New Thoughts (4/8/07-4/12/07)
Here, we have arrived at a brief summary statement of how the preceding parables exemplified Jesus’ methods. This is how He taught. He taught using parables. He always taught using parables. Like the disciples, we may be asking why. Why does He choose this particular method of teaching? Well, it is the standard method of the rabbis, which might have been reason enough. However, as we heard Him say when His own asked the question, the using of parables was a far more purposeful decision on His part. Matthew reiterates the point in this passage. The prophet he chooses to make his point is, as it turns out, the psalmist Asaph. This is not a man generally known for his prophetic utterances, as was Isaiah, and yet, here is prophecy poured forth.
There’s a lesson in that all by itself, before I continue. There was an official office of prophet to be seen in the kingdom of Israel. It was a court office of significance. What rendered the prophet unique amongst the officers of the court, though, was that he alone was not the king’s appointee. He was God’s appointee, even as the king was. In the New Testament age, we still see the office of prophet in action, although in a modified way. The nation is, for all intents and purposes, no more, so there is no court in which the prophet might take his office. Instead, he is positioned in the community of faith.
There were always, however, those who spoke prophetically without having that official position. Here, we see it in Asaph’s song. This was not, so far as I know, a prophet. He was a musician, a psalmist. That was his position and his office in the house of God. That he spoke prophetically on this one occasion was no guarantee that he would ever do so again. Neither was it an indication that those who heard this word should go back over everything else he ever said and reconsider it in this prophetic light.
Now, many will question the very existence of any such office of the prophet in our own day. That’s fine. Most of those who are raising objections are thoughtful believers, with deep concerns for preserving a faith that is not only sincere but also true to God’s revelation. That is a wonderful thing. Further, their concern for those who, at least by appearances, are placing their faith in prophecy as a thing more trustworthy and important that Scripture is a valid concern, and one that should be taken seriously by those who accept the prophetic office as active in our time. However, I find that most of the arguments by which they seek to wholly dispose of that office in our day are unconvincing.
The idea of Asaph as a prophetic voice, though, leads me to look beyond the office, and into God’s sovereignty. He is not required by some eternal law to restrict Himself to speaking through such authorized venues. He is not restricted to speaking His warnings in such a way as would prevent Him from speaking where an official prophet could not be found. The same texts that show us the activities of the official prophet also show us God speaking through the most unlikely of vessels. Balaam, who may have been a prophet, but not one amongst the official, appointed by God prophets, was yet entrusted with speaking one of the great prophecies regarding the birth of Jesus Messiah. The magi who traveled to submit themselves to this newborn king were likewise devotees of false religion, and yet entrusted with this great truth. Why, even Balaam’s donkey was famously entrusted with God’s word. How can we look upon this and think that now, in our day, God is no longer allowed to speak directly? It is one thing to point out that He will never speak what is contrary to the body of His revelation as He has poured it out in the text of Scripture. That is the keystone of sound belief. It does not, however, preclude His speaking in our day.
Many have pointed to the text in which Paul says that the spiritual gifts such as prophecy will continue until ‘the perfect comes’. They point to our Jesus and say, look, Perfection has come! The gifts must therefore be at an end. Yet, by that same declaration, the gifts that we read of as being poured out throughout the days of the Apostles would likewise be ruled out. Indeed, by that logic, the gifts did not even begin to operate until after they had come to an end, which would be sheerest nonsense.
I also see the opening of Hebrews offered as proof that subsequent to the Bible, there would be no further direct communication from God, because He had spoken ‘in these last days’ through His Son (Heb 1:1-2), after having spoken through so many other means. And yet, I see nothing in that declaration that would lead me to conclude that having now spoken through His Son, He was resigning Himself to millennial silence. His Son, the living expression of the Logos Word of God, was certainly the ultimate declaration of what He wished to speak to His creation. If there is a lodestone by which to test every other claimant to Godly utterance, there HE is. Yet, the existence of the Logos and the record of His declarations do not preclude additional testimony from heaven. The whole body of Apostolic writing is necessarily additional testimony, and yet we give it equal standing as Scriptural, and rightly so.
