Hidden Treasure
Again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a hidden treasure (Matt. 13:44).
Our Lord Jesus Christ gives a series of three short parables on the nature of the kingdom of heaven that he told exclusively within the ecclesia (cp. v. 36) after he had sent the multitude away. Those within the household are apparently expected to comprehend their significance. The first of these concerns a hidden treasure in a field.
Some have had difficulty reconciling the apparent duplicitous behavior of this man who finds a buried treasure in a field belonging to someone else, but withholds the information from the landholder. Was the man obligated to tell his finding to the owner of the field?
The following illustrates one aspect of the apparent moral dilemma: “The story is told of the Rabbi Simeon whose students bought a donkey from a merchant to assist their teacher in his livelihood of selling flax. His students found a costly pearl attached to the neck of the donkey, and they said, ‘Rabbi, you will not have to labor any more — we found this precious gem on the donkey!’ Rabbi Simeon responded, ‘Does the seller know of this pearl?’ They answered, ‘No!’ The sage then said, ‘I bought a donkey, not a pearl.’ The pearl was returned.”1. That is indeed what we should do if we know that something of personal value to a seller has inadvertently been forgotten and included within a larger purchase. A classic illustration of this point would be if we bought a used car from someone and upon taking possession discovered money or jewelry in the glove box.
Land purchase normal then and now
However, the moral situation is not really analogous to the “glove box” situation in the story of the hidden treasure. Jesus is not telling us something unmoral that we have to overlook to have the parable make sense. In this instance the treasure did not belong to the owner of the field personally. It would have been buried there in ages past, as it might be with pirate’s treasure, or with the plunder hidden by retreating armies, as was often the case in the ancient Middle East. At the time of our Lord, rabbinical law required that upon the sale of “real” property, it was the responsibility of the seller to provide clear title.2. Anything found on or in the land became the property of the new owner upon transfer of the deed rights. There were no similar strictures on the purchaser.
Similarly, today under the laws of most cities and townships in North America, the seller is obligated to fill out extensive disclosure forms on the condition of the real property being transferred. On the other hand, I know of no cases where the buyer must disclose any hidden information he may have about the property in question. Indeed, there have been many cases where information on oil deposits, or other hidden mineral treasure, was not disclosed and the purchasers made fortunes quite legally on their secret knowledge. If we accept the idea that the purchaser was acting entirely within his legal, and thus moral, rights under the Law, then no excuses need be made in interpreting the parable.
Probably a deliberate search
One other idea needs to be considered. Some have suggested that the man accidentally stumbled on the treasure, but there is nothing mentioned in the text of Matthew 13:44 requiring such a conclusion. Most treasures are, in fact, found by people who diligently search for them. Today treasure hunters use metal detectors, deep submergence vehicles and other forms of advanced technology to achieve their goals. It is known that in ancient times treasure hunting was extensive and rarely has an ancient grave of noble origin escaped the plunder of fortune seekers.
These explanations allow for a very direct and simple interpretation of this parable. The gospel message is truly a treasure and it is beyond doubt that it is hidden in the world we live in today. Certainly, in any age we know as an historical fact that true gospel believers have always been a very small minority in the “field of the world.” Yet if a person diligently searches the word of God the hidden treasure is revealed! “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matt. 7:7).
How much is the gospel worth to us?
The question then becomes: What are we willing to do to secure this treasure for our own possession? Are we willing to sacrifice everything we possess to gain the gospel treasure, or do we feel that the price is simply too high! In other words, what are we willing to give up in this present age in order to obtain eternal life? Are we able to say, as the apostle Peter said (without fear of contradiction): “Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all and followed thee” (Matt. 19:27), or are we more likely to say that we have forsaken all that was convenient and this is going to have to be good enough for the Lord!
In this parable, our Lord Jesus Christ is telling us the person who forsakes all to purchase the field in which the hidden treasure of the Gospel is buried will indeed find riches beyond measure, for he later said: And every one that hath forsaken…shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. (Matt. 19: 27-30). This seems like a pretty fair return on investment since by knowing and doing the Word of God we are guaranteed riches beyond any treasure we could ever find in this life.
The Pearl of Great Price
When he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it (Matt. 13:46).
Regarding pearls as priceless treasures goes back to the dawn of civilization. They were sought for their beauty and their extreme rarity makes them valuable. Pearls are chiefly calcium carbonate, which is a rather inexpensive and common mineral. It is the way that pearls are made that makes them unique. They are formed in certain mollusks by the living organism making mineral secretions to cover a grain of sand or other foreign matter which has entered its shell. A large pearl might take years, and many layers of secreted deposits and would ordinarily be found in ancient times by a fisherman accidentally discovering them in a harvest of shell fish. A truly large natural pearl is still a rare and expensive gem.
A merchant dealer in gems would know immediately the uniqueness and hence extreme value of a large perfectly formed pearl. The question then becomes: What is it worth? To answer this question the merchant would have to know the market very accurately, or risk losing a great deal of money in trading for the pearl.
In the parable the merchant saw this pearl and knew immediately it was the finest he had ever seen. He does not quibble about the price, which is a fairly unique circumstance in buying and selling among Middle East merchants! The businessman knew that the pearl was truly unique and, whatever the price, it was worth it. Hence he sets about selling all he possesses. There is that word all again.
