May 24, 2012

Church on the Beach: The Parables of the Hidden Treasure and Pearl

Like a man stumbling upon forgotten antiquities stored in the basement of a house for sale, or the American Pickers discovering a priceless artifact in the jam-packed, dusty, and cob-webbed collector’s barn, so Jesus describes the kingdom of God as a man finding a buried fortune in a field, or a merchant discovering a pearl of great price. This week is the final of our 18 Soul Surf’n lessons this spring semester. Next week starts our Hashtag Youth Video Series as our summer IKON Event theme for the next 12 weeks (go to www.hashtagyouthseries.com ). But this last lesson is quite an appropriate finale as we once again stand on the beach of the sea of Galilee and listen to Jesus teaching 2 parables from the boat.

  •   Hidden Treasure Parable (Matt 13:44)

“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.

  •   Pearl of Great Price Parable (Matt 13:45-46)

“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 situation described by Jesus in the parable of the hidden treasure still happens today. Back in the ancient world, as in Israel, when there weren’t any banks and such to store and save one’s money, people had to resort to burying their large sum of hard cash either in the ground or in the walls of their house. Doing this protected against theft, fire, flood, and pillaging from foreign armies. Remember Achan back in the book of Joshua? He hid the devoted things he stole from Jericho under his tent in the ground: the cloak from Shinar, a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, and the 200 shekels of silver underneath them (Josh 7:19-21). This was a considerable sum of money.  Apparently in the situation Jesus is describing, for whatever reason, the man who buried the fortune was no longer around or alive. It had thus been forgotten. Until a man came along and discovered it peeking through the top soil at him. Who knows how much was actually buried there and whether or not the man took the time to dig it all up in order to know just how much it was. Whatever happened, the man realized it was a huge value. So huge that in order to buy the field, and thus get the treaure with it, he sold everything he owned just to buy that field with the buried fortune. I find it funny that he kept the whole “buried treasure” find quiet as he went through the process and deal to purchase the land. The previous owners didn’t know what they had and thus lost it.

Back in 2010, a man by the name of Dave Crisp, a 63 year old hospital chef, found a hoard of over 52,000 3rd century Roman coins worth 1 million dollars buried in a field in the town of Frome, Somerset, England.  The coins were found packed into a clay jar which weighed 35o pounds. Mr. Crisp found them using a simple metal detector. But instead of keeping it quiet and buying the field, law mandated that he report the find so archealogists could professionally extract the 2nd largest coin find in Britain’s history. It is estimated that the coins were worth about 4 year’s pay for a legionary soldier. Both Mr. Crisp and the landowner split the reward money (CNN article: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-07-09/world/uk.roman.coin.treasure_1_coins-somerset-county-council-amateur-treasure-hunter?_s=PM:WORLD).

As for the parable of the pearl, that situation could happen today as well. Before the 20th century, pearls were harvested by divers in such bodies of water as the Persian Gulf. Today however, most pearls on the market are cultured. That is, they were grown in a pearl farm. But in ancient times, pearls were highly scarce and thus valuable. They have been prized and collected for the past 4,000 years making them “the world’s oldest gem.” A fragment of the oldest known pearl jewelry, found in the sarcophagus of a Persian princess who died in 520 B.C., is displayed in the Louvre in Paris. The term “pearl” occurs about 7 times in the Old Testament (Est 1:6 (dar), Job 28:18, Prov 3:15, 8:11, 20:15, 31:10, Lam 4:7 (paniyn), while in the New Testament it occurrs in 8 verses (Mt 7:6, 13:45-46, 1 Tim 2:9, Rev 17:4, 18:12, 16, 21:21 (margarites)). All of these verses communicate the great value and status of the pearl in society. In one particular famous story involving pearls from Roman history, Cleopatra held a banquet for Marc Antony (Pliny the Elder, “Natural History,” 9:119-21). At the dinner Cleopatra bet Antony that she could host the most expensive dinner he ever attended before. It wasn’t until the dessert, when Marc Antony was thinking he was going to win, that Cleopatra took one of her pearl earrings and dissolved it in a cup of sour wine or vinegar. She then proceeded to drink the 500,000 dollar dessert. She was going to dissolve her other earring, but when she reached for it her referee of the bet stopped her and declared her the winner.

