Matthew 13:1-9 – The Parables of the Kingdom – Finding a place where he can speak to multitudes without being overrun, Yeshua finds a place to sit by the lake, likely the Sea of Galilee. Here he begins to teach the people in parable form. The word “parable” comes from the verb ballo (to throw, lay or place) and the prefix para (meaning alongside of). It conveys the meaning of placing or laying alongside something for the purpose of comparison.
A parable is a story that helps to illustrate a truth or teaching. There is a helpful principle we can learn and apply from parables; The response of the teaching is partially dependent on the character and response of those who hear. In our portion of Scripture before us the teacher is the Messiah. This parable is about the message of the Good News of the long-awaited Messiah and His promised kingdom. This parable teaches that though the seed and the sower might be good, the results depend upon the soil in which it is placed.
The interpretation is given to us by Jesus in Matthew 13:18-23; The Bad Soil represents the response of people. There are three different characteristics:
1. Disinterest – Instead of being receptive to the seeds of truth, the heart of the person is filled with the concerns of life and so the corresponding soil is described as hard. When the seed of truth comes and falls on the soil, it is discarded or ignored like the multitude of junk mail we all receive.
2. Emotional – The rocky ground is warm and moist and when the hits it sprouts quickly. However, an emotional responder lacks depth of commitment and in the face of trials or testing the seed planted withers and dies.
3. Worldliness – In this case the seed takes hold and grows but in the face of competition with the cares and affairs of the world the seed dies from lack of nourishment; The opposite of a tree planted by streams of living waters as Psalm 1 describes.
The seed planted in the good soil brings forth not only sprouts and growth but eventually it bears fruit. While the seed had the ability to bring an “abundant” harvest the results are largely determined by the cultivation of the soil and if the plant is pruned to add growth and how well it’s fed and watered.
Jesus concludes the parable with “he who has ears, let him hear”; In other words, if you can understand it then receive and act on it. Perhaps this was a challenge to those who were open to become one of his followers, because shortly he would give to his disciples the interpretation, as well as an interpretation which is why he was now speaking to the multitudes in parables.
Matthew 13:10-15 The Disciples wanted to know why he taught in parables that were difficult to understand. Jesus responds by telling them that he taught in parables to reveal truths to those who would receive Him and to conceal the meaning from those who would not. When Jesus speaks of mysteries, he is speaking of heavenly truths not before revealed and understood by God’s people. They have to do with the Kingdom of heaven and are further revealed in the writings of the New Covenant (Rom. 11:25; Eph 3:3-5).
Remember the theme of Matthew is the King bringing the Kingdom of heaven to His people. Heaven is not some far away place that we are hoping to enter; it is attainable here and now. It begins with the decision to allow the King to reign in your heart and it becomes more real as we allow the King to have more control of our lives so that His kingdom becomes more operational in our lives. That is why losing our life is essential to finding abundant life (Matthew 16:25). When we surrender and allow the King to rule our lives, we are used by Him to advance His kingdom of Love and Grace to a lost and dying world. The flesh can never bring the Kingdom to others it is only by the Holy Spirit (Zech. 4:6). Man has tried Communism, Socialism, Religious Theocracy, Democracy, Imperialism, benevolent dictatorship, all these worldly systems of government have failed and will continue to fail. The only thing that will advance God’s Kingdom is allowing the King to freely rule and transform our heart and mind by His Word. One of the reasons that anarchy and chaos is prevalent in our world is that man continually says to God, we will not let you rule over us. Each one of us in one way or another will not allow the King to rule in our hearts and lives.
This takes faith. It’s not merely the work of the adversary that has brought the world to its present unhappy state, it has been the failure of man to recognize the real source of peace and life. “The result is that even though they hear physically they do not hear God’s voice in their spirit. This leads Yeshua to quote Isaiah’s prophecy in Isa. 6:9-10. Isaiah’s message was to be God’s means for hiding the truth from an unreceptive people. Jesus’ parables are doing the same in this generation seven hundred years later.
