Hey everyone, welcome back to the Daily Gospel Exegesis
Podcast. We're giving you the tools every
single day to better understand the gospel reading from today's
Mass. So as always, we're going to do
a dive into today's text, which is Matthew Chapter 13, verses 44
to 52. So you're going to hear 3
parables here, 3 short parables, and there's some of Jesus lesser
known parables, but they're quite rich in meaning and
there's some quite difficult teachings in here as well.
So Matthew chapter 13, verses 44 to 52, Jesus said to the crowds,
the Kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which
someone has found. He hides it again, goes off
happy, sells everything he owns, and buys the field again.
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant looking for fine
pearls. When he finds one of great
value, he goes and sells everything he owns and buys it
again. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a
dragnet cast into this into the sea that brings in a hall of all
kinds. When it is full, the fishermen
haul it ashore. Then, sitting down, they collect
the good ones in a basket and throw away those that are no
use. This is how it will be at the
end of time. The angels will appear and
separate the wicked from the just to throw them into the
blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and grinding of
teeth. Have you understood all this?
They said yes, and he said to them well then every scribe who
becomes a disciple of the Kingdom is like a householder
who brings out from his storeroom things both new and
old. So in Matthew chapter 13 often
called the Parables chapter in Matthew or the Kingdom Parables
chapter. So here Matthew has assembled 7
Kingdom parables that Jesus speaks throughout his ministry.
So it's possible that the parables we have here in Matthew
13 were not said on one occasion.
Maybe Matthew has just combined them together in the one
chapter, and that would certainly make sense.
But what's interesting about some of these parables is that a
couple of them appear only in the Gospel of Matthew, and that
is the case today. We have here 2 short parables
which are the 5th and the 6th of the seven parables in this
chapter, and both of these are unique to the Gospel of Matthew.
So when we're interpreting parables, exegesis is very
useful. We really need to do a verse by
verse exegesis, really thinking about what the words would have
meant in their original context. It's probably true that parables
have lots of hidden meanings, but Jesus usually in general has
one specific point about the Kingdom of God that he's trying
to make, and that's where we should start.
That's what we want to get at in this podcast.
What's Jesus main point? He's trying to communicate with
these parables. So let's start here with the
fifth of the seven parables, which is the parable of the
hidden treasure. Verse 44, Jesus said to the
crowds. Now the original text in your
Bible doesn't have this. The lectionary has just added it
in. So keep in mind that it's
possible Jesus is not speaking to the crowds.
Maybe he's just speaking to the disciples.
You could go either way with it. And he says the Kingdom of
heaven. So here already we know this is
a parable about the Kingdom. The Kingdom of heaven is
synonymous with the Kingdom of God.
They're the same thing. And basically, if you've been
following these Matthew podcasts through, you'll know that the
Kingdom of God means God's will and reign on earth, and Jesus
invites people to be part of the Kingdom.
When you become a Christian, you become a part of the Kingdom
you're part of, where God's will is done on earth.
The Kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.
Now this seems a bit odd to us, but in that culture it was quite
common to hide treasure in a field.
If you found something valuable, like gold or something in that
culture, you're probably not going to keep it in your house,
because houses were very easy to break into.
So thieves could break in during night time and take any
valuables that were lying around.
So instead, if a person genuinely had something quite
valuable, that would usually just find a random field and
bury it there. That would bury it in a field.
And that's a good arrangement because there's no, there's no
banks in that culture. So really you're going to have
to hide it in somewhere like a field.
As long as you know where it is, it's safe.
Of course, the problem with that is if you don't own the field,
it's just a random field, then technically anyone can come
along and claim the treasure. Now, some scholars think there
might be an additional element here.
Some think that possibly during Israel's history there were
certain wars and certain activities where Israel had to
Israelites had to flee quickly and then maybe actually did
historically bury their treasure in fields because they were
leaving quickly. And that's certainly possible.
But it seems more reasonable to take this as just people.
In Jesus time, General people would just sometimes bury their
treasure in the field if they had nowhere else to put it.
So Jesus here says it's like treasure hidden in the field
which someone has found. So here we have someone who
somehow finds the treasure in the field.
Maybe they're digging for treasure and they're lucky
enough to find some. And Jesus says when he finds the
treasure, he hides it again or literally covers it up.