During this past century, an American geologist named Wilbur Cobb came into the possession of a pearl called “The Pearl of Lao Tzu” in 1939. This is the largest pearl in the world at 9.45 inches in diameter and 14.1 pounds made inside of a giant clam. He wanted to purchase it from a tribal chief in the Philippinnes, but it wasn’t until Cobb saved the chief’s son from malaria that the chief gave the pearl to him as a gift. The pearl was recently appraised in 2007 at a price of $93 million!

In essence, these 2 parables show us how to respond to the kingdom of God. The value of the kingdom is priceless. It is also the best bargain you will ever find! As for the 2 men in the parables, and Dave Crisp and Wilbur Cobb, it was their “ultimate dream” scenario! And whether you stumble upon it, or search for it for a lifetime, the kingdom of God is worth the search and cost. “Seek, and you will find” (Mt 7:7).

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May 10, 2012

Beaches in Heaven? Kicking Satan off the Shore

There are 48 land-locked countries in this world. Land-locked is another way of saying “a land without a sea.” Now what about a land-locked country surrounded by other land-locked countries? There are 2 of them: Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan. They are referred to as doubly land-locked. Each of these countries, especially the last 2, are not only lands without a sea, they are lands without a beach. Conversely, the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic Ocean is the only “sea” in the world without a land. Bermuda is the closest piece of land near its western fringes, but, like it’s land counterparts, the Sargasso is a sea without a beach.

We only find one beach mentioned in the book of Revelation (12:18). There Satan stands portrayed as a dragon on the sand of the seashore calling up 2 monsters: 1 from the sea and 1 from the land. But then we find at the end of the book John telling us in his vision of the new heavens and earth that there is longer any sea (21:1). Is the New Jerusalem therefore land-locked, or a land without a sea? Is he telling me heaven doesn’t have a beach?!

In order to answer that question we must go back to the beach where Satan stands. The first monster Satan summons in his counterfeit creation comes up out of the sea. The word “sea” (thalassa) is found 22x in Revelation (4:6, 5:13, 7:1,2,3, 8:8-9, 10:2,5,6,8, 12:12, 13:1, 14:7, 15:2, 16:3, 18:17, 18:19, 18:21, 20:8, 20:13, 21:1). As N. T. Wright points out, “throughout this book, as in much of the Bible, the sea is the dark force of chaos which threatens God’s plans and people.” It is used as a symbol of the powers of evil and chaos incarnated as these 2 monsters. And together with the monster from the land, these two beasts exercise their evil powers over “all the world” at Satan’s bidding (cf. Job 40-41). This is in essence a picture of a counterfeit Satanic trinity, where Satan is the “Father,” the sea beast is the “Son,” and the land beast is the “Holy Spirit,” working together to bring down the people of God; which Satan failed to do himself in chapter 12.

For John, the beast from the sea is the Roman Empire and its imperial power, while the beast from the land is the propaganda machine of the imperial cult exercising its authority to make everyone worship the emperor. For Christians, they of course could not offer the incense required of every citizen to Caesar. Only Jesus is King. Not Caesar. But the threat and punishment looming over anyone who didn’t “bow the knee” was quite extensive- to the point of death. John’s message in light of this tough reality was to actively resist by witness and martyrdom, not violence. There were basically only two options: worship the beast or face martyrdom. John was encouraging them to be ready to die if necessary. Polycarp is an excellent example of a faithful Christian faced with this serious decision (see previous article).

So when we get to the vision of the new heavens and earth and John says that there is no sea, he is speaking figuratively, not literally. That is to say, heaven is figuratively land-locked, but not literally land-locked. He is saying that evil in all its incarnated forms is destroyed once and for all. No longer will the sea of evil encroach upon the beach and land of God’s creation. Heaven is, if you will, doubly land-locked in this regard. Heaven is a world that has beaches where Satan has been kicked off the shore. Therefore, heaven is land without a sea, and evil is a sea without a land.

