 & 44-52 Parables of the Kingdom
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed - It's starts out as a seed so small, that you would give up looking for it if you dropped it on the ground. Some commentators write that it can achieve heights of 15 feet in good conditions, which would be large enough to house birds. Christ later uses this small seed as a measure of faith, even faith this small is enough to move mountains. Some commentators see this as an herb that grew uncommonly large, and in the course of doing so, began to house those birds, which in former parables, came to eat the seed that was scattered. The birds here are seen to indicate the rise of apostasy within the church, as the tares also grow up with the wheat. I believe you will see both the miraculous growth that sprouts up from the gospel, and also that which desires to infiltrate and corrupt, as we move through these last parables.
…19Afterward the disciples came to Jesus privately and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” 20“Because you have so little faith,” He answered. “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” … Matthew 17: 19-20
This parable accurately describes what the kingdom community became in the decades and centuries after the Christianization of the Roman Empire. In those centuries the church grew abnormally large in influence and dominion, and was a nest for much corruption. “Birds lodging in the branches most probably refers to elements of corruption which take refuge in the very shadow of Christianity.” (Morgan)
v. “Close study of birds as symbols in the Old Testament and especially in the literature of later Judaism shows that birds regularly symbolize evil and even demons or Satan (cf. b. Sanhedrin, 107a; cf. Revelation 18:2).” (Carson) - E Word
Is like leaven - Many can only see leaven in a bad sense, since Christ used it to teach about the dangers of the false teachings of the Scribes and Pharisees, but leaven itself is a morally neutral thing. It is like influence, or saying "a lot" of something. You can have a lot of good or a lot of bad, something may be good in moderation or the same thing may be bad in excess. I think you will get a poor translation and understanding here if you look at it as the leaven of the Pharisees, making leaven even there, itself, the moral problem. The Pharisees' teachings spread like leaven through a lump of dough, but good teachings can also spread like this through the Kingdom. When you salt something you want it to be evenly dispersed, when you mix something in you want it to be thoroughly. The gospel was given to a few, but the Kingdom grows from their teaching, and it spreads throughout the world in various times, sometimes with great force and explosive growth like the time of the Reformation.
Like treasure hidden in a field - People did not rely on banks back then so much as we do now, but often, and for sake of necessity, due to bandits and overtaking forces, people would bury their treasure, gold or household idols in the ground. Remember Jesus's other parable about the servant who buries his talent in the earth rather than invest it to earn interest for his Master.
…9The true Light who gives light to every man was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. 11He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.… John 1: 9-11
Josephus said…the historian in that time…“The gold and the silver and the rest of that most precious furniture which the Jews had and which the owners treasured up underground was done to withstand the fortunes of war.” And so, this was a very, very common thing to do. And there would be people plowing in the field, or there would be people digging in the field for other purposes. And they would inadvertently come across this treasure from time to time. - J Mac
Finding one pearl of great value - Now when you take this and put it with the treasure hidden in the field, they build upon one another. In other words, the Kingdom of Heaven is priceless, it is hidden treasure, valuable, and like wisdom, nothing compares to it. Pearl diving was exceptionally difficult in those days; there were no diving tanks, no compressors, it was all done on a breath. Not every clam contained the coveted pearl, so men searched far and wide, some did it at the cost of health and or life. Earlier in Matthew we read about the rich young ruler, and a man waiting for his parents to die so he could collect his inheritance, at which time he would then be ready to follow Jesus, but this guy finds the pearl and sells everything else to possess something far more valuable.
And when once discovered, a pearl that was of perfection and beauty would be worth literally an unnamed price, incredibly valuable. So valuable are they that the Talmud says, “Pearls are beyond price.” So valuable were they that the Egyptians actually worshiped the pearl and this came over into Roman life. So valuable were they that when women wanted to show their wealth, according to I Timothy 2:9, they put pearls on their head.
And it was said of one lady by the name of Lollia Paulina, the wife of the emperor Caligula, that at one event, she had $36 million worth of pearls all over her. In fact, the historian says she had pearls on her head, she had pearls on her hair, she had pearls on her ears, she had pearls on her neck and she had pearls on her fingers. She could have stood in for one of the gates of heaven.
But this was how pearls were perceived in those days. Pliny, the historian says that Cleopatra had two pearls, each worth a half a million dollars and that was in a day when money was 20 times greater in its buying power than it is today. And when the Roman emperors wanted to demonstrate their incredible wealth and show how filthy rich they were, they dissolved pearls in vinegar and drank them in their wine. So pearls were very valuable.