So if someone found treasure in the field, that would be
overjoyed, because they're incredibly lucky to find this
treasure, this wealthy amount of gold.
The first thing they'll do is bury it again so that no one
else can get it. But then he's going to have to
do something else in order to claim the treasure for himself.
So Jesus says after he hides it, he goes off happy, or what it
literally says is in his joy because the person is going to
be overjoyed if you find treasure worth this much.
He sells everything he owns and buys the field.
So in order for the person to claim this treasure as his own,
he actually has to buy the field that the treasure is buried in.
Once he owns the field, then no one else is allowed to come
along and take the treasure because it's it's literally his
treasure at that point. But of course, to buy the field
he needs money. So the person here who's found
the treasure sells everything he owns in order to have a bit of
money. Then he can buy the field.
So that's the order of events here.
He sells everything he owns so that he has money to buy the
field, and then he can lay claim to the treasure.
The key thing to understanding this is that the treasure is
numerically worth way more than all the possessions and money
that were lost in the process of acquiring the treasure.
So certainly he has to give up some money and give up all his
possessions in the process. But the treasure is worth far
more than that. So this person here who finds a
treasure in the parable sees this as a once in a lifetime
opportunity and takes it. So that's the end of the
parable. How is the Kingdom of heaven
like that? What is Jesus trying to teach?
It seems that the idea is something like this.
Entering the Kingdom of God will require sacrifice and in
particular money and possessions and we know that because of
Jesus other teachings. But of course gaining the
Kingdom is worth far more than the things the person has lost
in the process of making sacrifices for the Kingdom.
So the Kingdom of God is worth far more than that.
Basically this is a teaching about putting earthly things in
perspective of the Kingdom. Earthly things are not worth
anywhere near as much as the Kingdom of God is, and in many
cases they need to be sacrificed in order to obtain the Kingdom
of God, which of course fits very well with other things
Jesus teaches. Jesus is now going to teach
another parable with the same basic meaning, and this one is
often called the parable of the Pearl of great price.
Verse 45 Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant
looking for fine pearls. In that culture, pearls were
considered far more valuable than gold.
So apparently here we have a merchant, someone who roams
through towns looking for pearls in marketplaces and things.
He's looking in particular for pearls that he knows are worth a
lot. So this is a merchant who's well
trained at spotting valuable pearls, and he's hoping he can
find one for sale that he can buy.
Maybe he can find someone selling it who themself don't
appreciate the value of it, but this man has an eye for fine
pearls and he's hoping he can find one and buy it.
In verse 46, when he finds one of great value, he goes and
sells everything he owns and buys it.
It seems that the key to understanding this little
parable is that pearls gain in value over time.
So in order for this to work, it has to be that when the man buys
the Pearl, he gets more than the amount he paid for it.
So it must be that pearls gain in value over time, so buying a
Pearl is a good investment. So in this case, the merchant in
the parable would be willing to part with all of his money and
possessions in order to get the Pearl.
Basically, buying the Pearl in the long term is going to
outweigh everything he's lost in the process of buying the Pearl.
So it's very similar to the previous parable.
Both of these two parables stress that the Kingdom of God's
value is inestimable. It's worth far more more value
than anything in this life. And on top of that, surrendering
earthly attachments is going to be required in order to obtain
it. In fact, the disciples
themselves have already done that.
They've already sacrificed. They've already given up all
their possessions basically in order to get the Kingdom, and we
see that in chapter 4, verses 20 to 22 of Matthew.
Now on top of this, you could say that both of the parables
emphasize that the Kingdom of God can only be found by
diligently seeking. And basically, those who don't
go looking for the Kingdom, they're not going to find it.
Only those who is seeking the Kingdom will find it.
Certainly this fits in with Jesus, earlier teachings about
the point of the parables and how the Kingdom of God works.
Jesus has been suggesting that the Kingdom of God is hidden in
a sense for certain people. It's only revealed to those who
are genuinely seeking. So these parables build on those
things. So he starts the parable.
The Kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea.
This is a parable we're not all that familiar with, but it's a
pretty short and simple one. So what's a dragnet?
Well, that would be quite familiar to his Jewish hearers
in Galilee. When Jesus is giving this
sermon, he's probably actually standing at the edge of the Sea
of Galilee as he speaks his parable.
