EPISODE 225 GOSPEL OF MATTHEW CHAPTER 13 ""Mysteries of the Kingdom"

Welcome to Share the Word. The definition of a parable is a short, simple story that illustrates a moral or spiritual lesson, often using familiar, real-life situations to explain abstract concepts. Parables were used in many traditions, but I don't believe any more famously than Jesus in the Bible. And why am I telling you this? You're about to find out. Matthew chapter 13: Mysteries of the Kingdom.

I have a question for you. Do you think the parables Jesus told when he was here were illuminating or just puzzling? We get to chapter 13 in Matthew's Gospel, we run into something of a turning point in his public ministry, a point at which Jesus' public preaching and teaching began to be almost solely in parables. This chapter records several of those parables spoken during Jesus' popular Galilean ministry time, a time when he couldn't go anywhere without a big crowd gathering to see what he would say or do next. On this particular morning, when Jesus emerged from the home that had become their headquarters in Capernaum, he went down to the shore of the lake, what we call the Sea of Galilee. It was very scenic and idyllic there, still is to this day.

You can Google up some photos from that exact location, just Capernaum overlooking the Sea of Galilee and see what you see. Maybe Jesus was just looking to get some fresh air that morning, taking the beauty of the day. Maybe thought he would see how some of his disciples who were working watermen on that lake were doing. But in a short time, so many people from Capernaum and around had learned that he was there that a large crowd gathered all around him. He decided, I might as well turn this into a teaching moment, or hour, or probably a few hours. To create some distance from this audience, he climbed into one of his disciples' small boats, pushed out a short way into the water, dropped the anchor, and then, with people lining the shore probably several deep, Jesus sat down and in his best outside voice began telling them parables.

Looking back on them from our vantage point now, we hear and understand these things differently than that first audience did, I'm sure of that. It makes me wonder if his parables spiritually illuminated his listeners that day more or puzzled more of them. Most of Jesus' stories began with the introduction, The kingdom of heaven is like, and then he'd launch into this parable. He told at least seven that day, possibly more that Matthew doesn't record here. In fact, he comments that Jesus didn't say anything to the crowds that wasn't in parables. Since he mentioned the kingdom of heaven eleven times, I think it's fair to say that that was the theme for the day, or perhaps his phrase, mysteries of the kingdom.

Just by way of reminder, I know we've talked about this several times, the popular understanding, the conventional wisdom at the time among those in his audience would have been that they were living in what they called the present age, which for them meant the whole age since creation. It had included both great peaks and also deep valleys for the people of Israel. But throughout, they all were clinging to the hope of a promised Messiah because when he came, he would bring them into the age to come, as they called it, the kingdom era, a golden age. It was that simple for them. It was the present age until the Messiah arrived, and then he brought in the age to come, the kingdom of God on earth. Many in Israel by this point were hoping Jesus was that Messiah, and if so, then the literal kingdom of God on earth was imminent.

But later, after his rejection by the nation's leaders, his crucifixion by the Romans, and especially after his unexpected resurrection from the dead, some came to understand that Jesus was the Messiah, all right, but that in God's plan there had to be more than one coming of the Messiah to earth, because after the resurrection, he went back to heaven. So the formula: the present age, the Messiah comes, the age to come commences. That's not the whole story. Those listening to Jesus' parables on that day were given some insights into all this, if their minds were open and they cared to try and understand. Matthew, when he wrote about this memorable day years later, comments at verse 34, All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He didn't speak to them about anything without a parable.

This was to fulfill what was spoken to the prophet, 'I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.' Utter things hidden since the foundation of the world? Yes, this was a turning point in Jesus' ministry. Through the use of parables, Jesus was starting to introduce some of God's hidden things. It's called here the mysteries of the kingdom.