Our Lord in Matthew 7:6 says, “Don’t cast your – ” what? – “pearls before swine.” Because He is trying to compare the worst with the most priceless. You don’t give the most valuable thing to a pig. That’s foolish. And so pearls were really perceived like we perceive diamonds today, very, very, very valuable. In fact, even going into the book of Revelation, we find that when God begins to describe heaven, it is as pearls in its beauty. - J Mac
Is like a net - When men put out a net, the net is not altogether selective. I mean, it will let water and things smaller than the holes pass through, but it catches everything else indiscriminately. There is in the haul both that which is desirable and that which we call bycatch. The fishermen sort the good from the bad, keeping the good and either throwing away the bad or grinding it up for fertilizer. This is very much like the parable earlier with the wheat and the tares, both grow in the same field. Many like Christian values, not stealing, not being lied to, and many came to Jesus for the fish and the bread, but inwardly they were unmoved, happy in their own pride and sin, only caring about the byproducts of the Kingdom, yet not hungering and thirsting for the righteousness that comes by faith.
…20So then, by their fruit you will recognize them. 21Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’…
23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’ 24Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain fell, the torrents raged, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because its foundation was on the rock.… Matthew 7: 20-25
The angels will come and separate the evil from the righteous - Again, the angels, the same that reaped the harvest at the end of the age, that separated the wheat from the tares.
In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth - Again Christ teaches about hell, and yet men will claim to be Biblical teachers today and avoid the subject all together. I am going to go deeper into this in the next post which will finish this chapter. I would rather understand it, share that understanding, than pretend it does not exist.
Every Scribe who has been trained for the Kingdom of Heaven - He will know both the OT and the NT, see the gospel from both directions and everything pointing to Christ as the Pearl of great value, the Lamb of God, the Lion of Judah, the Messiah, King of kings, and Lord of lords.
A week ago I cuddled up on the couch with Melinda and I said I want to read you a story, honey, that I think you’ll like. It’s about a caterpillar named Stripe. And so she jumped up and we read about Stripe. Stripe was a caterpillar and he just did what caterpillar’s do. He just kind of walked around in a field a little bit. He got kind of bored and so one day he looked off in the distance and he saw a pillar going up into the sky. And he thought, “I wonder what that is.”
And he got closer and he saw that it was a caterpillar pillar. It was just a pillar full of caterpillars climbing up. And he couldn’t see at the top because there was a cloud up there. And it was just a bunch of caterpillars climbing on each other going into the cloud. And he thought, “Well, maybe that’s what caterpillars do; they just climb up caterpillar pillars.” And so he got on the caterpillar pillar and he started to climb.
And when you’re climbing on a caterpillar pillar, you step on anybody’s head to get up further. And so he just kept pushing his way up the caterpillar pillar and he’d ask people now and then, “What was at the top?” And they all said, “We don’t know, but it seems as though everybody’s going there so it must be important.” And so they all just kept climbing. And then one time, he…he stepped on the head of a little yellow caterpillar who’s real pretty and he felt bad about that.
And then he did something you’re never suppose to do when you’re climbing a caterpillar pillar. He looked the other caterpillar in the eye, and you don’t make relationships with people you’re stepping on. And then when he made the mistake of looking in the eye, he thought, “That’s a lovely little yellow caterpillar.” And he said to her, he said, “You know, maybe it’d be better not to climb this caterpillar pillar but to go back to the field and just hug a lot.
And so the two of them worked their way back down the caterpillar pillar and into the field and they hugged a lot. And after a while, hugging got a little boring and he said, “I think I’m going to go back up the caterpillar pillar and see what’s up there. Hugging is kind of boring.” And she said, “I can’t go back to that.” And so he left her and she was very lonely.
And she was crawling around out there in the field and she looked up on a branch and she saw something funny hanging down. It was half of a little case and then it was half of a caterpillar. And she said to the caterpillar, “What are you doing?” He said, “Well, I’m spinning a cocoon. And she said, “Well, why are you doing that?” And the caterpillar said, “Because I’m going to die.” And she said, “Well, why do you want to die?” He said, “Because if you die, you get born all over as a butterfly.”
And she said, “Are you sure? Because what if you die and then you just die, and you don’t get born as a butterfly?” “Oh,” he says, “You do get born as a butterfly because that’s what caterpillars are made to be, butterflies, but they have to die first.” And she thought about that a long time because that was a big move. And she decided, too, she’d be willing to die and be born as a butterfly. And then she wouldn’t have to climb the caterpillar pillar. She could fly over the top and just look down and see what was up there. And so she spun a cocoon and she died.
And guess what? She did get born as a butterfly. And she flew over to the caterpillar pillar and there she found Stripe, and he was almost to the top. And he was just close enough to the top to find out what the top was all about. You know what happened when you got to the top? Somebody underneath pushed you off and you fell all the way to the bottom and died. And before he did that, she rescued him and he spun his cocoon and he became a butterfly too.
What does that say? I asked Melinda. She said, “I know what that says. That says if you’re willing to die you can be born again as a Christian.” That’s right. That’s the message of the parable. That’s what it’s saying. Think of Christ. He took His life and threw it for a world redeemed. And ere His agony was done before the westering sun went down, crowning that day with its crimson crown. He knew that He had won.
The kingdom is precious. The kingdom is hidden. The kingdom is personal. The kingdom is joyous. The kingdom is entered from different circumstances, but always the price is to abandon myself to receive the supreme sovereignty of Jesus Christ. - J Mac