They're probably watching dragnets in action.
As he says this, A dragnet was essentially A Fisher's net,
which is pulled between two boats, or it's thrown into the
sea, and then it's pulled to shore with ropes.
It's one of those big Nets. It's like a dragnet cast into
the sea. And Jesus says it brings in a
hall of all kinds, which is exactly what would happen when
you use one of these big dragnets.
All sorts of fish would get in there, some which are good and
edible and some which are not much good at all.
But in the initial catch, you get all sorts caught in there.
Verse 48. When it is full, the fishermen
haul it ashore, then sitting down that they collect the good
ones in a basket and throw away those that are no use.
So in that culture, that's exactly what would happen.
While they're on the boat, they don't do any sorting.
It's only later that the fisherman sits down and sorts
out the ones that he wants, and the ones that he wants are the
useful ones, the ones that he can sell that are edible.
Notice that this parable is making the same basic point
already as the parable of the wheat and the weeds which Jesus
had given just a few verses earlier.
The main point so far is something like this.
Good and evil people will coexist for a time, but there
will come a day of sorting at the Judgment Day.
So the parable of the weeds and the wheat and the parable of the
dragnet make that same point. It appears, in fact, that Jesus
has given this parable, the parable of the dragnet, to his
disciples to help them understand this basic point that
the Kingdom of God is not going to come instantly in the way
that they think it will, but one day there will be a day of
judgment. Now Jesus is going to give us
his interpretation of the parable.
Now verse 49, this is how it will be at the end of time.
Now, what it literally says there in Greek is close of the
age, and this is something we've talked about in the previous
days. That close of the age might
refer to 70 AD rather than the end of the world.
And there's some theological reasons to think that because of
what the Jews believed about the two great ages that God had set
up on earth. But I think there's some
features of this particular parable that point more towards
the final judgment. So we'll stick with that
interpretation. But just so you know that there
is a view out there that pretty much all these parables about
the final judgment. Some scholars think it's
actually talking about everything that happens in 70AD.
So Jesus goes on, the angels will appear and separate the
wicked from the just. So just is in the parable of the
weeds among the wheat that angels are said to have a role
in judging and sorting on judgment day.
So in that parable, the parable of the weeds, Jesus specifically
says the Son of Man will send his angels and they will gather
out of his Kingdom all things that provoke offenses and all
who do evil. And it's the same basic idea
here. The angels are going to be the
ones that do the sorting. At the end of time, Jesus will
remove all causes of sin and those who persist in evil.
And the idea here is that before the Kingdom can be consummated
in its fullness, which will happen one day, those who are
evil and do not follow God's will must be taken out of the
Kingdom. So just like bad fish, these
evil people are useless in the Kingdom.
In fact, they're harmful to the Kingdom.
And Jesus says that we're thrown into the blazing furnace where
they will be weeping and grinding of teeth.
Scary imagery here. So of course, the Greek word
that Jesus uses here for blazing furnace is gahenna.
And Gehenna was a real place. It was a burning trash dump
outside of Jerusalem. Jesus often chooses to use this
place as the best approximation of what hell is like.
He wants to tell his heroes what is hell like he directs them
towards Gehenna, this burning trash dump.
So those outside the Kingdom will go to Gehenna, the evil
doers, on judgment day. They'll be sent there and
they're going to experience weeping and grinding of teeth,
which is like extreme frustration.
Jesus has made this point several times in chapter 8, and
John the Baptist said very similar things about fiery
judgment as well. So that's Jesus interpretation,
Short parable short interpretation.
It's about the final judgment day, basically, and in
particular he wants his disciples to understand that
there is a judgment day coming, but it's not going to come
straight away as they thought it was going to.
So verse 51, Jesus now asks his audience a question.
Have you understood all this? Now, the fact that he even asked
that question suggests that he's talking to the disciples, not
the crowds, because he, Jesus doesn't expect the crowds to
understand parables. He said that at the start of
chapter or in verse 31 to 35 of chapter 13.
He said that he expects the crowds to not understand
parables, so he's probably talking to the disciples here if
he wants to check that they've understood it.
