Decoding the parables with Liam Thatcher – Parables E4

Today we're joined by Liam Thatcher, a church pastor from Oxford and former writer at Bible Society.

In this episode we discuss how Jesus used simple illustrations to convey profound truths about the kingdom of heaven, emphasising the hidden yet transformative nature of these teachings. Looking at the parable of the leaven, we discuss the growth and impact of the kingdom in the world today, highlighting the importance of being active agents of change.

We also explore the parable of the dragnet, emphasising the importance of patience and discernment in church life, the role of teachers, and the need for humility and celebration in our lives.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - Intro
• (01:30) - Jesus using short illustrations
• (10:45) - The parable of the yeast
• (14:56) - The scale of the kingdom
• (18:26) - Do Christians need to be in places of power?
• (23:20) - The hidden power of the kingdom
• (25:31) - The parable of the dragnet
• (27:56) - Judgement and justice in the kingdom
• (30:26) - Church discipline
• (35:51) - The parable of the lost coin
• (39:26) - Measuring worth in God's eyes

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Creators & Guests

Host

Mark Woods

Mark is a Baptist minister and sometime journalist, who now heads up Bible Society's comms team.

Host

Noël Amos

Noël is the editor of Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal.

Guest

Liam Thatcher

Liam is a pastor and preacher, and also works as a writer for Bible Society.

What is The Rooted Podcast?

Listen to The Rooted Podcast for in-depth conversations about the Bible and how we can apply it to our lives. Join the team behind Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal, as we dig deeper into a theme or book of the Bible in each series and explore its message for us today.

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You're listening to the Rooted Podcast from Bible Society. In each series we take a closer look at a theme or book of the Bible and explore its relevance in our lives today. This is our series on the parables.

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Everyone

Welcome back to The Rooted Podcast. I'm Noelle and I'm here with Mark as usual, but instead of Esther this week, we are joined by our friend Liam Thatcher. Up until recently, Liam worked at Bible Society and he's contributed many times to The Rooted Journal and just recently he left to start pastoring full-time in Oxford. So we're very grateful that he's come back to contribute again to The Rooted Journal and also join us on the podcast. So thanks for being here, Liam. Thanks. It's great.

back with you. So we're going to look at a few parables today, some that were covered in the journal, some that were not, but two of them are found in Matthew chapter 13. And there's sort of these, a part of these collection of parables that Jesus gives to his audience that are sort of shorter one, two sentence parables. And they're sort of just these striking images that stick in your mind. And so we wanted to have a conversation around these. So it's the parable of the leaven and the parable of the dragnet.

And then we'll look at one other parable that's set in Luke 16, the parable of the lost coin. We thought we could have some interesting conversations around that, which is a bit similar. It's a shorter parable. It's within a different collection of parables. So we'll look at a few of these today, just have a conversation around what we think Jesus is doing, why he's giving sort of these shorter illustrations or images, and see what we can draw from them when we think about what it means to follow him today.

So the first two parables we're gonna look at are in Matthew 13. And I guess before we read those and look at them, the question that comes to my mind first is why is Jesus specifically giving his audience these sort of short one, two sentence parables? Because we've talked a bit about the meaning of the parables and why Jesus spoke in parables. But why sort of this method of teaching? Why compare the kingdom to a pearl or to yeast? And what do we think?

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is sort of behind what Jesus is doing here. It's really interesting, isn't it? He seems to just speak very naturally in story form. And I suppose Matthew, Mark and Luke are obviously they're different gospels, aren't they, from John. And in John, there are quite long blocks of teaching. But certainly in Matthew, Mark and Luke, called the Synoptic Gospels, it's all pictures, you know, it's all stories. And I just have a sort of picture of him.

just coming out with this stuff. And it's as though he sees things in pictures, and that's how he communicates with people. And it's certainly something that seems very distinctive about Jesus. Yeah, I was thinking that too, actually. I was also thinking that Jesus is just an expert communicator, and part of being a good communicator, I think, is illustration and images. I was reminded of this, I think it's a Charles Spurgeon quote, but I'm not 100%.

