Matthew 13.44-46.
Jesus has two quick one-liner
Regardless, Christians have historically called ’em by separate names. One’s the Hidden Treasure, or Treasure in the Field, or Secret Treasure, or Clever Treasure Hunter, or whatever you wanna emphasize most in the story. The other’s the Hidden Pearl, Valuable Pearl, Pearl of Great Price, or Clever Pearl Merchant—again, whatever you wanna emphasize most.
Me, I bunch ’em together. Like I said, they’re about the very same thing, and they repeat the idea of finding something major, and selling all you have to get it. So I call them collectively the Major Finds Story.
Take it away, Jesus:
Matthew 13.44-46 KWL - 44 “Again, heaven’s kingdom is like a treasure hidden in the field.
- When a person finds it, he hides it.
- In his joy, he goes off and sells everything, whatever he has,
- and buys that field.
- 45 Again, heaven’s kingdom is like a person, a merchant looking for good pearls.
- 46 Upon finding one extremely expensive pearl, going away,
- he’s sold everything, whatever he has, and buys it.”
Christians are so used to telling this story, we never think about the problematic behavior involved by both of these guys who discover a major find.
The first one is a guy who stumbles across a treasure, hides it, then buys that field so he can possess the treasure—and obviously doesn’t tell the previous owners there’s treasure in their field. Um… shouldn’t they know? Maybe that’s their inheritance their father meant to give them, but died before he could disclose it to them. Maybe it’s stolen property, like pirate or drug lord treasure… although we probably shouldn’t go there, because I doubt Jesus had that in mind when he told the story. Regardless, the buyer’s behavior is such that any skeptical
The second is a pearl merchant who finds a pearl worth all his existing fortune. Again, there’s the possibility he knows of the pearl’s true value and the seller does not, which is why the merchant’s so eager to spend all he has on it. But something which regularly skips most Christians’ notice: Pearls are something shellfish produce, and shellfish
Yep, in both these stories, Jesus is talking about iffy, less-than-honorable, less-than-devout people. And comparing their behavior to God’s kingdom. And probably bugging devout Pharisees in so doing. Well, that’ll happen.
Wagering all one has.
In both examples of the Major Find Story, Jesus describes people who find something so worth it, they’re willing to liquidate everything they have so they can buy it. Seriously, everything. The guy who wants to buy the field: No doubt he already owned land or a house, and sold that to get it. The pearl merchant: No doubt he sold every other pearl in his possession. Which could be hundreds of thousands of denarii.
Not every Christian is aware of the fact that when people sold land in Jesus’s day, it wasn’t a permanent sale. The L
Leviticus 25.23 KJV - The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.
Twice a century the Hebrews were to observe a jubilee year, in which the ownership of all land outside a city reverted to its original owners. So when you bought a field, you only owned it for 50 years or fewer. (Prices were negotiated with that in mind.) The guy who bought the land with treasure hiding in it: He had a limited time to get that treasure out of that field. If he was clever he’d’ve bought it only a few years before the jubilee, at a bargain price. But maybe he wasn’t; he spent all he could scrape together.
The pearl merchant wouldn’t have had any similar time limit—and the reason Jesus included the pearl merchant in this story is to make it clear such time limits are irrelevant to his parable’s interpretation. So if you think there’s some extra-special insight to be gained by knowing Hebrew land ownership had an expiration date: Nah. I only included it ’cause it’s interesting.
In Jesus’s day pearls—not diamonds nor platinum—were considered the most valuable gems or precious metals one could own. Jews who wanted to make money, who had no personal use for the shellfish they might pull up with their dragnets, weren’t ignorant of the fact Romans were willing to spend millions on pearls. Hence there were Jewish pearl merchants. Always have been. If the pearls made ’em ritually unclean, it’d make it hard to be good Pharisees, who tried to constantly stay ritually clean. But otherwise it was no hinderance towards worshiping God: Baptize yourself, wait till sundown, and now you were clean and could go to synagogue or temple. Then once
Okay, but back to the fact these guys were willing to sell everything. Again, we Christians don’t notice how problematic this behavior is… because we already recognize God’s kingdom is totally worth everything we own. Or sorta recognize it; I’ll get to that. But look at these guys: They got rid of everything in their quests for the field or the pearl.
