INTRODUCTION
Many people spend their lives waiting for that stroke of luck that will give them the break they long for—hoping to clinch that business deal that will set them up for life. Over the centuries, they have gone to great lengths to achieve their dreams. Such as those people in seventeenth-century Holland who made and lost huge fortunes speculating on tulips, or the one hundred thousand who migrated to the Yukon region of Canada in the 1890s in the great Klondike Gold Rush.
People were no different in the time of Jesus. And Jesus used parables to explain to them what His kingdom was about. In Matthew 13 Jesus tells two parables that show how the kingdom is acquired.
The first of these two parables is in Matthew 13:44. In the ancient East, wealthy people divided their estate into three parts: one part for doing business, one part converted into portable wealth such as jewels they could grab and carry off in times of trouble, and one part hidden, with the hope of returning to recover it. Some, of course, never returned, and this is the setting for this parable. Jesus describes a man plowing a field. He is a day laborer. The pay for his services would have been one denarius per day. This was just enough to support himself and his family. So here he is, in a field, with an ox and plow, when the plow hits an object in the ground. Out of curiosity he stops and bends down to see what he’s hit. And then he sees it. Hidden treasure! His eyes grow wide in amazement. He’d been looking for no more than one day’s wages, a single denarius, but found treasure instead. So with his heart pounding inside his chest, he covers it up, dashes home, sells every last stick he possesses, borrows money up to the hilt, and buys the field to get the treasure. And, says Jesus, this is just like the kingdom of heaven.
But what, exactly, does buried treasure and a farm laborer tell us about the kingdom of God? First, the value of the kingdom. When the plow hit the pot containing the treasure, what did the plowman do? Did he sit down and ask himself, “I wonder what this is”? No! He knew immediately. He knew that people don’t bury in a field a pot full of worthless baubles. He knew it was treasure. And he knew it immediately.
This parable tells us something else about the kingdom. He had to possess it. But he was only a laborer. It would take everything he had or could beg or borrow to buy the field. But he did it without thinking twice. In other words, compared to the kingdom of God, nothing else matters.
A helpful exercise for us is to make a list of treasure in our lives—beliefs, books, Matthew 13: The Parables of the Treasure and the Pearl good advice, experiences, people, and so on. When we do that, we often realize how much treasure we actually have. And we recognize that too often we concentrate on our poverty rather than celebrate our riches and treasures. And the greatest of these, says Jesus, is the kingdom of God.
But not only does Jesus’ parable tell us the value of the kingdom, it also shows us how the man acquired the treasure. Its discovery was totally unexpected. When he set out to plow that day, he had no inkling that he would find it. And that, says Jesus, is often the way it is with the kingdom. We meet people in the Gospels who had that experience—like Matthew himself (Luke 5:27). There he was, just doing his job, when unexpectedly this charismatic carpenter tells him to drop everything and follow Him. And he does! Indeed, many of us have had experiences where the joy of the kingdom has taken us by surprise. Sometimes in simple occurrences like hearing about other people’s experiences of God, or reading a single verse of Scripture, our lives were changed by something we could not have predicted. C. S. Lewis tells of how he came to faith in Christ: “I was driven to Whipsnade [Zoo] one sunny morning. When we set out, I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did.”1 Surprised by joy. And this, this, says Jesus, is the kingdom of God.
Then, Jesus tells another parable (Matt 13:45–46). Now, we are not walking across a field with a farm laborer but sitting next to a pearl merchant. This man travels the Mediterranean world, bartering with representatives of royal families and the fabulously rich, being commissioned by prominent politicians.
One day he sits down to barter. On the trading table is a pearl that catches his eye immediately. He picks it up and subjects it to a battery of tests: luster, surface, shape, color, size. First, luster: the most important factor in choosing pearls. Now this pearl has the highest luster he’s ever seen. Its inner glow is hypnotic. Second, surface: he can detect no surface blemishes. It is flawless. Third, shape: this is perfection itself. An absolutely round, spherical pearl. Fourth, color: now in his time he’s seen all colors. This pearl is the most prized of all: a delicate rose tint. Fifth, size: well, he already knows this is the largest pearl he has ever seen. So, he subjects it to the final test. He rubs it gently against the edge of his tooth. It feels slightly rough, like fine sandpaper. And with that, he knows it is genuine. Imitation pearls are as smooth as glass.
He whips out his mobile phone, contacts his financial advisers, and yells, “Sell. Sell everything. I’ve found it! A pearl beyond my wildest dreams.” And this, says Jesus, is the kingdom of heaven.
But what does a pearl trader tell us about the kingdom of God? Well, like the treasure found by the laborer, we see its value. The merchant knew its value as soon as he’d assessed it. Just like the pearl, says Jesus, the kingdom of heaven is priceless. Also, like the laborer, he realized he would need to sell everything he possessed. So, says Jesus, the kingdom is worth all that we have and all that we are (Phil 3:8–9).
But the merchant also differs from the laborer. Searching for pearls was his business. He was looking for what he found. He took his time. Only when completely satisfied did he sell everything. That’s the way it is for many who enter the kingdom of God. They take their time. So, the church should be a place where people can take the time to test the kingdom. Some of us recognized the value of the gospel years ago, spontaneously, like the plowman. Some of us are still with the merchant, testing the pearl.
And there are plenty of so-called pearls: materialism, secularism, atheistic humanism, and so on. One by one, we examine them and put them to one side. They have the surface luster, but these are not pearls in which you will sink your life’s savings. And this, quite rightly, takes time. As a church we should not forget this. Because this, says Jesus, is also the kingdom of heaven.
CONCLUSION
Let’s remember these parables in the mission of the church. Let’s remember that some people meet the gospel and accept it immediately. But for others, commitment to the gospel comes only after a lifetime of searching. In our witnessing as a church, we need to be receptive to both the laborer and the pearl merchant.
Jesus said that the kingdom is like treasure hidden in a field; the kingdom is like a fabulous pearl that takes your breath away. It’s so precious that however you encounter it—by surprised discovery, or after years of thought—in comparison, everything pales into insignificance. This is the kingdom of God.
2 C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis Signature Classics Edition (London: Collins, 2012), 189.
Laurence A. Turner, PhD, is a principal lecturer emeritus in Old Testament at Newbold College of Higher Education, Bracknell, UK, and adjunct external higher degree research supervisor at Avondale University, Cooranbong, NSW, Australia.