But a preacher at my church recently told me this quote and I loved it. And he says, illustrations are the windows that let light into the church. And I was just thinking about that, about the brilliance of being able to take a concept as what we would say complex or maybe what could be confusing as the kingdom of God and turn it into something as simple as one image that could stick in someone's head and they could go away with it and continue to think about it. Because in a way, was,

These are quite simple, aren't they? Yeah. Yeah. I love what it says in this passage actually, when Jesus, verse 34, says, spoke all these things to the crowd in parables. He didn't say anything to them without using a parable, so constantly drawing on illustrations. But then it says, so was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet. I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world. And I kind of love that idea that there is actually, since creation, there's been

wisdom hidden everywhere and it's almost like every part of creation has lessons to teach us. And so you can imagine Jesus looking around and saying, well, what could that teach us? What can that teach us? Because if all of creation speaks to the glory of God, it provides us constant life lessons. And I'm sure there are times where Jesus intentionally thought about, how can I get this point across? it's a bit like this. And other times where he looks around and he sees the particular people before him or the

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the trades that they have or the passions they have and he thinks how can that thing speak of the kingdom and it kind of works the other way around creation preaching. Yeah that's so interesting because I was thinking back to the early church fathers and they used to do this as well and we are you know we're very sort of rationalistic I think sometimes you know in the evangelical protestant tradition to which I belong you know it's all about

sort of understanding things and saying, what does this mean? What does this mean? What does this mean? And actually, sometimes you just need to look at the picture, you know, and there is obviously a meaning there and you learn from it, you extract the meaning from it, but actually seeing the picture comes first. One of the books I was reading before this session talked about Jesus as a metaphorical theologian.

which I think is a very interesting way of putting it. you know, metaphor is when one thing stands for another, and it's just a way of looking at the world and it's a way of telling the truth about things. You get people to see things rather than just to understand things. Yeah, that's good. I was thinking too about how impressive I think it is. And I do think that some of these parables that Jesus gives are quite

calculated, he must have thought about them ahead of time. But also the wisdom of Jesus to have the right thing to say in the right moment. Because a lot of the times when he has a parable, he is sitting around with people. When we go to Luke 16, he's sitting with a group of people and they make a comment about him that isn't great or something. And he immediately has these parables that he's going to share and he has a response right away. I was just thinking about how much I love that it

It seems, I know scripture says that Jesus is wisdom, but also that as a human, he must have grown in wisdom and in having the right thing to say at the right moment. It's just something that I love about him. When I see these parables, I think, it's so wise. It's so sharp. Yeah, I agree. And I think there were times where Jesus was absolutely calculated and had probably pre-planned things in advance and times where things maybe come off the cuff in the moment as he is inspired by the spirit, but also

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Probably he used the same illustrations again and again and again as he was traveling through different towns and probably not always with the same application as well. I know that as I get to travel all over the place preaching and sometimes an illustration I've used in one place can be used and adapted in a different place and if you put the two of them next to each other you think, what's going on there? It's the same core illustration but applied differently for the audience or the purpose or the point you want to make and I think Jesus is just a highly skilled.

communicator, we can learn loads about communicating from him as much as everything about the kingdom. wonder if he had the same experience as most preachers do, where you tell a story in one place and it goes down a storm and they think, yeah, this was fantastic. And you tell it in another place and it falls absolutely flat. That's what you're talking about. Nobody cares. Well, I've never had that experience, I'm busted. Today you get me the date.

There's just one more thing I wanted to pull out before we move on of this verse that you just quoted, Liam, Matthew 13, 30, 40, 35. Jesus says, will tell them things unknown since the creation of the world. I wondered as I read that, do we think that there are certain things that Jesus is telling that, I guess it seems to be that there's something very special that's being given to this group of people, that this introduction to the kingdom and the things of the kingdom that are being told to them have been unknown.

since the creation of the world and now these people are getting to hear about it. And it seems to be this sort of, I don't know, amazing thing. It made me think actually about, well, earlier in the chapter, Jesus says, many prophets and righteous people have longed to see what you see but did not see it and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. And I guess there's almost this emphasis that Jesus is putting on the kingdom that is massive. You guys are the first people to hear this and this is changing things.

I don't know, that just struck me as I was reading it. Yeah, it's an interesting idea, isn't it? So the word in my translation here is hidden, which actually comes up a number of other times in the passage. Maybe we'll get to that in a moment. But it strikes me that God hid things in previous generations, but not because he didn't want people to discover them, but actually maybe he wanted to draw out a search from them and that would be revealed at the right moment. So I think of that.