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May 9, 2012

Crowned with Immortality: The Martyrdom of Polycarp

The Martyrdom of Polycarp is the oldest written account of a Christian martyrdom outside of the New Testament. The man who was killed, Polycarp (69-155 AD), was a 2nd century elder of the church in Smyrna of Asia Minor. He was a disciple and pupil of the apostle John and is considered 1 of 3 “Apostolic Fathers,” or significant Christian leaders who lived in the critical transition period of 2nd generation believers after the apostolic generation.  The account was apparently written by eyewitnesses of Polycarp’s death there in Smyrna and directed to believers in Philomelium. There are 3 direct references to immortality in this letter (Read it here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/richardson/fathers.vii.i.iii.html) which I wish to briefly highlight and discuss.

The first occurrence is found in Polycarp’s own prayer as he prepared himself to be burned alive tied to a pole in front of a large Gentile and Jewish audience:

  • “Lord God Almighty, Father of thy beloved and blessed Servant Jesus Christ, through whom we have received full knowledge of thee, ‘the God of angels and powers and all creation’ and of the whole race of the righteous who live in thy presence: 2 I bless thee, because thou hast deemed me worthy of this day and hour, to take my part in the number of the martyrs, in the cup of thy Christ, for  ‘resurrection to eternal life’ of soul and body in the immortality of the Holy Spirit; among whom may I be received in thy presence this day as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, just as thou hast prepared and revealed beforehand and fulfilled, thou that art the true God without any falsehood. 3For this and for everything I praise thee, I bless thee, I glorify thee, through the eternal and heavenly High Priest, Jesus Christ, thy beloved Servant, through whom be glory to thee with him and Holy Spirit both now and unto the ages to come. Amen” (14:1-3).

The second reference is mentioned in the recounting of the conflict over acquiring Polycarp’s body back after he died:

  • But the jealous and malicious evil one, the adversary of the race of the righteous, seeing the greatness of his martyrdom and his blameless life from the beginning, and how he was crowned with the wreath of immortality and had borne away an incontestable reward, so contrived it that his corpse should not be taken away by us, although many desired to do this and to have fellowship with his holy flesh (17:1).

The third and final reference is found in a summary of the whole event of Polycarp’s martyrdom:

  • Such are the things concerning the blessed Polycarp, who, martyred at Smyrna along with twelve others from Philadelphia, is alone remembered so much the more by everyone, that he is even spoken of by the heathen in every place. He was not only a noble teacher, but also a distinguished martyr, whose martyrdom all desire to imitate as one according to the gospel of Christ. 2By his patient endurance he overcame the wicked magistrate and so received the crown of immortality; and he rejoices with the apostles and all the righteous to glorify God the Father Almighty and to bless our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of our souls and Helmsman of our bodies and Shepherdof the Catholic Church throughout the world (19:1-2).

So the Greek words utilized in these phrases pertaining to immortality include “εἰς ἀνάστασιν ζωῆς αἰωνίου ψυχῆς τε καὶ σώματος ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳ πνεύματος ἁγίου·” (“to the resurrection of eternal life, both of soul and body, through the incorruption [imparted] by the Holy Ghost.”; 14:2),  ”ἐστεφανωμένον τε τὸν τῆς ἀφθαρσίας στέφανον,” (“and how he was now crowned with the wreath of immortality“; 17:1), and “καὶ οὕτως τὸν τῆς ἀφθαρσίας στέφανον ἀπολαβών… τὸν σωτῆρα τῶν ψυχῶν ἡμῶν καὶ κυβερνήτην τῶν σωμάτων ἡμῶν” (“and thus acquired the crown of immortality…[Jesus]the Saviour of our souls, the Governor of our bodies”; 19:2).

The one Greek word utilized to communicate immortality is aphtharsia. This word is used 8 times in the New Testament (Rom 2:7; 1 Cor 1542, 50, 53, 54; Eph 6:24; 2 Tim 1:10). The connection between the idea of being crowned and immortality is also found in the NT as well (1 Pt 5:4 et al; see previous article “A Tale of Two Crowns”). And so according to Polycarps prayer, he knew that to be resurrected to eternal life meant that, though he would die that day in the fire, his body and soul would be brought back together upon Jesus’ return and be made immortal by the power of the Holy Spirit. With this understanding and knowledge of Jesus’ defeat of death as his victory over death, he could face the threat of beasts and being burned alive with courage. He would thus be crowned with immortality as a faithful martyr for Christ. He knew death would only be temporary, not life in the body as was the cultural understanding at the time. May we recapture Polycarp’s understanding of immortality and the resulting courage that flows from it so that we may not fear risking anything including our lives for the sake of Jesus.