I'm talking about things not foretold and not explained in the Old Testament, so things no one there that day expected to happen, namely that Jesus, the Messiah, was then initiating a spiritual kingdom, but not yet the physical, literal one. Once the crowd around the shore of the lake settled in and quieted, Jesus began. A farmer went out to sow seed. Jesus' parables were stories drawn from common people's experiences. This parable, retold in verses 3 to 9, we talked about in detail to 30 of our podcasts from Luke chapter 8. It's about a farmer scattering seeds which land on different types of soil.

Remember that? Some landed on the hard pathways that surrounded and went through the fields, and the birds following him quickly snatched that seed up. Some fell on shallow soil that had rock underneath it, germinated easily enough and started to grow, but without room for roots to take hold, those young plants wilted and died under the sun's heat. Other seed fell in areas where thorny weeds sprang up and choked the plant out. But some did land on good fertile soil and grew up in time into a nice harvest. And that's where Jesus left the parable, calling out to his audience, He who has ears, let him hear.

That line seems to be the way he often underscored he just said something pretty important, something that wise hearers should carefully think about. Such a challenge was particularly appropriate after that parable because when the disciples came to Jesus later that day to be sure they understood it, he told them it was about how people received the word of God when they heard it. The types of soil represented different people's heart conditions and determined what became of the truth that landed there. So different hearers' responses to the word of God. If that concept intrigues you, you're unfamiliar with Jesus' explanation, you can dig a little deeper by listening to episode 30 in our archive at sharetheword.org. It's titled, He Who Has Ears.

You know, thinking back, most, if not all, of the sermons I've heard from Matthew 13 focus on that parable, usually called the parable of the sower. But there are a half dozen more Jesus told that day also recorded in this chapter. The next one, starting in verse 24, Jesus began, The kingdom of heaven can be compared to this, and then shared a different parable about a farmer and his servants scattering wheat seed in their fields. That was a common sight in Israel, by the way, so his listeners could all easily picture this. Many probably had done this. In those days, planters wore a bag normally.

I picture it like the bag I slung over my shoulder to hold newspapers as a kid on my paper route. But the planters' bags were filled with seed. As they crossed their fields, they grabbed handfuls of seed from their bag, cast it out, spreading it as evenly as they could. In Jesus' story, later that night, some enemy of this farmer came and spread tares in his field, likely darnel, a weed that looks a lot like wheat when it is young. A deliberate act of sabotage. As the young plants sprang up, his workers could tell something was off and came to the landowner and said to him what they suspected.

Do you want us to try and find and pull up all these plants we think are weeds? No, he said to them. Let them grow together till the harvest time. Mature, the tares would not form a head of grain like the wheat does, so it would be easier at that point to spot them, to separate them out, to get rid of them. He didn't want his workers damaging any of the young wheat accidentally at that point, trampling through the fields looking for the tares. The reapers at harvest time, he said, they will gather and bundle up the tares and burn them, and then we'll get all the wheat safely into our barns.

You have to wonder, what is audience around the lake made of that story? Jesus' disciples were curious to be sure, so once again, they later asked him for an explanation. Matthew remembers he told them that the field in that parable represented the world, and the wheat represented the sons of the kingdom, while the tares sown among the wheat were the children of the evil one. The harvest time, he said, would be like the end of this age, and the reapers, the angels of God. He said he would send the angels at that time to remove all those who do not belong in his kingdom, and they would be, in Jesus' words, thrown into a furnace of fire in a place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus' disciples got some real insights from this parable.

Maybe they didn't fully understand it then, but later, recalling this teaching, they would. The seed representing God's word, that was given to them to spread into the field of the world. This was all looking forward to the Great Commission. Jesus gave his disciples that commission before he went back to heaven about sharing his word with the whole world. Take the gospel everywhere, he told them. That's what they did.