He wants his disciples to understand what these parables
are about because his disciples are going to lead the church,
particularly the apostles, and they're going to teach the
mysteries of the Kingdom to people.
So Jesus wants to make sure that they understand it, and his
audience says yes. Now that's quite significant,
isn't it? Because the parables can really
only be understood with illumination from God's grace.
So here we learned that the disciples, when they say yes, we
understand they must have at least an understanding, a basic
understanding of the kingdom's mysteries, which sets them apart
from the crowds as a whole. So the disciples don't fully
grasp everything about God and about Jesus and Messiah, but
they do seem to be cooperating with God's grace here to get the
point that Jesus he's trying to make with the parable.
Now many scholars have said about this.
When the disciples say yes, we understand.
Many scholars have said, I wish they would have said no, so that
then Jesus would have given us more explanation and that
Matthew could have recorded for us.
And that's quite true, isn't it? It's always good to have more
information, but here the disciples say yes.
So Jesus stops there, but he then he leaves us with this
enigmatic statement. It's a strange one, he says.
Well then every scribe who becomes a disciple of the
Kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out from
his storeroom things both old and new.
So why does Jesus mention scribes here, every scribe who
becomes a disciple of the Kingdom of heaven?
There's two views about who is Jesus thinking of when he
mentioned scribes? So he could be referring to
actual literal Jewish scribes. At the time they were the legal
experts in Judaism, highly theologically trained.
So maybe Jesus mentions it here because he's using them as an
example of the most Jewish of Jewish leaders, much as Paul
calls himself a Pharisee of Pharisees.
Well, maybe this is a similar thing where the scribes are like
the most Jewish of the Jews, so Jesus is using them as the most
extreme example because they're the most theologically trained.
So if this is the right interpretation, the idea here
that Jesus is getting across would be something like this.
Even scribes can become disciples of the Kingdom of
heaven if you disciples of mine teach the scribes and lead them
to it. So he's telling his disciples
that hey, even scribes can become members of the Kingdom if
you help them understand these mysteries.
That kind of works. But most scholars think he's
using scribe in a different way. He's not referring to literal
scribes at the time. In the Old Testament,
particularly the book of Cirac, it describes A scribe as someone
who can. And here's what Cirac chapter 39
says. A scribe is someone who can
penetrate the subtleties of parables.
It's actually what it says. And so in that sense, he's
calling his disciples scribes because they're the ones who can
understand the mysteries of parables.
And in that case, Jesus is basically saying that his
disciples are like the new scribes of the Kingdom.
That's an interesting interpretation.
So maybe he's talking about his disciples as scribes.
Now what it actually says here in the Greek, our translation
says who becomes a disciple of the Kingdom of heaven.
What it actually says is who has been trained for the Kingdom of
heaven. Whenever you see that word,
disciple, it basically means discipline, teach.
And so that's what it means here.
It's talking about people who have been trained, taught the
ways of the Kingdom that's important.
Jesus envisages that the way a person becomes a Christian
becomes part of the Kingdom requires ongoing training.
It's not a one time event, It requires ongoing training about
the ways of God and his Messiah. So he says a scribe who has been
trained for the Kingdom of heaven is like a householder who
brings out from his storeroom things both old and new.
Interesting phrase. So a household would be usually
the man who owns the house. The imagery here in that culture
is of a man who owns the house and he's bringing out things
from his storeroom that have always been there, but they
haven't been used for a while. So he's bringing out these
really cool things that have been just sort of sitting there
unused. So the message here, if we take
this to be his Jesus is talking about literal scribes would be
something like this. Scribes who convert to the
Kingdom of God will display attributes that they have always
had, but not used for a long time.
Now that would match well with Jesus teaching in other places.
He says the Kingdom of God is within you.
He says that about people. And so here the teaching could
be something like this. When you become a disciple of
the Kingdom, the Kingdom will be drawn out of you and it will be
manifested in your life. When you choose to become a
disciple, that would be if He's talking about literal scribes.
If he's talking about spiritual scribes being his disciples,
well, then it could just be people who follow Jesus in the
Kingdom will produce more and more good things in their life.
Something like that. But there's even more to this
because he uses the phrase brings out things from his
storeroom, both old and new. What does it mean to say things
both old and new from the storeroom?