People like to compare this with venture capitalism, with taking a big risk in the hope of a giant payoff. But I hope you realize Jesus isn’t talking about healthy risky behavior. This is unhealthy behavior. This isn’t like a Shark Tank billionaire who can afford to invest $250K in someone’s clever idea, and can afford to lose their entire investment if it doesn’t actually work out; they still have billions in the bank. This is someone sinking all their money on a scheme. With nothing to fall back on. No credit cards; no family wealth. If it doesn’t pan out, they’re destitute. If the guy who buys the field gets there and finds the previous owners dug up the treasure first; if the pearl merchant gets mugged on his way to his shop… well, sucks to be them.
’Cause worldly wealth is never a sure thing. No matter how much we’d like to psych ourselves into believing so. God’s kingdom is definitely worth such a risk. Few other things are.
C.I. Scofield’s misinterpretation.
Too often Christians like to warp Jesus’s parables by claiming the metaphors of one parable apply to all parables.
VERSE 44. The interpretation of the parable of the treasure, which makes the buyer of the field to be a sinner who is seeking Christ, has no warrant in the parable itself. The field is defined to be the world.
Mt 13.38 The seeking sinner does not buy, but forsakes, the world to win Christ. Furthermore, the sinner has nothing to sell, nor is Christ for sale, nor is he hidden in a field, nor, having found Christ, does the sinner hide him again.Mk 7.24, Ac 4.20 At every point the interpretation breaks down.Our Lord is the buyer at the awful cost of his blood
1Pe 1.18 and Israel, especially EphraimJr 31.5-12, 18-20 the lost tribes hidden in “the field,” the worldMt 13.38 is the treasure.Ex 19.5, Ps 135.4 Again, as in the separation of tares and wheat, the angels are used.Mt 24.31, Jr 16.16 The divine merchantman buys the field (world) for the sake of the treasure,Mt 13.44, Ro 11.28 beloved for the fathers' sakes, and yet to be restored and saved. The note of joyMt 13.44 is also that of the prophets in view.VERSE 45. The true church, “one body” formed by the Holy Spirit.
1Co 12.12-13 As Israel is the hid treasure, so the church is the pearl of great cost. Covering the same period of time as the mysteries of the kingdom, is the mystery of the church.Ro 16.25-26, Ep 3.3-10, 5.32 Of the true church a pearl is a perfect symbol:
- A pearl is one, a perfect symbol of unity.
1Co 10.17, 12.12-13, Ep 4.4-6 - A pearl is formed by the accretion, and that not mechanically, but vitally, through a living one, as Christ adds to the church.
Ac 2.41, 47, 5.14, 11.24, Ep 2.21, Cl 2.19 - Christ, having given himself for the pearl, is now preparing it for presentation to himself.
Ep 5.25-27 The kingdom is not the church, but the true children of the kingdom during the fulfillment of these mysteries, baptized by one Spirit into one body,1Co 12.12-13 compose the true church, the pearl.
Kinda sounds like a proper biblical interpretation, doesn’t it? Here’s why it’s loopy: Scofield presumed the field is the world, ’cause he borrowed the interpretation from
Okay, so if the field’s the world, all the usual interpretations of this parable—of someone who discovers the kingdom (or Jesus) and decides it’s worth everything—falls apart. Because why would we wanna buy the world? Seems like something
But the field’s not the world. It is in the Wheat and Weeds Story; it isn’t in the Major Finds Story. Jesus never defines it. It’s actually irrelevant to Jesus’s point.
