The Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearl… Matt 13:45 (NIV)
Pearl of Great Price – Parable Series 2 – Part 5
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4
(OR go to Parable Series 1)
A moment of confession before we begin (and it will tie in nicely to the end of this series…).
I’ve been tired this week. I haven’t felt well and typing and designing on my MacBook has flared up an old shoulder injury… I'm in a bit of pain. (can you hear the violins I’m playing for myself right now? ha!). To wrap up writing for the week, I thought I’d pick an easier parable, one that wouldn’t require too much brain power or heart investment to write about. So, I chose the “The Pearl of Great Price” found in Matthew 13:45-46. It’s only two verses long… easy!
Wrong.
This parable has messed me up – like they all have. Which again, is a parables intent.
The parable becomes problematic by word nine. “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant…”
WHAT! A Merchant? Heaven? God’s Kingdom?
To first Century Jews, a merchant was NOT something they would associate with what the Kingdom of Heaven was like. Merchants were bargain hunters, dealers, often viewed as unscrupulous swindlers. Throughout the Bible, merchants traded in slaves, and the health and the lives of others. Check out what Revelation 3 has to say about merchants. Generally speaking, they had negative connotations in society, and this reflected in the stories of their culture.
And the pearl is interesting too… in Jewish culture, an oyster is not kosher. In Roman terms, a pearl was the most priceless and exclusive jewel. Not many would have even seen a pearl let alone held one in their hands to know what it was and what it felt like. It was a mysterious treasure most only dreamt about… Rumours of its beauty, stories of its rarity, and the forbidden nature of its origin, would have made this jewel a very interesting and mysterious treasure to talk about.
We also need to look at the way the sentence works… The Kingdom of Heaven is not the merchant, and it’s not the pearl… “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.” (Matt 13:45-46).
The Kingdom of Heaven is like this story. It’s not a character in the story, it's the plot… the summations of the transactions within it. It would be nice and simple if the Kingdom of God were the merchant or even the pearl. But if it takes on those characters, then it becomes something that can be bought into or sold; a commodity that can be traded.
The merchant, our strange protagonist, embarks on a quest. He dreams of trading in pearls… strands of them! He could make a lot of money and live an extravagant life if he became the merchant known for exquisite pearls. He searched the world over to find them. But then something unexpected happened… he came across something he had never dreamed of… something that surpassed his desires for trade, for buying and selling… he was completely captivated by this one magnificent pearl whose beauty effortlessly exceeded them all. And then everything changed. He knew this pearl belonged with him. He sold ALL he had. Not just his wares, not just his business… EVERYTHING. He liquidated all and bought this pearl of great price. He walked away from this final transaction, which was his last as a merchant, a changed man. He was no longer a trader of wares, or a seeker of treasures. For he had found his treasure and had bought it with all that he had and walked away a man transformed.
That is what being in the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
Go to Part 6 – Ultimate Value
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