Matthew 13:16-17 The mysteries of the kingdom related in parables are for those who respond to the King. Jesus then adds that whoever has, to him shall more be given…but those who don’t have even what they do have will be taken away. This means that those who do not recognize The King and submit to His words what they do have will be taken away from them. This will eventually lead to the great white throne judgment when they will be placed in darkness for eternity. These people, while hearing and seeing did not understand or perceive as a direct result of the hardness of their hearts. But believers have been truly blessed to have their eyes and their hearts opened by God so that they could respond to Him. However we too will be judged at the judgment seat of Messiah which is for believers.
Matthew 13:18-23 – The sower of the seed here are not identified but in the next parable the sower is identified as “the Son of Man” (Matthew 13:37). Matthew assumes that his audience understands the identity of the seed. The seed is identified in the Luke account as the “Word of God” Luke 8:11. The written Word is the Scriptures, and the Living or incarnate Word is the Messiah, Yeshua. Both are necessary for spiritual life (John 5:39). In the explanation of the parable here the focus is on the the preparation of the soil. The hard packed soil is compared to one who hears the Word but does not understand because of the hardness of his heart. Remorse, conviction concerning sin, openness to wisdom and truth are not present in this hard heart.
The rocky soil is a shallow man whose life is superficial. When hearing the Good News, he rejoices over what it can do for him but is not willing to surrender his life, confessing his sins, and having a humble and teachable spirit. He remains independent of God’s will in his daily life. The result is that when affliction and persecution come because of his faith, he falls away. The Greek word translated “falls away”, is skandalizo, where the word scandalized comes from and means “to cause to stumble or fall”. A superficial Christian is scandalized, or stumbles when his faith is put to the test. The seed planted among thorns is too involved in the world and its ways for the seed to take root and grow in his heart. The love or focus on money continues to make it difficult if not impossible to accomplish the will go God in his life.
The seed sown in good soil on the other hand has been cultivated and tilled and will receive the seed in an ideal environment. This kind of soil has been prepared through the prayers of others and the work of the Holy Spirit and has become teachable and open. The result is an abundant life and a harvest of fruit. When storms come this person will grow and not wither like the seed planted among thorns.
Matthew 13:24-30– The parable of the wheat and the tares focus on bad seed sowed by an enemy of the owner of the field. Under the cover of night while his servants are resting his adversary sowed tares among the wheat. Tares comes from the Greek zizanion, which closely resembles wheat and is difficult to distinguish between the two. Roman laws were enacted to counter this kind of crime, because there were people who would do this.
When the owner was asked by his servants if they should go and pull out the tares they were told no, lest they harm the wheat coming from the good seed. Reapers were more experienced at discerning wheat from tares.
An interesting rabbinic perspective at the time of Yeshua might shed some light on this parable as well. According to the Talmud tares were not a different seed but a degeneration of the original seed. The Rabbis believed that even the ground had been guilty of pollution before the judgment of the flood. Those who heard Yeshua’s words would think of these tares as mutated wheat originally sprung up at the time of the flood because of the corruptness of the earth, which by now was common in their fields. Biblically all of creation came under the curse of Adam’s sin.
Matthew 13:31-32 then Yeshua puts forth the parable of the Mustard seed. The mustard seed was the smallest seed utilized regularly in planting in Judea. Its minimal size was often used to describe small things (Matt 17:20). The mustard “tree” grows to a height of 8 to 12 feet in a season. Israel was not expecting the coming kingdom to start small and grow rapidly. This parable seems to be an allusion to the smallness of the response to the Kingdom, which will one day grow way behind its tiny seed. The picture of birds coming to nest, is being fulfilled in all the peoples of the world finding rest and shade in the Kingdom of God thru faith in Yeshua. This corresponds to Daniel’s vision in Daniel 4:10-12 of a great tree where beasts find rest, shade and sustenance. This is described as the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar which consisted of a consolidation of many nations.
Matthew 13:33 – Leaven was used in the baking of bread; A piece of dough was removed from a batch of leavened dough, and place inside a new batch which would then cause the new batch to rise. The point of this parable is that small things can have a great deal of influence. The kingdom even though it appears small and insignificant can have a major impact because it contains the power of God. A second positive point is that people prefer leavened bread to unleavened. Just as the leaven of this parable must be placed inside the meal, so too God has placed Believers in the world but not of the world to have a permeating influence. The disciples did not ask for an explanation of the parables of the mustard seed and leaven which seems to indicate that they understood its meaning.