Well firstly it could be a colloquial way of saying all
sorts of things, like just a phrase that means all sorts of
things. Some have thought there's more
theological significance to this though, old and new and this
would match with other things Jesus says about you don't put
new wine into old wine skin, so this old and new language is
something Jesus uses a bit. So what could old and new things
mean here? It could be a reference to the
old and new covenants, or maybe the Old and New Testament.
So in this case, Jesus would be saying something like the scribe
or the disciple will be able to add the riches of the new
covenant to those of the old covenant which he already
possesses. And that would apply to either
literal scribes or Jewish disciples that Jesus is making.
So if this is the right interpretation, Jesus is saying
that the disciples, those who join the Kingdom, will be much
better interpreters of Scripture and therefore better scribes
than the old covenant scribes. And Matthew is a good example of
this because he is really good at bringing out the riches of
the old covenant in his writing. He's truly a new covenant
scribe. Now this interpretation of old
and new, referring to old and new covenants, It could be
right, but it might not fit entirely though, because think
about the storeroom analogy. It's about a man bringing things
out of his storeroom that were always there.
So is it really correct to say that the new covenant was always
there in the storeroom and when people join the Kingdom, they're
able to bring it out of their storeroom?
I'm not sure that that's right, but it depends on how literal we
we take the imagery here. So this is one of these phrases
of Jesus that is a bit mysterious and that's discussed
by parables. The Catechism of the Catholic
Church uses an interesting application of this old and new
phrase as well as we'll see. So that's the end of verse 52.
Now there's a verse 53. Interestingly, it's not included
in the text of the general Electionary, though it probably
should be because it says that today's electionary reading
should be from verse 47 to verse 53.
But for some reason verse 53 is not actually included in the
reading. That could just be a typo when
they were putting the electionary together.
Here's what verse 53 says. When Jesus finished these
parables, he went away from there.
So that phrase when Jesus finished these parables, that's
Matthew's typical way of signaling the end of a section.
He often does that at the end of his major parts of his gospel.
So that's the end of the parable section.
And at this point, Jesus went away from there.
So he leaves the lakeside at Capernaum.
And we learned in the next verse that he goes to Nazareth.
So we've looked at all the King and parables in chapter 13.
There are seven Kingdom parables, and they're all quite
fascinating. I'm sure you'll agree.
And they're well worth revisiting and meditating on.
Let's now turn to the Catechism and see what the Catholic Church
teaches based on what we have in the passage today.
So paragraph 1034 is about hell. Here's what it says.
Jesus often speaks of Gehenna, of the unquenchable fire
reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to
believe and be converted where both soul and body can be lost.
Jesus solemnly proclaims that he will send his angels, and they
will gather all evildoers and throw them into the furnace of
fire, and that he will pronounce the condemnation.
Depart from me you cursed into the eternal fire.
So scary language there from the Catechism.
But it is indeed a teaching of the Catholic Church that hell is
a real place, and Jesus speaks of it as an unquenchable fire,
as he does here in today's passage.
And then in paragraph 1117, there's an interesting
application of that phrase, things old and new.
So this is in the section about the sacraments and how the
sacraments of the Church have been developed over time, as she
has done for the Canon of Sacred Scripture and for the doctrine
of the faith. The Church, by the power of the
Spirit who guides her into all truth, has gradually recognized
this treasure received from Christ, and, as the faithful
steward of God's mysteries, has determined its dispensation.
Thus the Church has discerned over the centuries that among
the turgical celebrations there are seven that are, in the
strict sense of the term sacraments instituted by the
Lord. Now that paragraph doesn't
directly quote the old and new phrase, but it does reference
it. So the Church sees in here when
Jesus talks about someone who comes into the Kingdom is able
to bring out things old and new, well, the Church says that the
Church kind of does that as well as it deepens its understanding
of the Kingdom. It brings out old things and
brings out new things, develops its teachings further.
It has certainly done that with the sacraments because it did
take a while for the Church to settle on that.
There are only 7 sacraments. That was actually defined quite
late in Church history, but it was always there in seed form.
It just took them a while to flesh it out.
And so that's an interesting application of that phrase.
So we'll leave it there for today.
Thank you for tuning in to logical Bible study.
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We'll continue to look at more of the Gospel of Matthew
tomorrow.