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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness Gal 5:22 |
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Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Monday, April 25, 2022
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :Matthew 13:47-50 (ESV) Bible Verse:Matthew 13:47-50 (ESV) "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”" Message:
The parable of the net returns to the theme of the earlier parables, especially the Parable of the Weeds, the theme of the final separation at Judgment Day. Having given a parable using agriculture, Christ turns to fishing, and it is easy to see why. In this area, and among his disciples, were many fishermen: He was speaking their language.
The percentage of the population engaged in feeding the population was hugely higher than it is today, comprising a majority of the working class. (In 1790, 90% of the population of the United States was engaged in food production; today, it is about 2.5%.) So, He speaks parables that use farming, fishing, and baking as their metaphors. (The third great source of food in Canaan was herding, especially of sheep, and so it will come as no surprise when this becomes the third great metaphor used by Jesus in His teaching.)
Ancient mosaic, Tabgha, Israel
The parable of the nets is readily understood from the reading. The lesson mostly overlaps the Parable of the Weeds, but the repetition of the same theme is significant. It shows the importance to Christ that people understand the Day of Judgment completely. He wanted to engrain it so completely in his listeners’ hearts that it would become their basis for understanding the world.
We live in the age between the ascension of Christ and the Day of Judgment, rather like a student in a school or college. There is a lot going on in the day-to-day world of a student aside from his studies, only marginally connected to the fundamental educational purpose of a school. There are sports and clubs; romance, friends, cliques; people must eat and drink and sleep, get to and from school, and so on. A student might think that the most important thing in his life is whether he rides a school bus or drives a really cool car to school.
But eventually a day will arrive when a very sharp distinction is made: Either you get a diploma, or you don’t. All of the effort put into being the class president, being popular, wearing some specific kind of clothing, etc., is irrelevant to graduation. Like the fish in Jesus’ net, or the plants in the farmer’s field, either you pass the requirements and have succeeded at the basic task, or you have not and are “discarded” academically.
In our religious life, the stakes are quite a bit higher; for when graduation day arrives, those who have heard and lived Christ’s word will find eternal life and joy, while those who don’t will be cast into a fiery hell. “The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Christianity has a very hard edge. Once we really understand and incorporate this parable into our thinking, it radically changes the way we see the world.
We look ahead and prepare for the future, so that when it arrives, we find ourselves rewarded. How things change when on graduation day, suddenly a person — who might have been a nobody, ignored or even despised by the cool kids — is standing in valedictorian robes giving a speech to the popular kids who had marginalized him. How wonderful it will be for Christ’s children, to find that He has fulfilled his promise of forgiveness and to enter a world more beautiful than we could imagine; and how terrible for those who denied God during their lives.
Meditation : “A saint is not someone who is good, but someone who experiences the goodness of God.” Prayer : Oh Lord Jesus Christ, who said to your apostles, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you”; I pray that I and your whole church, the body of all faithful people, will know your peace, and live in harmony and unity, one with another, in accordance with your wishes. This I pray to you, who lives and reigns forever.......Amen |
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