Matthew 13:34-35 – Matthew tells us here that Jesus was speaking to the people in parables to fulfill the words of Psalm 78:2, which says, “I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old. This psalm was written by Asaph a poet and prophet who served under King David and Solomon. It describes God’s faithfulness in Israel’s past in the face of their disobedience. Asaph called the Psalm a parable in v. 2 to convey that his observations were to teach/prophesy so Israel might return to God. Matthew is saying this is exactly what Yeshua was teaching in his day by rejecting their God given King.
Matthew 13:36-43 Now Yeshua speaks to His disciples privately and explains the parable of the wheat and the tares. The one sowing the seed is the Son of Man. Yeshua used this title repeatedly beginning in Matt. 8:20 This title looks back to Daniel 7:14-15 ““I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him. “And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed. The field is the world though many have seen this parable as an illustration of the church with unbelievers and believers growing together. While it is acceptable to use as an illustration, the interpretation is that this parable is talking about Believers in the world. The tares or weeds are sons of the evil one, or Satan, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom and the separation of the wheat from the tares will take place at the end of the age.
The devil, the enemy of God and His kingdom, placed the tares in the field. Tares resemble wheat and are not distinguishable until It’s time to gather the crop. This enemy places his counterfeits among the sons of the kingdom (true followers of Jesus) in the world to hinder the advancement of the kingdom during the present age. In the future when the Son of Man comes, He will remove these false believers from the kingdom (stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness) and judge them. When Yeshua returns to earth, He will judge those not aligned with Him (Dan 12:12; Mt 25:31-46). At the end of that period of judgment, the sons of the evil one are removed from the kingdom and experience weeping and gnashing of teeth. At that time the righteous will share and enjoy the glory of God and His kingdom.
Not pulling out the weeds, is a call to believers to not pull out those that appear to be children of the devil. Throughout the centuries the church has attempted to do this and there have been tragedy and shame brought upon the Church. The Crusades, the Inquisitions and the pogroms of Eastern Europe were all motivated to purge so-called unbelievers or weeds. The church is called to proclaim the Gospel, not to try and pull weeds that are not a part of the church. Church discipline is the way believers deal with sin among us. But the Lord will use the world, the flesh and the devil to deal with the ungodly and rebellious.
The Lord in the final judgment at the end of days will determine who are His true children and who are not. The Lord’s holy angels are appointed to separate the wheat from chaff. The chaff will be thrown into the fire where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Revelation 20:10 Hell will not be a place of fellowship and joviality with fellow sinners it will be a place of endless sorrow and misery. Once the tares are removed then the wheat, the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. This refers to Daniel’s comments in 12:3.
Matthew 13:44 – Judea had been a battleground for years leading up to the time of Yeshua. The Seleucid Empire and Ptolemaic empires and then Rome all occupied the Land. This was why people would hide anything of great value in the ground to keep it from the invading armies. When land owner died or was brought into captivity that treasure would be lost until someone by accident came across it or he returned to his land. In this parable a man comes across such a hidden treasure and reburies it. The field does not belong to him, so he sells all that he has so that he can buy the field. Now some might question the ethics of this action but that really isn’t the point of the parable. The lesson has to do with selling all that he has to buy the land. However, what he did was not unethical, since the present owner had not hidden it or he would have retrieved it before selling the land. Rabbinic law ruled that money or possessions found that had been lost and whose owner was dead or unknown, belonged to the finder. The man in this parable is so honest that rather than keep the found property, he first sells all that he has so that he can buy the field, then claims the treasure that he discovered on the land.
Matthew 13:45-46 – This merchant was a serious buyer of pearls. He knew the real thing when it came along and the value of this priceless pearl. In ancient times pearls were prized and valued and like diamonds today are easily transportable.It was a way to keep a large sum secure against inflation and hidden easily. The Talmud spoke of pearls as being beyond price. In Matthew 7:6 Jesus warned his disciples not to cast their pearls before swine. This was well understood in that day related to something valuable.