Scofield assumed the field’s the world, because just a few verses earlier in this chapter, it is.
So if the field’s the world, the buyer can’t be a sinner who recognizes its hidden value. (’Cause what’s the sinner doing buying the world?) It must therefore be Jesus, who died to save it
Um… what’s the kingdom doing hidden in the world? Well, Scofield figured, that’s where the lost tribes of Israel come in. They’re hidden. And Darbyists believe those lost tribes will get un-lost during the End Times, all Israel will turn to Jesus, and together with the church will make up God’s kingdom. So this spin on it is entirely consistent with Darbyist beliefs.
And of course Scofield felt the pearl meant the same thing.
Once we correctly ditch this whole “field is the world” idea, we realize the field doesn’t actually matter in this parable. It’s not relevant to the overarching idea of Major Finds: It doesn’t matter where one finds the treasure or the pearl. What matters is the treasure and pearl are more valuable than everything.
When we overanalyze the other elements in these examples (“What is the field? How are pearls made?”) we miss the point. I pointed out how pearls are ritually unclean, and how Israeli fields weren’t permanent purchases, and I pointed out these bits of ancient history trivia aren’t really relevant to Jesus’s point. Digging into them, as if these are keys to ancient biblical mysteries, is again missing the point. Plumbing the hidden depths and secret knowledge of these parables, is trying to read stuff into ’em, and Jesus didn’t put that stuff in there; we did, ’cause we covet secret knowledge instead of
Christians pretty much got it right from the beginning: A seeker found the kingdom, and it’s worth everything they have. The analogy only breaks down after you’ve built some unnecessary extra things upon it.
Buying the kingdom?
Scofield was also hung up on the idea of a sinner buying a field, or a pearl, as if Jesus and his kingdom are commodities we can buy. And yeah, we don’t actually buy his kingdom. It’s given to us entirely
But lest we get hung up on Jesus’s words
Isaiah 55.1-3 KJV - 1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. 3 Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
I got this from John Calvin, actually. Y’notice the Spirit says “buy wine and milk without money and without price.” It’s like going to the store with a 100-percent-off coupon. You don’t pay for it; the coupon does that for you. But you still gotta buy it. Like Calvin said, “[T]he heavenly life, and every thing that belongs to it, is the free gift of God, yet we are said to buy it, when we cheerfully relinquish the desires of the flesh, that nothing may prevent us from obtaining it.” [Calvin at Mt 13.46]
So whenever Jesus describes people, either in his parables or over lessons, buying and purchasing and earning and meriting and fighting to get into his kingdom: Relax. Don’t overanalyze what he means by this, and leap to the conclusion he’s talking about salvation by works, by karma, by anything but grace. Don’t read weird things into the parables. Besides, the kingdom’s only like such behaviors. Don’t get distracted by artificial discrepancies. Stick to Jesus’s main point: His kingdom is worth everything we have.
Giving everything we have for it.
Thing is, too many of us Christians have no intention whatsoever of giving all we have for God’s kingdom.
What far too many of us are expecting, is we’ll enter the kingdom in the future. Not right now; we ignore his teaching that God’s kingdom is within us,
Is that what Jesus is talking about? Not even close. He means something closer to this:
Mark 10.28-31 KJV - 28 Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee. 29 And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, 30 but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. 31 But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.
Like Simon Peter said, Jesus’s students left everything to follow him. Jobs, families, homes, comfort, security, everything. That’s the kind of devotion Jesus expects, and rightly so: He’s offering us eternal life. But that’s not the kind of devotion Jesus gets, ’cause too many of us insist on holding onto that stuff, in the guise of “Well it all belongs to Jesus now”—yet we surely don’t act like it all belongs to Jesus now. We don’t really expect to surrender our possessions till we die or till Jesus returns; the kingdom is worth everything, but not yet.
Is that the attitude of the guys in Jesus’s parable? Shouldn’t we adopt their attitude?
" />