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May 2, 2012

Paul’s Favorite Beach: 3 Months on Malta

  U.S. News and World Report: Travel came out with a list of the 21 most popular vacation destinations in the United States recently (http://travel.usnews.com/Rankings/best_usa_vacations/). 14 of the 21 top places, or two thirds, are located on the coast or are islands: 1) San Francisco, 2) Washington D.C., 3) San Diego, 4) New York City, 6) Maui, 7) U.S. Virgin Islands,  9) Honolulu- Oahu, 13) New Orleans, 14) Miami Beach, 15) Seattle, 17) Los Angeles, 18) Savannah, 19) Puerto Rico, and 20) Charleston. If you had the choice to spend 3 months at one of these 21 locations; which one would you choose? Would you choose the sun and the sand or a national park? 3 months is a long and significant amount time. And you certainly wouldn’t want to leave this decision up to anyone else! I mean…this is YOUR vacation.

Well, in Acts 27:39-28:11, God chose Paul’s vacation destination. God chose a beach on the tiny island called Malta which lies between the foot of Italy (Sicily) and the northern coast of Africa. It is a wonderful island with all the natural beauty of the Mediterranean. But not only did God choose the destination, he also chose Paul’s vacation time: 3 months in winter! The way Paul got there is also a unique detail. He was shipwrecked on his way to Rome. You usually want to go on vacation to get away and be alone in order to rejuvenate yourself. However, 275 other people joined him as they washed up on the beach by swimming, floated on wreckage, or being carried on the backs of those who could swim from the ship. So God chose the when, where, who, and how. Sound like a good vacation?

But I wonder which one Paul was: did he swim, float, or carry? Well, on the first day of Paul’s vacation, when they all safely got to shore (the first of many miracles in Paul’s vacation), it was cold and raining! The island natives made the men fires to warm up by. And Paul, fresh off the shipwreck, cold and wet and exhausted, decides to help collect wood for the fires. This makes me think, like in the scene of Ben Hur when he rescued the Roman commander of the ship from drowning, that Paul was one of the guys that carried another on his back as he swam to shore. Perhaps it was the head Roman soldier on the ship as well?

But right when he was doing such a nice thing, a viper comes out of the branches he threw in the fire and bites him in the hand! The islanders reaction tells us that they knew this was a poisonous snake and expected him to die very soon. But Paul didn’t die: miracle number 2. In fact, this was the first of many healing miracles that God worked through Paul to turn the hearts of the islanders to Christ. He next healed Publius’ father from his sickness, and the rest of the sick of the island who were brought to him afterwards (28:3-9).

Paul never intended to vacation in Malta during the winter. He intended to go to Rome, the most significant city in the world and a great one to evangelize. But instead, God delayed Paul’s arrival and had him spend 3 months on a little insignificant island. The result? The island is 98% Christian today and has 365 churches spread throughout it! It was an unplanned church plant. In fact, he started with what could have been a nice sized church of 276 whom God saved from death in the sea. Imagine what God can do with you when He chooses your vacation! Imagine what God can do with you when you don’t take vacations from His mission.

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April 27, 2012

Blessing Like Grains: Joseph

I wasn’t able to teach a lesson this week, but I still wanted to write something about my thoughts for the lesson. Here it is.

In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, the phrase “like the sand on the beach” is found just 3 times. In fact, these are the only occurrences in the the entire Pentatuech or the 5 books of Moses (Gen-Deut). The word “sand” itself is only found 2 other times in the Pentatuech: when Moses buries the dead Egyptian (Ex 2:12), and when Moses blesses the tribes of Zebulun and Issachar (Dt 33:19). So what I’m interested in is how the phrase “like the sand on the beach” is used in Genesis. We are going to do another lesson on how it is used to describe the blessing of offspring to Abraham and his lineage later on in the semester, but this week we will focus on how the phrase is used in the life of Joseph in Genesis 41:49. But its first two uses will inform our understanding of its third occurrence in the story of Joseph’s rise to power in Egypt after interrpreting Pharaoh’s dreams (Gen 41:37-56).