My point is simply this: the fact that some lay false claim to the prophetic office does not nullify the prophetic office. Indeed, such false claims have always been present. The true prophets were forever dealing with such pretenders. Yet, the office was not disposed of. God still speaks. He is not silent, nor has He been. He instructs us to listen for His voice, tells us that His own recognize it and will follow no other. How shall we hear a voice that never speaks?
I have drifted, I see, from my original point. What I really intended to pursue was the simple fact that Asaph was not in the prophetic office. He was, however, clearly in the prophetic voice. We may, as I have written, debate the office in our day. I would have to say, though, that the voice should not suffer such debate. The prophetic voice is no reflection on the man through whom that voice is heard, quite frankly. Neither is it any guarantee that there shall ever come another such moment in that man’s life. Even the Cretan poet whom Paul quotes when he writes to Titus is in his way operating ‘in the prophetic’ (Ti 1:12).
This is a point often lost on those of us who accept the gifts of the Spirit as active in our day. We tend to blur the line between the voice and the office. We are at great risk of being as full of pride as the Corinthian church was. We are blessed to speak one time with a prophetic edge, and now we think we’ve arrived. Now, we think we can do so whenever we will. In the moment that such a thought comes to us, we have lost whatever claim we may have had, for the prophetic is never a matter of our will. The prophetic is all about God’s will. It is His will that shapes the words, and His will that determines the timing and the means of their pronouncement. The proper response to such a prophetic moment, particularly for the one who delivers the message, is a response of profound thanks that He has allowed us to be a part of what He is doing.
So, all this lengthy preamble brings me to the question of how Jesus approached the prophetic. That Messiah would serve in the office of prophet, amongst His other offices is clear enough. The question I have is more to do with how He viewed those prophecies throughout Scripture which pointed to His coming. Recall that when, after His resurrection, He appeared to the two who traveled the road to Emmaus, He explained to them how all of these matters, beginning with the writings of Moses, and continuing right on through the writings of the prophets, described His own life and ministry (Lk 24:27). It would seem reasonable to believe that He was just as aware of these texts and their meaning as He fulfilled them as He was when it was finished.
What brings all this to mind is the way Matthew speaks of the matter, and it occurred to me as I wrote the preceding paragraph that Matthew may well have come to see the prophetic nature of this Psalm by way of that explanation Jesus gave to the two on the road. Matthew says that when Jesus taught, there were always parables like these. He then says that this was done so that the prophetic words of Asaph might be fulfilled. So the questions: Is he saying that Jesus was purposefully attempting to fulfill these prophecies, or is he simply pointing out that by what He was doing He accomplished that end, as we might say, innocently?
As I said, I expect Jesus was just as fully aware of all the prophecies concerning Himself as He walked the land as He was after having died and risen again. It seems to me that this awareness of all the prophecies does nothing to diminish the miracle of His having fulfilled them all. After all, the first of these fulfillments began with His birth, and it was followed by others that came at too early an age for Him to have been intentionally pursuing their fulfillment – at least insofar as flesh is able to pursue such a course.
That He became more concerned with fulfilling all of these matters as His ministry began, as it grew, and as it drew to its completion does not change the fact that these matters were fulfilled. That they were fulfilled purposefully rather than by ‘chance’ does not diminish the wonder of it all. What control had He, after all, over the actions of that soldier at the end? In what way could a dead man on a cross command a soldier of Rome not to break His legs as was normal? In what way could a man in custody determine how the legal systems of both His own people and those who held sway over His people would respond to His case? Yes, there were prophetic matters that were within His control. So much, though remained well beyond what flesh and blood can determine.
