Daily Bread

‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

‘Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’ When Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place.

I'm conscious that I might not explain this well... so bear with me!

The context of all these two paragraphs is that the Scribes (teachers of the law) said that righteousness was found in and only through the law, yet Jesus was teaching a 'new' way, that through his own life of fulfilling the law, righteousness would be found by faith in his death and resurrection. In other words, the law was the old way and Jesus is the new way! Got it?

When you throw a net into the sea you do not know what you are going to catch, and this one of the metaphors with which Jesus described the Kingdom of Heaven — a kingdom that encompasses everything.

The net cast by Jesus catches many different kinds of people, and in the same way that those fishing with nets sorted out their catch (keeping the good fish and throwing the bad fish back) Jesus explained that there will be a sorting or 'refining' of people.

Now, of course, this sorting is not some kind of 'weighing on cosmic scales' to see if someone is evil or good! No, righteousness does not come from within ourselves but from God alone — specifically through the work and person of Jesus Christ, and the end of the age of which Jesus speaks is the age which culminated in his own death and resurrection.

The cross of Christ was a moment in time that stretched back to the beginning of creation and projected forward to encompass everything that would ever be. It is true to say that we are being refined by Christ and evil is being dealt with. The parable of the net and the furnace is a metaphor for all evil being dealt with through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The context of this teaching is that Matthew was writing to a Jewish audience and he wanted to highlight the danger of rejecting the new way of Jesus — specifically for the Scribes who were the keepers and protectors of the law. Matthew also seemed to want to assure his readers, who were likely being persecuted, that they would be vindicated and that one day all evil would be dealt with.

In the last paragraph, Jesus was described using the metaphor of being this 'new' treasure. Scribes were trained in the law, and so for a Scribe to be 'trained for the kingdom of heaven' meant to understand and hold together both the old law (which they upheld) but also the new way of righteousness through Christ.

Phew! It's not easy unpacking metaphors that relate to first century Jewish culture!

So... for us, the importance is that we understand the trajectory of the story. Evil was, is, and will be purged through Jesus Christ and righteousness is found in and through Christ, therefore let's start living that future 'evil-free' heaven in the here and now.

Holy God
You know how
I long to be
pure and holy,
yet I know
I cannot achieve
righteousness in
my own strength,
but only through
Christ who lives in me.
Therefore I put my
trust in you again,
asking for your patience,
and for your forgiveness.
Now and forever.