In Joseph’s story, the grain that is produced during the 7 years of plenty as foretold by Pharaoh’s dreams and Joseph’s divine intrepretations is so much that it is described as “like the sand on the beach.” In fact, there was so much grain produced that Joseph completely stopped taking records. So as one cannot count the sand on the beach, one couldn’t count the amount of grain that Joseph stored in preparation for the 7 years of famine. It was metaphorically “coming out of their ears” in abundance. So what is the significance of this phrase popping up in Joseph’s life and experience? Well, looking at the other two times it is used, we see that this is an example of God’s promise and blessing prevailing in the life of Joseph despite all that happened to him.

The first time the phrase is used in Genesis is in the story of Abraham offering Issac as a sacrifice (Gen 22:15-18).

  • And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said,  “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess  the gate of his enemies, and  in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,  because you have obeyed my voice.”

The second time the phrase is used in Genesis is in Jacob’s prayer to God before his anxious reunion with Esau (Gen 32:9-12):

  • And Jacob said,  “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who  said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’  I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for  I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. But  you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’”

It is hard then not to make this observation when we read this phrase for the 3rd and final time in Genesis 41:46-49:

  • Joseph was thirty years old when he  entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt. During the seven plentiful years the earth produced abundantly,and he gathered up all the food of these seven years, which occurred in the land of Egypt, and put the food in the cities. He put in every city the food from the fields around it. And Joseph stored up grain in great abundance,  like the sand of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for it could not be measured.

In fact, right after this phrase is used of the harvested grain which God providentially blessed, the birth narrative of Joseph’s 2 sons is found (41:50-52). It is pivotally placed between the description of 7 good years and the 7 bad years. So we find the blessing prevailing in Joseph’s life as he rose from a slave and prisoner to the second in command of the Egyptian world power in a matter of 13 years. Joseph is given a new Egpytian name meaning “God speaks and lives,” he marries Potiphars daughter Asenath (“she belongs to the goddess Neith”), and becomes Pharaoh’s right hand man, but despite his acclamation into Egyptian nobility and culture he still gives his 2 sons Hebrew names: Manasseh and Ephraim. God’s blessing allowed Joseph to “forget” his previous troubles because of how much he had “made him fruitful” in the present.

So the grains of the 7 years of Egyptian harvests in some way serves as an example for what God was doing with Abraham’s family. Wherever God’s blessing goes, there is abundance. God’s blessing went with Joseph to Egypt, therefore Egypt was blessed with the harvests and Joseph’s wise leadership. And like Joseph, Israel would become as the wheat and sand grains despite the troubles of slavery they would experience for the next 400 years. Nothing can get in the way of God’s blessing prevailing, and Joseph’s life is a testament to that fact which often unfolds in the most unpredictable ways. Who knew the blessing would prevail in 2 Hebrew/Egyptian boys of noble class in a position to take care of the small transplanted people of Israel in a foreign land?

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April 19, 2012

“Party with a Purpose” Tonight at the Civic Center!

Check out this URL for a video and article about Columbus Youth Advisory Council’s event called “Party with a Purpose.” It is free to the public and designed to teach safe partying to middle and high school students. This is definitely an event you want your teen to attend. It goes from 6pm to 8pm tonight at the Civic Center. It is a dance interspersed  with educational skits and videos about issues teens face today like texting while driving, date rape, drinking and drugs, et al.

Be There: “Party with a Purpose” – WTVM.com-Columbus, GA News Weather & Sports.

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April 18, 2012

Church on the Beach: The Parable of the Sower

There has recently been a commercial running about the new 2012 Volkswagen Passat. It is titled “That’s What He Says?!” by Volkswagen on Youtube (http://youtu.be/bWy-LCGDsd8). In this commercial, people are trying to sing along to Elton John’s “Rocketman.” Every person but one totally messes up some of the lyrics. For those who didn’t understand Elton John’s lyrics, they just made up their own to try to make the song make sense in some way. But when that one guy who understood the lyrics sang along to the song next to his wife in the car, she responds, “That’s What He Says?!” She may have loved the song for a long time before like many others, but they were still singing the wrong lyrics despite how many times they had heard it before and their love for it. But when she heard the right lyrics, she was glad that she could actually sing the song the way it was meant to be sung.

