After the Parable of the Sower, the disciples ask Jesus why he is teaching in parables (Matthew 13:10-17). Until Matthew 13, Jesus has not used parables to teach the crowds.
The reason this type of teaching is a problem is that this is the first true parable that Jesus has used in the Gospel of Matthew. The Sermon on the Mount used figurative language (speck in your neighbor’s eye, salt and light, etc.), but now he is using a full blown, easy to hear but difficult to understand, parable!
The Secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven
Jesus explains why he now teaches in parables He says the “secrets of the kingdom” of heaven are given to the disciples (not the crowds) (13:11). “Secrets” is not esoteric knowledge. The Greek μυστήριον refers to something which must be revealed to be known. It is not the answer to a riddle which can be guessed from the clues, but more like “What have I got in my pocket?”
When something is described as a mystery, the idea of a revelation of something not previously revealed. A mystery is something that simply was not revealed before. It is not something that was there all along and you didn’t understand it. A mystery was something that was a secret, unknown, in the past, but is now being revealed to man.
What is the Mystery of the Kingdom?
The idea of kingdom is all over the Old Testament, so what is the secret part? Based on Jesus’s teaching in the parables of the kingdom, the unrevealed part of the Kingdom is the commitment required of the disciples of the Kingdom. “That there should be a coming of God’s kingdom in the way Jesus proclaimed, in a hidden secret form, working quietly among men, was utterly novel to Jesus’ contemporaries. The Old Testament gave no such promises.” (George Ladd, The Presence of the Future, 225).
For many Jews in the Second Temple period, what got you into the Kingdom was being Jewish. Now Jesus is teaching that not everybody who is Jewish is going to be included. In fact, many who were considered outsiders to the Pharisees (unclean, Samaritans, Gentiles, etc.) will be included, and surprisingly the Pharisees will be excluded.
Rather than attack the Romans, Jesus attacks Satan and destroys his kingdom, first through the miracles and preaching of his ministry, and then finally through this death and resurrection.The Jews only expected the physical kingdom, not the spiritual one that Jesus initiates. The Kingdom is present in Jesus’s ministry because he is the king and he is exercising his control and authority over all things, especially those things that were a part of Satan’s realm.
What is the current “state of the Kingdom”? Is the Church the Kingdom?
Some argue that we are living in the kingdom, as established by Christ during his ministry, especially in his death and resurrection. This is the typical reformation position and implies several things. First, the church replaces Israel as God’s people, and secondly, there is no future literal kingdom that follows the second coming. This position is difficult to support if one desires to read the Old Testament prophets seriously.
The “restoration from exile” theme appears in nearly every prophet, with dozens of texts that imply a future utopian like period when God will rule earth. From looking at the Pauline epistles, especially Romans 9-11, there is certainly an anticipation of a restoration of the nation of Israel in the future. It is very often observed that the sort of Kingdom teaching found in the gospels disappears in the Pauline letters.
The kingdom cannot be present today because the King is gone, and the authority of the King is not being exercised today (although the Catholic church would say that the Pope exercises the King’s power for him until he returns!) Later in his ministry, Jesus explains that the kingdom will go into a “dormant” stage, when he is away, and will return in the future. He does not say that during that time the Jew and Gentile will be saved in one body, that is a mystery saved for the Apostle Paul to reveal. The interval seen by Jesus was a brief time of testing of Israel prior to his glorious return with “all his saints” (Matt 24-25).
Hi Philip
Are the parables of the kingdom not describing a present aspect of the kingdom? What does Paul mean when he says we have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his son’. Col 1:13? Or what does John mean when he says we have been made a kingdom and priests (Rev 1). Or that we are partners in the suffering and kingdom and endurance (Rev 1).
When Jesus says the kingdom would be taken from C1 Israel and given to a nation producing the fruits thereof who is the nation? Is it not the fledgling messianic community gathered around Jesus, the beginnings of what will the NT church, Messiah’s people, composed of Jew and gentile ultimately one in Christ?
Who belong to the eschatological Zion? Is it not those in Christ (Isa 54, Gals 4)?
I try to see both a present aspect, an “already” in the parables of the mustard seed and yeast, but a future “not yet” in the parable of the weeds and net (apocalyptic judgment is in view in both parables). Over the next few posts I will cover each of the parables in Matthew 13, so hopefully the already/not yet answer will be more clear.
You also ask,”the kingdom would be taken from C1 Israel and given to a nation producing the fruits thereof who is the nation? Is it not the fledgling messianic community gathered around Jesus…” that is still coming in Matthew, but I will express my opinion here (and hope to support it better in future posts), the others who receive the kingdom are Jesus’s followers, the messianic community who are already following Jesus, in contrast to the Pharisees and other temple aristocracy who have rejected Jesus. In the parable of the Sower, the unprepared soil would include the Pharisees, etc., and the prepared soil refers to the disciples. They have (already) been prepared by God and have left everything to follow Jesus, and presumably they are already producing fruit. They were sent on the mission in Chapter 10 to preach the kingdom to the villages in Galilee.
The question of why does/did Jesus teach is a great one. I cannot help but think about how we as Humans remember and connect with lessons. We tend to track better with stories or examples. When I sit in Church today my pastor seems to use a story from his life or from someone else to help illustrate his point. I think this could be another reason why Christ used Parables. It is not apart of His response because He said, “The Secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, they may be ever seeing but never perceiving”(Mark4:11-12a). For those who seek the Kingdom of God will understand and learn more of the Kingdom but those who choose not to seek God will fall short of understanding. To me it Parables seem like a treasure map. Those who seek the treasure will read and seek understanding of the clues but for those who could care less see it as nonsense. To me Parables are a beautiful way the Lord gives glimpses of Heaven to us.
I have often wondered why Jesus chose this style of teaching, through parables. In many of the parables I have read, they appear when a question is asked, and the parable is the answer. As someone who does not like to beat around the bush, parables would cause me more confusion than anything. However, I understand why they were used and see their importance. The parables answered the people’s questions but in a way that asked them to think of themselves and answer the question themselves. Jesus invited people to think deeper and evaluate their actions, words, and heart in a humble and thoughtful way. If we truly seek the Kingdom of God and wish for salvation, we need to dive deeper and understand our ‘mission’ and what is asked of us. We need to be willing to look in the mirror and think about how our actions are affecting others and how, as children of God, they are perceived by others.
It was also interesting to read that people believe that we are currently living in the kingdom. We are not living in the times when Jesus first spoke of the kingdom of God or when Paul was referencing that the old had gone and the new had come, but I don’t believe that we have reached that ‘again’ stage either. Like stated in the post, I believe we are in that dormant period of time where we are waiting for Jesus to return.