Understand that Jesus was well aware of Who He was, and why He was here. I have no doubt that His mother, and likely His father as well, had seen to it that He understood the circumstance of His birth. As Paul writes, He emptied Himself in coming to be born in that manger. To what degree, we cannot know. How much of His heavenly omniscience remained to Him as He walked those brief years among us? That is unclear. Yet, God had seen to it that He would have those around Him who could give Him sufficient understanding, even if the full power of the Godhead was denied Him of His own volition, which, as I say, is by no means certain.
Remember His rebuke of Peter in the garden. If He so desired, even in that moment He could have called down legions of angels. Paul writes that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily (Col 2:9), although I cannot say from that reference whether or not that applied as He lived amongst us. The point, for me, is that He was aware of His purpose, and had been fully briefed on every detail of what He was to do. His orders were found there in the Torah, and He strode into those three years of ministry with much already accomplished and His will set on seeing to it that all of the reset was accomplished as well.
No man among us can claim that by his own will he can be assured of accomplishing all his own purpose. Such as think they can are spoken of as fools by the Bible. That one who was so certain of his abilities that he was having a bigger barn built to hold what seemed to him the inevitable outflow that would come of his efforts was called to accounts before the inevitable could come to pass. “Today it is required of you.” All of his plans and purposes were set at naught in that instant, for it is not in man’s hands to determine his days or his ways. God’s will is done. It is done with our cooperation or it is done in spite of our rebelliousness. Blessed is he whose will chooses cooperation with the Almighty! Blessed is he gladly chooses Him today.
I am left to conclude that it is most probable that Jesus was fully aware of all of these prophecies, and fully intentional in His pursuit of their fulfillment. In the end, the sheer numbers of prophecies which He fulfilled, even just counting those over which He had some control, are enough to put the fulfillment beyond the grasp of mortal effort. A higher Hand must hold sway, allowing Him to achieve what He set out to achieve, because what He set out to achieve was God’s eternal purpose.
I think there is a lesson there for us in what Matthew tells us about Jesus. He was intentionally pursuing what He knew of His mission. There had to be a degree of divine revelation to make that mission clear, but once it was clear, He was on it and not to be deterred. How shall we, as His followers and His brothers, be any different? Where He has revealed purpose, let us be purposeful in pursuing it. This is not the place for waiting to see what He will do. He has already told you what He will do, if not when and how. Where He has revealed, pursue. Time enough to wait when once more the way is obscured. But, wait knowing that He will again reveal another step on your way.
Another question that arises is why parables? We have already heard Jesus answer this question once (Mt 13:10-17). There, He declared that parables were used because while knowing the mysteries of heaven had been granted to the disciples it hadn’t been granted to all. Here, too, it was a matter of prophetic fulfillment. Most would fail to understand what they heard Jesus saying, would fail to grasp what He was showing them. Here, Mark tells us that He was explaining things to the people in a fashion they could understand, only explaining the more difficult portions to the disciples later. Does this seem contradictory?
It seems like that earlier statement was saying that the parables were a means of obscuring the Truth, whereas here they are described as making the Truth comprehendible. So, which is it? Obfuscation or explanation? Well, the nature of God should go far toward answering that question. If that is insufficient, though, we also have the parable of the sower to refer to. Remember that the absence of a harvest was not the fault of the seed, but of the soil into which the seed found itself cast. So it is with the parable. The parable is designed to bring a higher Truth down to our level by relating it to things we know by our own experience. They are, in that send, God stooping down to man. His ways are indeed higher than our own, as He has said. However, if He had left it at that then those who declare Truth unknowable and God incomprehensible would have a point. The fact is, though, that although God’s ways are so much higher than our own, He goes out of His way to stoop down, to bring it down to our level so that we can comprehend. Oh, we may will never know the full breadth of His ways in this lifetime, but we will assuredly know Him Who has determined to make Himself known.
Again, I turn to Paul’s declaration that all creation reveals the invisible attributes of God. All of life is, in its way, a parable, designed to reveal the higher aspects of God through each common daily experience. When Jesus proclaims His parables, He is by and large simply making evident the connection that God had established in those things from the beginning. The nature of harvest and of seed growth always reflected that Truth regarding the kingdom of heaven. We just never really saw it until Jesus explained the connection.