That was the scattering of the wheat seed in the story. But the enemy, the evil one, he also scattered counterfeit seeds, lies, spiritual half-truths, false teaching to try and sabotage God's work going on. We've seen that over and over and over in the New Testament so far. So truth and error have both been growing together all during this period since Jesus' ascension back to heaven. But remember, he's coming back, which he compared to the harvest time, and at that point, what's what and who's who will finally become clear. The tares will be separated from the wheat, those who belong to him and those who don't, those who have no place in his kingdom.

Judgment and hell will follow for those who've rejected him and his truth. But for the righteous, he says, those who received him, the brightness of the kingdom of God awaits them. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father, he says told them. That's a quote actually from the prophet Daniel. And again he said, He who has ears, let him hear. I find this parable so interesting because you and I are living during this time of the field growing Jesus was talking about.

And I'm not sure how close we are to the harvest time, but sure feels close. There's been so much counterfeit truth sown, so much false messaging, so much spiritual confusion planted by the enemy since Jesus went back to heaven, that at the harvest time, at his second coming, the true and false will be revealed, and all the false will be separated out, and all of it will end up in destruction. Later in Matthew's Gospel, in chapter 24, where he records his version of Jesus' prophetic Olivet discourse, Jesus is even clearer with his disciples about all this. At his second coming, he says there he will send his angels throughout the earth to gather his chosen people, true believers.

And in the following chapter, he says what will happen then is a separation of the sheep from the goats, the sheep, true believers, and the goats, unbelievers who are not, will be separated just as wheat and tares were in this parable. There, he says to the unbelievers, Depart from me into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. But to his sheep, there he says, Come, you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. And after that, the literal kingdom of God will commence on this earth, the Messiah's reign that will last a thousand years.

Two brief parables follow that one in verses 31 to 34, where Jesus again said, The kingdom of heaven is like, and then described first a tiny mustard seed that slowly grows into a big tree, and then in the next one, a little leaven, a little yeast that is mixed into a woman's flour and eventually leavens her whole batch of dough. Those short parables are talking about the growth of Jesus' spiritual kingdom during the whole era between his first and second comings, the time we're living in now. This whole period, theologians like to call it the church age, during which Christ's invisible kingdom is growing, was one of the hidden things, the mystery things that Jesus referred to, something the Old Testament prophets did not see coming, and so they never foretold.

In verses 44 to 50, Matthew recalls three more brief parables, one about a treasure hidden in a field and another about a pearl merchant finding the most valuable pearl ever. These are about the value of finding the truth, the gospel, salvation, the most precious thing anyone could ever discover. In comparison, Jesus said, nothing else this world can offer comes close. It's worth giving up anything and everything else to have that. Salvation is that priceless. And the final parable comes at verse 47.

Being at the Sea of Galilee, where a lot of commercial fishing took place, Jesus took the opportunity to explain it this way. The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, gathering every kind of fish in it. And when it is filled up, they pull it on the beach, and they sit down and gather the good fish into containers, but the bad they throw away. So it will be, he said, at the end of this age. The angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, throw them into a furnace of fire, in that place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. I wonder if down the shore Jesus actually might have saw this going on when he told that story.

It was a method of fishing where weighted nets would be dropped down and then dragged along through the water, capturing anything and everything in their path. But once pulled up on the shore, the fishermen would sort through it all, find the good edible fish. Everything else they netted would be thrown away. Again, Jesus was comparing this to what will happen at his second coming. Those who belong to him and those who don't will be separated. The fiery place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, of which he's warned at other times here, is clearly a reference to hell.

Many who heard Jesus' parables that day were entertained by these stories, but also puzzled by what they actually meant. But those who had ears to hear sought him out afterwards to understand them better. And those who believed into him and became followers of his became the sons and daughters of his kingdom that he was talking about. And that's exactly what's been going on from that day till this day. The seed is still being sown. Some is falling on good fertile soil.