The central truth about these two last parables has to do with the need to personally appropriate the kingdom of heaven for oneself. You cannot be born or inherit it. There is a cost involved and it must be paid by everyone who desires to be a citizen of heaven. It is a gift, yet its value is priceless. It is not seen easily seen so one’s eyes must be opened in order to find it as Luke 17:20-21 describes. These parables tell us further that the Kingdom is the source of real joy.
Matthew 13:47-48 Jesus uses an illustration familiar to fishermen to illustrate God’s judgment on unbelievers. There were several ways that fishing was conducted such as hook and casting nets. There were different kinds of nets some for individual and others for commercial casting. Jesus is describing the commercial type in which large nets are set out by more than one boat and dragged through the water. Because the net permitted nothing to escape, all sorts of things besides desirable fish were caught. It swept everything in its path, weeds, objects dropped overboard from boats, all manner of sea life, and fish of every kind. When the net was filled, it would take many men several hours just to drag it up on the beach. Then they sat down, and gathered the good fish into containers, and threw the bad away. The separation of the fish pictures God’s judgment at the end of the age.
The parable of the wheat and tares illustrates the coexistence of believers and unbelievers in the world today, and this parable illustrates their separation as the form of the kingdom changes. During the present era, which is the church age, God permits unbelief and unrighteousness. But the time is coming when His toleration will end, and His judgment will begin.
The first phase of judgment will be separation of the wicked from the righteous, the tares from among the wheat. The dragnet of God’s judgment will bring all men to the shores of eternity for final separation to their ultimate destiny, believers to eternal life and unbelievers to eternal damnation.
Over and over Jesus warns about the horrors of hell and pleads with men to avoid it by coming to Him for salvation. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33) and does not desire that any perish (2 Peter 3:9). The Lord wept over Jerusalem because His people would not come to Him (Luke 19:41). John tells us that God so loved the world that He sent His Son to offer salvation.
The Biblical teaching of hell cannot be avoided even though it is difficult to discuss and accept. Jesus spoke more of hell than any of the prophets or apostles. He said more about hell than about love. The Lord gives several specific and direct warnings about hell: “Whoever shall say, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell” (Matthew 5:22), and, “It is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell” (Matthew 13:29).
Hell is not merely the fate of forever reliving bad memories or of going out into nothingness, as many people believe and teach. Nor is it a place where sinners will continue their sinning, unrestrained and un-rebuked, there will be no pleasure at all in hell. Scripture teaches us that hell is a place of constant torment, misery and pain. The torment is often described as darkness (Matthew 22:13).
Hell’s torment is also described as fire that will never go out and cannot be extinguished (Mark 9:43) and from which the damned will never find relief. Hell will involve the torment of both body and soul. Neither the soul nor the body is annihilated at death. When an unsaved person dies, his soul goes out from the presence of God into everlasting torment. At the resurrection all the dead, the bodies of the unsaved will be raised, and those resurrected bodies designed for hell and will join their soul in hell’s torment (Matthew 10:28; John 5:29; Acts 24:15; Revelation 20:11-15).
Just as believers will be fitted with resurrected bodies so they can enjoy the glories of heaven (1 Cor. 15:35ff) forever, unbelievers will be fitted with resurrected bodies so they can endure the torments of hell without being destroyed. Hell will be experienced in varying degrees, some with greater torment than others (Hebrews 10:28-29; Matthew 11:22-23), but it will be everlasting. Nothing will be so horrible about hell as its endlessness. People in hell will experience the total absence of hope.
Matthew 13:47-50 – Jesus uses an illustration familiar to fishermen to illustrate God’s judgment on unbelievers. There were a number of ways that fishing was conducted, hook and line as well as net casting. There were a number of different kinds of net casting consisting of individual and commercial type casting. Jesus is describing the commercial type in which large nets are set out by more than one boat and then dragged through the water. Because the net permitted nothing to escape, all sorts of things besides the desirable fish were caught.
It swept everything in its path, weeds, objects dropped overboard from boats, all manner of sea life, and fish of every kind. When the net was filled, it would take a large number of men several hours just to drag it up on the beach. Then they sat down, and gathered the good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away. The separation of the good and bad fish represents God’s judgment at the end of the age.