Yet, many will continue to look at both the parable and the example from which it is drawn and see no more than a farm. Many will continue to walk through life, even having heard all that Jesus was saying, even with the knowledge of what Paul tells us about the nature and purpose of creation, and will see nothing in it that speaks of God. Many will look upon the wonder of this world and the universe into which it is set, they will see the order amidst the chaos, the incredible intricacies of heavenly motions and earthly life, and yet insist that there is no God. They will deny it with all they are worth. No, it’s just a natural order, the chance result of that first moment of a universe’s explosive growth. But, whence the explosion? And, whence the material which exploded? They will not look at this, because it might require them to admit to what they will not admit.
The parable, then, is designed to explain and make understood. At the same time, it is designed to require a bit of thought to reach that understanding. The image is common, but some effort is still required to fathom the application. The seed of the parable is good seed, and it falls on a variety of soils. Only some of that soil is responsive to the purpose of the parable, and willing to put in the effort to understand. For the rest, it is Isaiah: They will hear with no sense of the point. They will see the illustrations, but never discern the message that was illustrated.
God stooped down to help us see how our daily lives reflect the order of heaven. Heaven is not some utterly alien scene so utterly different from our own as to be beyond our ability to recognize. It is not a total overthrow of the things we know, but rather the perfection of what we know. All creation was, after all, created in His image. Yes, the image has been distorted by sin, and the order of things disturbed, but the lines of the original pattern are still there. The echoes of heaven are still there. As Jesus teaches about heaven, He makes those patterns and echoes evident to the eyes of those who are willing to see it. He has stooped down to impart understanding to us, that He might by that understanding draw us up to Himself.
I remember, when I was looking at the cross, that image I had towards the end of that study. Jesus calls upon us to take up our cross daily and follow Him and, if we heed His call, we do just that. In our figurative way, we drape our own arms across the crossbeam to lift it up on our backs. But, as we begin to lift, we find that God is Himself lifting the cross, and we, who have taken it up are lifted along with it. As we submit ourselves to the Lord of heaven, He stoops down to reveal Himself to us, and lift us to Himself. This has ever been His way. Note how The Message chooses to interpret this passage. In Mark’s account, it reports that Jesus was “fitting the stories to their experience and maturity”. This is the mark of a good teacher, that he adjusts not the message, but the delivery of the message to fit the capabilities of his students. He doesn’t seek to teach a college course to kindergarteners, though he may teach kindergarten or college courses on the same topic. The teacher who does not tune his message to his listeners is not seeking to be understood. He may be trying to impress, but he is not trying to teach.
The New Living Translation has a similar understanding of this passage. Jesus, it says, sought ‘to teach the people as much as they could understand’. As much as this method of teaching was a matter of fulfilling the prophecies, it was also a method aimed at achieving understanding. Again, there would be those who did not understand the point, perhaps even willfully avoided understanding the point. However, misunderstanding and ignorance were not the aim of the parable. The aim was to teach as much as those who heard could understand. The examples used were chosen for familiarity, and quite likely because there was a living image of the example right at hand as He taught. Teaching a farming community, illustrations drawn from life on the farm are going to serve better than pictures of city life.
Teaching a bunch of tech-savvy urban youngsters with illustrations of seed time and harvest is likewise going to be less effective. To that end, those who choose to provide fresh variations on the parables, variations whose images are drawn from the more familiar landscapes of modern life but which illustrate the same point, are doing a great service to the kingdom. In studying the parables that have been presented thus far in the course of the Sermon by the Sea, it has been clear just how much of the point of the parables has become obscured for us by our unfamiliarity with the culture of that time and region. What do we know of tares? Those mustard seeds we buy from the spice rack don’t look particularly small, so how are they the smallest? What sort of farmer is throwing seed on the road? These things are not our daily experience, and so the parables become more opaque than they were ever designed to be. Now, we must dig and pursue the imagery to really grasp what would have been plain to those who first heard them. Those who would provide new pictures for a new generation are not playing fast and loose with the text of Scripture. They are simply restoring the original intent to the parables.