The mustard tree is growing. The leaven is still doing its work. People are still discovering the precious truth of the gospel of pearl worth more than anything else in the world. If you've believed into Jesus as your Savior and Lord, and you're a true follower of His, then you are a part of this growing spiritual kingdom right now, this invisible host of people who are the true sons and daughters of God. Matthew, years later, reflecting on all this, says at verse 51, and I have to believe he was probably laughing a little bit when he did, after all of his parables, Jesus told his disciples that day, he asked them, Have you understood all these things? And he remembers we all said, Yes, of course, Lord.

No, of course not. At that point, they did it. Absolutely they didn't. They didn't understand that Jesus would be rejected and killed. They didn't have any idea he'd rise again and ascend back to heaven. They absolutely had no clue that there would be a whole new era of unknown length before Jesus came back again as King.

Their subsequent actions proved they didn't understand any of those things very well. But it's human nature, and as a teacher, I know this very well. After you've taught something maybe a little complicated, you ask, Do you understand what I've been saying? And students, nine times out of ten, will say, Oh yes, sure, because they don't want to look dumb. In reality, it was only after Jesus had died and rose again and ascended back to heaven that the disciples thought all these things through carefully. I'm sure they compared their memories and these stories and had many discussions about what Jesus had taught, and they studied it together in the light of Old Testament scripture and prophecies.

And only then, and even only then with the special guidance of the Holy Spirit, did they write down these documents we call the Gospels of the New Testament. You know, to me, the most enigmatic, interesting line in this chapter came after the, Of course, Lord, sure, we understand all this. Thank you for the fascinating stories. We get what you're saying. It was right then that Jesus said something I've never noticed before in this chapter. He said, Every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings out of his storeroom treasures both old and new.

Every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings out of his storeroom treasures both old and new. Who were the scribes he's referring to? Scribes in that culture were those who studied and wrote down God's words, scholars who made copies of the Scripture. Among Jesus' disciples that day, at least three of them became authors of New Testament Scripture: Matthew here, of course, that we're reading, also John, who wrote the fourth Gospel, and of course Peter, who wrote a couple generally epistles and was the source behind the Gospel of Mark. It's fascinating to me that Matthew remembered and included that line from Jesus because as he, a couple decades later, wrote down his Gospel that we're studying now, he very purposely included many quotations from and allusions to the Old Testament Scriptures.

Even while he was writing inspired New Testament Scripture, and so did all the other New Testament writers. So that has to be what Jesus meant when he said the scribes who are disciples of his kingdom would draw on treasures both old and new. One final point. When Jesus decided to start speaking to the crowds in parables, it was a way to both clarify and obscure spiritual truth. The parables were a way to separate those who really wanted to understand and follow him from those who were only looking for entertainment or a miracle or something from him. That's how Matthew remembers Jesus explaining it.

Verse 10 and following say, The disciples came to him and asked, 'Why do you speak to people in parables?' Jesus answered, 'Because these people's hearts have become calloused. They hardly hear with their ears. They have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.' By turn, he meant really repent, turn to God from their hearts.

Then he added, But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you have seen but did not see it, and have longed to hear what you have heard but did not hear it. What a privilege Matthew and the other disciples had to actually be there, to see and hear these things from Jesus in person. And what a privilege we have to learn all about them from these eyewitnesses. Do you have the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the heart to want to understand the truths of Jesus that he shared that day? If you've listened this far into Share the Word, you probably do.

So stay with us as Matthew's story of Jesus continues to unfold. This has been Paul for Share the Word. Thanks, Paul. I continue to truly enjoy the Gospel of Matthew and all that Pastor Paul has brought to light in it. Although there are discrepancies that exist when it comes to the total number of parables, what's important is there is no discrepancy when it comes to the purpose and the reason that Jesus used parables in his teaching. I'd still go back and examine parables today and find new lessons that I didn't see.

And here's the challenge: go back and pick one parable this month. And really examine it. I don't mean just read it. I mean go through and do a deep dive examination, investigation, and sit with it for the entire month and see what comes out. I know you'll be surprised because I was when I did it. I picked the sower.

Which one are you going to pick?