The parable of the wheat and tares illustrates the coexistence of believers and unbelievers in the present form of the kingdom, and this parable illustrates their separation as the form of the kingdom changes. During the present era, which is the church age, God permits unbelief and unrighteousness. But the time is coming when His toleration will end and His judgment will begin. The first phase of judgment will be the separation of the wicked from among the righteous, the tares from among the wheat.
The dragnet of God’s judgment will bring all men to the shores of eternity for final separation to their ultimate destiny, believers to eternal life and unbelievers to eternal damnation. Over and over Jesus warns about the horrors of hell and pleads with men to avoid it by coming to Him for salvation. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 33) and does not desire that anyone perish (2 Peter 3:9). The Lord wept over Jerusalem because His people would not come to Him (Luke 19:41).
The Biblical teaching of hell cannot be avoided even though it is so difficult to discuss and accept. Jesus spoke more of hell than any of the prophets or apostles. He said more about hell than about love. The Lord gives several specific and direct warnings about hell: “Whoever shall say, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell” (Matthew 5:22), and, “It is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell” (Matthew 13:29).
Hell is not merely the fate of forever reliving bad memories or of going out into nothingness, as many people believe and teach. Nor is it a place where sinners will continue their sinning, unrestrained and unrebuked, there will be no pleasure at all in hell.
Scripture teaches us that hell is a place of constant torment, misery, pain. The torment is often described as darkness (Matthew 22:13). Hell’s torment is also described as fire that will never go out and cannot be extinguished (Mark 9:43) and from which the damned will never find relief. Hell will involve the torment of both body and soul. Neither the soul nor the body is annihilated at death. When an unsaved person dies, his soul goes out from the presence of God into everlasting torment.
At the resurrection of all the dead, the bodies of the unsaved will be raised, and those resurrected bodies will join the soul in hell’s torment (Matthew 10:28; John 5:29; Acts 24:15; Revelation 20:11-15). Just as believers will be fitted with resurrected bodies so they can enjoy the glories of heaven forever, unbelievers will be fitted with resurrected bodies so they can endure the torments of hell without being destroyed.
The torments of hell will be experienced in varying degrees, some will experience greater torment than others (Hebrews 10:28-29; Matthew 11:22-23). The torment of hell will be everlasting. Nothing will be so horrible about hell as its endlessness. People in hell will experience the total absence of hope.
Matthew 13: 51-52 – When Jesus asked His disciples if they understood Him, they responded that they did, but we find later that they didn’t. Based on their response he alludes to scribes who have become disciples. A scribe was one who not only could write but was also a teacher of the Law. Scribes were part of the elite of Jewish religious life. Jesus was saying that His disciples were now in that class of men. Like scribes without going through their intense studies. Their school consisted of walking and talking with the master and later He would continue to instruct them by His indwelling Spirit. They are now described as heads of the household. These were people responsible for the well being of the family. The disciples were responsible for the broadcast of the Good News of the Kingdom given to Israel and through them to the world. They were given the keys to the kingdom. They would explain and interpret the New Covenant in the light of the Old.
Matthew 13:53-58 – He left Capernaum and then headed to the home of His youth, Nazareth. He began teaching in the Synagogue. Jesus spoke there earlier when He began His ministry Luke 4:17-22.
When Jesus returned His reputation was now far greater. The people were astonished at His wisdom, knowledge, and miraculous powers. They were bewildered because He had not been a part of the Rabbinical Schools in Judea for training, nor did He speak and teach in the traditional way. He was so different than them even though His sisters and brothers appeared normal. This is one of the key verses that reveals that while Mary did not remain a virgin after the birth of Jesus. She gave birth to sons and daughters including James (Jacob), the author of the New Testament letter.
His adopted father Joseph is described as a carpenter, who worked with wood, but primarily with stone. Jesus took over the business for His father (Mark 6:3) and so his great notoriety as a man of God was a great shock to the local people of Nazareth. They were offended by his prophetic ways and decrees leading Yeshua to say to tem the common proverb “a prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown”. Even His own family didn’t believe in Him until after His death and resurrection because of their attitude, Jesus did not do many miracles there, not because He couldn’t or that they lacked faith but, He chose not as a result of the hardness of their hearts.