Look at the passage the Matthew proclaims fulfilled by this method of teaching Jesus used (Ps 78:2-4). Particularly, look at that which follows after what Matthew quoted. “We have heard these sayings. We know them because our parents told them to us.” We might suppose that their parents told them repeatedly, until they could be sure that not only had the younger generation heard, but had memorized it (willing or no), and taken it to heart. Now, this generation declares, “We will not hide them from their children. We will tell the coming generation.” Now, here’s an interesting matter. Look at that declaration again. It is not “our” children, but “their” children. Well, if they heard from their fathers, and yet, they are proclaiming to a younger generation, then the children they attribute to their fathers must be their own. This declares a familial connection across the generations. It recognizes that the parents’ role does not end at their immediate progeny, nor does their heritage cease with the next generation. The heritage of the godly proceeds down the generations. The children’s children’s children will still be the father’s children.
Well, continuing on, when they determine to speak these parables to the coming generation, it is for the purpose of instruction. By the parables they have heard, and the message contained therein, they will teach of God’s strength, why He is declared the All-mighty. They will teach the history of all the wonders this Awesome God has done amongst His people, and even to those nations that have not known Him. The parables are spoken to teach. But, are they going to simply recite the same stories they heard as children? Perhaps. Certainly, there are those things I heard so many times as a young man that they have become part of my own vocabulary. They’ve been heard so often that whether I recall the context of the original, or even have any idea at all where it may have come from, still I can speak that line. “You talk about snow, my Uncle John said…” I may not remember much more, but complain about the depth of snow, and I’ll be trotting that one out, more than likely.
With time, there are matters of Scriptural import that become like this. I’ve seen it in myself over the years I have been studying in earnest. What used to be truly New Thoughts to me are now ingrained. It takes very little to lead me into proclaiming what have now become Settled Thoughts all over again. They are Truths that deserve to be repeated. They are matters of some importance, and it is important that we understand them rightly. When I see so much misunderstanding of God’s Truth amongst His own people, when I see the oddball ways people think they are pursuing Him when they are more likely offending Him, when I see how easily we are led astray from the True Path – when this is our constant problem, I see no harm and great gain in taking to my soapbox once again. Peter recognized this need for repeating the lessons, because we are a forgetful people by nature. It is not just the student that needs that repetition, but the teacher as well. The teacher has not ceased to be a student after all, else he will soon cease to be a teacher as well.
When we look at Jesus and His methods of teaching, it seems we must compare His ways with those of His contemporaries. I must remember that the use of parables was not something exclusive to Jesus, but actually a typical method in rabbinical teaching. That said, it is possible that His were more effective for being drawn from the scene immediately around Him at the time. They may have been more impressive for their spontaneity, for it really does seem like He is able to bring forward these examples on the spot.
Apart from the rabbis, there were the Pharisees who sought to hold themselves forth as the example to follow. Yet, what they made display of was their pride, not God’s purity. They sought to stand out as models of piety, and thereby – if we credit them with the highest motives – to encourage the rest of the people to follow their example.
This stands in contrast to what Jesus is doing. Yes, He sets Himself as an example to be followed, and He explicitly encourages His disciples to do as they find Him doing. Indeed, that is rather the purpose of discipleship, isn’t it? It is a program designed to produce those who believe as we do and act as we would. However, by these parables, Jesus is leaving His followers with far more than just the example of His life. He is leaving them surrounded by reminders of God and God’s kingdom. By making their daily lives illustrations of the kingdom, He is transforming their daily lives into living lessons.
Paul wrote that since the creation it has been possible to understand the unseen power of God, the ‘invisible attributes’ of the Creator by what He has made (Ro 1:20). Creation was designed to reveal God. It is a tool to magnify His glory. It is another means by which God steps down to meet His creation and make Himself known to them.