The merchant knew that quibbling about the price and drawing out the transaction would be risky, and might result in the owner of the pearl simply selling it to someone else. He wasn’t going to take that chance. So it is with obtaining the kingdom of heaven. The reward God has offered the righteous is beyond price. We are in no position to quibble, nor would it be wise to risk losing the reward by delaying payment, for none of us knows when his time of opportunity will expire. The only wise course, once we have seen, heard and understood the pearls of wisdom in the gospel message is to give up all that prevents us from obtaining the kingdom of heaven.
Dragnets
The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net (Matt. 13:47).
Today large ocean-going fishing trawlers still use dragnets (sometimes also called drift nets) to efficiently catch tons of fish with minimum labor. The technique works in the following way: Two ships, usually a large mother ship and a smaller worker boat, stretch out a nylon cord net woven to a specific hole diameter to catch the particular species and size of fish desired. These nets are typically 50 feet wide and the length is regulated to about one mile by an international fishing treaty implemented by most nations in 1993. (Nevertheless nets as long as twenty miles long are still being placed illegally by some fishing fleets.) The effect of a dragnet is to create a wall of nylon in the sea, which entraps large volumes of fish quickly and economically. The net is enclosed and hauled in by the fisherman and the catch processed on the mother ship. The operation is then repeated until the freezers on the mother ship are filled. The technology has changed only in scale, not in principle, since the first century AD when Jesus first told this parable.
The fishermen, Simon Peter and his partners, used virtually the same technology that commercial fishing fleets use today in employing a dragnet, only their net would have been much smaller, probably about a hundred yards at most in length, and smaller also in width. The net would have been stretched between a rowboat, or dinghy, and the main sailing vessel on the sea of Galilee and the two boats would have dragged it onto the beach and there sorted out the catch.
The problem with this commercial fishing technique is the same today as it was then 2,000 years ago. The net can be extremely indiscriminate in what it encircles in the catch. The larger the net, the more time it takes to bring in the fish harvest and hence the greater the chance that other sea life will also be ensnarled. Today large drift nets also entangle dolphins and sea turtles and, because they need to surface to breathe, they invariably drown before they can be gathered into the processing ship.
Unclean sorted out
At the time of Christ as the net was dragged onto the shore it would have scooped into its weave crustaceans, eels and other “unclean” sea life which the Jews where strictly forbidden to eat under the Law. The fisherman would sort through the catch and remove all the unclean species and they were not thrown back into the sea, but discarded because of their uncleanness. Often a fire was kept on the shore and all that was unclean was tossed into it for total destruction. The picture Jesus Christ gives in v. 48 is vivid and exact. A number of the disciples were fishermen and it was perhaps at this very moment that they could appreciate the words of Jesus that he would make them fishers of men.
Application to ourselves
The word of God is like a net that seeks to catch all men and harvest them into the kingdom. But some elude the net, being of small mind and thought, they pass through the weave and remain in the sea. Others are entangled in the net, but like the seed on rocky ground, they are never truly committed and drown before the net can be harvested. Still others are brought in with the harvest of the saints in the kingdom age, but, in the sorting out of the catch to remove all that is unclean, are found lacking and are discarded into the lake of fire which is the second death.
In becoming fishers of men I sometimes think we tend to act more like fly fisherman than commercial harvesters of the sea. The fly fisherman is a much more exclusive breed. Very particular species and sizes of fish are sought and a great deal of lore accompanies the sport. A vast array of lures exist for all sorts of conditions and situations, as does weight and type of line.
How do we do our preaching work? Do we cast a wide net seeking to draw into it all manner of men and women, fully realizing that some may indeed be unclean and a sorting out will eventually be necessary, or do we target our efforts to an exclusive audience?
The Truth has grown in some remarkable places that worldly wisdom and forethought would not have imagined. It grew among the poor industrial working classes of the Midlands and Yorkshire dales of England in the last century, in the poor immigrant communities in North America in the early 20th century and today is prospering in many third world countries in spite of barriers of war, poverty and lack of education. Ecclesias and individuals ought to bear this in mind when planning preaching efforts; sometimes in the least desirable, ill-spoken-of places people exist who are the most willing to accept the Word of God.
The figures and lessons are timeless
These three short parables directed to the household have a very remarkable common attribute. For these parables to be effectively understood by the people of God through the ages, the cultural, business and technical aspects of these parables would have to retain their meaning for the past 2,000 years. Men still spend fortunes to recover buried treasure (the phenomenal amount of money spent to find and recover articles from the Titanic, or from the tomb of the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun, verifies this common link with the past.) Truly perfect large gems are still an important and profitable business and a large exceptional pearl is still priceless. Finally, the dragnet technology is still the method of finding and harvesting fish today, with all the same attendant problems. In a sense, when Jesus told these parables he was predicting that in the future, the cultural, business and technical aspects pictured would still be completely understood. This is one more remarkable proof of the Holy Spirit inspiration of the scriptures, perhaps even more potent than prophecy which sometimes we misconstrue (1 Cor. 13:8).
The challenge of these three short parables for us of the latter-day household of Christ, is not just understanding them, but implementing them in the actions of our individual lives and in the life of our community.
Next: Laboring in the Vineyard
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One