This may be a good illustration for many of us who love and read the parables of Jesus. Especially when it comes to one of his most classic stories: the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:1-23 (cf Mark 4:1-20 and Luke 8:4-15). This is the first parable Jesus teaches when he sits down in the boat in the cove of the parables while the people hungout on the beach of the Sea of Galilee. It’s also the longest of the parables about the kingdom of God Jesus spoke at the beach in Matthew 13: Jesus tells the parable (1-9), Jesus’ explanation for using parables (10-16), Jesus’ explanation of the parable (17-23). We may have heard or taught many lessons about this parable, but perhaps we may be missing or misunderstanding some of the lyrics. We thus may be missing out on the truest meaning of the parable within its first century Jewish context. Don’t worry, many people who heard Jesus teach this parable themselves didn’t even understand it even after an explanation. But whenever they finally did understand him, they probably said something like, “That’s What He Said?!”

The scholar and professor N. T. Wright, now at The University of St. Andrews, ironically begins his discussion of the parable saying that “there is no agreement on what it was originally supposed to mean” (see Jesus and the Victory of God, 229-239). But he proposes, and I think he is right, that we should understand this parable as an apocalyptic story of Israel and of Jesus’ ministry. Meaning, firstly, that “when read in its first century Jewish context, it asks to be understood as a retelling of Israel’s controlling narrative about the kingdoms of the world and the kingdom of God.” So in this parable, Jesus “uses imagery and structure which evoked “apocalyptic” retellings of Israel’s story…the parable tells the story of Israel, particularly the return from exile, with a paradoxical conclusion.” So the parable’s form is reminiscent to apocalyptic stories of Israel: “its cryptic story, its transition passage about the revealing of mysteries, and its point by point interpretation.” And it’s content is reminiscent as well: “the failed sowings, and the kingdom of the creator god successfully set up, seen as the unveiling of the mysterious divine plan and as the revelation of the Messiah.”

Wright offers 3 observations as support for his claim. First, Daniel 2:31-45. This is Daniel’s vision of a statue made up of 4 different types of material: gold, silver, bronze, and clay. This is similar to Jesus’ 4 different soils sowed: road, rock, thorns, and good soil. This vision is an apocalyptic vision about the kingdom of God’s triumph over the kingdoms of the world which is described as the unveiling of a mystery (v18-19) like Jesus described the parable of the sower he just spoke (v10). Second, the parable of the wicked tenants (Mk 12:1-12). The owner of the vineyard sent 3 servants and finally his son, that’s 4 again, in order to retrieve the fruit from his garden.  Again, the repetition of the number 4 with the last one being “successful” and the goal of it all being the production of fruit. Finally, the idea of the “seed” as a shorthand for “remnant” in 2nd Temple Judaism.  It is a metaphor for “true Israel” who will return from exile and be ‘sown’ again in her own land” (cf Is 55:10-13).

So what does this all mean? Well, it means that Jesus is saying that the remnant of Israel is now returning. The exile is over. Israel’s God is at last sowing his good seed and creating his new Israel. The mysterious plan of God foretold by the prophets is coming to fruition within his own career; which was a “profoundly subversive and almost suicidally dangerous thing to say.” However, the paradox of the parable is that the final harvest will not come about in the way the Jews had imagined. YHWH will sow his seed with the goal of establishing his kingdom, but not all of Israel will be part of the party. For these aren’t 4 different sowings, but rather 4 different results from a simultaneous sowing. In other words, like the parable of the wedding feast, “the party will go ahead, and the house will be full, but the original guests will not be there.” Which is an observation also gleaned from the fact that 3 out of 4 soils did not produce fruit. Israel will be judged while mercy will be shown to the Gentiles. Even though the seed on the good soil is the only one to produce fruit, there will still be an abundant harvest.

Jesus spoke this and other parables to communicate the mysteries (the only time this word is used in the gospels) of the kingdom of God so that people wouldn’t understand too well. It was the only safe course. Since, if they did understand too well, like after he told them the parable of the wicked tenants, they would try to kill him. After of course they told each other, “That’s What He Said?!” But I hope that this attempt to explain the parable may help some understand too well as well so that we may all sing the lyrics to Jesus’ kingdom announcement in its truest sense. After of course exclaiming, “That’s What He Says?!”

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