It strikes me that by way of these parables Jesus is doing for creation what He had earlier done for the Law. The real point and significance of the Law had been obscured by years of rationalizations and poor teaching until it had all but lost its meaning. Men had so watered down the Law by their literal interpretation without application that they actually thought themselves capable of keeping it without fail. Think about that rich young ruler who could look Jesus in the eyes and say, “I have kept these from my youth.” Truly, he may never have murdered another, may never have taken another man’s wife, but this was only the literal, word for word application. Jesus would have to remind His hearers of the full significance. It’s not enough that you have refrained from the culminating act. Your guilt was already upon you when you called your brother an idiot, when your eyes stayed on that woman as she passed. In short, the Law in all its implications is a task impossible to man, which is why God looks upon us and says that to a man, we have been found wanting. It is why we have a universal need for redemption from the penalty of that Law we have all broken.
By these parables, Jesus does the same for creation, and for our part in creation. He takes what has become ordinary and unworthy of comment in our lives, and restores it to its purpose of magnifying the God of all Creation. Notice the images He has chosen. Most of them have surrounded the daily actions of the daily grind. He is drawing from the labors of man, those labors by which he draws forth his subsistence from the land with sweat and anguish. What has He accomplished here? It is almost as if He is redeeming the curse of labor by these things. How do you suppose the work of those farmers in His audience was changed for them when they could now look upon it and be reminded of the kingdom of God?
I had started out looking at this as Jesus simply surrounding His people with reminders. I had thought of the way the Pharisees had sought to do this by their placement of Scriptures on themselves and on their property. But these things would quickly become no more than furnishings. Jesus was transforming the daily activities of His students into living reminders. As I said, He redeems their labors. No longer would the work of man be a curse for the sin of the fall. Instead, it would be transformed into a constant meditation on the kingdom! Well, obviously, how well we perceive that transformation has a great deal to do with our own condition. If we are not actively seeking to reflect the kingdom in our own lives, we are not likely to notice the kingdom’s reflection in what goes on around us. But, what He has offered! He has offered the transformation of our tedious daily grind into a glorious daily reminder! He offers us the opportunity to continuously reflect on God’s grace and God’s glory as we go about our day. He has provided us with the richest of opportunities to truly meditate on our Lord day and night.
Most of us will have known those moments when we look out on some magnificent aspect of the world around us and break out in praises of the God who created such things. Most of us have witnessed something in the nature of a mountain, or of the skies overhead, or the power of the ocean, that has left us in awe, even if we didn’t think to reflect on God in that moment. For myself, there has always been something in a majestic sunset that stirs me, but for years I would never think to credit God for that. It was just something that happened. How much richer that same experience when I can express my appreciation to the Artist who created such beauty. How much richer my appreciation for the power of nature when I can look beyond the immediate sensations to the Power behind nature.
Yet, however much we may appreciate Him in the expressions of nature around us, we are almost certain to have failed to find Him in the ways of the workplace. Considering that many of us spend more time at work than in any other part of our life, this is something that needs to change. Again I say, look at the examples Jesus is using here: a man sowing, a woman making bread, a city on guard. These are the labors of life, the mundane necessities we go about. How we could transform our own work day if we would seek to discern what is revealed of our Beloved Lord and Savior in the work we do! It may seem improbable or even impossible that God could be seen in what we do of a day. It doubtless seemed equally improbable to those who labored at the things of which Jesus spoke. I am sure they had never looked at their labors in light of the kingdom before. I’m sure that now they did, and it would never look the same to them.
Lord, this is our need! We need to be able to discern our daily activities through Your eyes. I need to look at my workplace not as a job, but as a lesson. I need to see more than just cubicles and computers. I need Your wisdom to come teach me how even these things reflect on Your kingdom, so that even as I work I can meditate on Your goodness and Your glory. More than that, my God, allow the way in which I pursue my labors reflect You. I know that they do not always do so now, but by Your power working in me, I know they can. Let my life, then, be a parable unto You, Lord.