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verse in, I think it's in Proverbs that it's the glory of God to conceal a thing, but it's the glory or the honor of kings to search it out. that sense that God doesn't hide, well maybe sometimes he does, but he doesn't always hide things from us, he hides them for us in order to get us to act in that sort of kingly way, that way of honor of actually I'm going to seek this out, I'm going to do the hard work of trying to discover what it is that God has hidden. I think it draws out something in us and there's something about parables that particularly

they do that, don't they? They don't just give us the answer on a plate, they actually force us to do the hard work of discovering the things that God has hidden for us. Exactly. And that makes them mean more to us as well, I think. It kind of embeds it in our brains better, if we have actually done that work. I was looking at, it's just a bit of research that popped up about what happens

to our memories when we say we're listening to a lecture or something and we just type, we just type on a keyboard taking notes. We don't remember it as well as we do if we're actually taking notes in longhand. Because taking notes in longhand is harder and that process of making those marks on the paper and the physical work actually helps to embed it in our brains better.

And I think there's something about that with parables actually, because we have to work at it, we will remember and it will mean more to us. Yeah, that's great. That's good. Yeah.

Alright, so let's look at the first parable. So it's Matthew 13 verse 33. I'll just read it, it's very quick. He told them still another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about 60 pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough. Well, I guess the first thing that I think is that it's something that you can't necessarily see. You don't see yeast permeating through dough, necessarily.

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Mark and I know that Liam is an expert baker. So I'm just going to cut right to that. I'm just going to say Liam, am I wrong in saying what I've just said? I guess my understanding of it is this is something that is unseen that I guess until the dough is, until the bread is baked, then you see it. Don't know. that's interesting. Well, I mean, I don't want this to become a baking podcast. Actually, I'd love to. doubt the listeners signed up for that. Yeah, I think, well, it's interesting to think about the way that bread was baked.

in Jesus' day compared to now. So we often think of yeast as being just tiny little sort of portions of something, like really little bits of dried yeast. That's of course quite a modern thing. In the time of Jesus, it would be more like modern sourdough, which is sort of a fermented mixture of flour and water, maybe old bits of dough from the last time you baked, they then get incorporated into the next.

the leaven or the yeast can make a substantial part of the bake. I think probably the way I'd interpreted it was, yes, it's something small, but it goes all the way through, but it's crucially an active agent. So you have the water and you have the flour and they are somehow inert or there's potential in them, but it's the active yeast that then spreads through and causes the whole thing to grow. And actually when the thing is baked, you don't look and you see

there's the yeast and there's the flour. Actually, you see the whole thing is transformed. And it's indistinguishable, actually. The yeast has done its work, but what you see is something that emerges that is different and it has a different purpose and can actually nourish people. If you ever tried eating just plain yeast, that's pretty horrible. But the yeast itself does a work that changes everything else because it's such an active agent that is permeated all the way through. Does that make sense? We know that yeast is a living organism, don't we?

which is actually quite an interesting idea in terms of the parable. But I think they probably didn't know that, did they? I I believe they probably saw it as some kind of seed, something like that. Is that right? Probably, which is interesting then, isn't it? Because if you think about the groupings of the parables here, this is one tiny little parable among a whole load of other ones that all seem to be put together in one block of teaching. And there probably are some similarities between them, maybe things about

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small things growing to be large and that sort of thing. But one of the things that stands out to me is this sort of organic nature of all these parables together. You've got weeds, you've got sowers, you've got a mustard seed, you've got yeast. it seems to be, and then it goes on, talks about a pearl, so maybe that's slightly different. Jesus seems to be drawing from the natural world. Maybe that tells us something about the particular people he's speaking to. There were those who were used to working the soil, baking bread for their own.

survival and feeding their family, that sort of thing. Another thing I found in my usual trawl of the commentaries was that this was quite a lot of flour. You know, this is an operation at some scale, which might have fed a small village. And I wonder if there's anything in that that we could take. Yeah, yeah, I think three measures from what I read is about 50 pounds, which may

bread for about 100 people. yeah, this is quite a substantial amount. But on the other hand, we do have stories of Jesus taking a tiny amount of bread and feeding 5000 with it as well. I mean, it's a different thing, obviously. But yes, it speaks somehow of just tiny things having the ability to feed many. In the prep for this, Liam, you were saying how

scale is interesting in this collection of parables because we look at something like the mustard seed which we touched on earlier. But Liam, you were saying you had a different interpretation of that in terms of what scale could mean sort of at the end of that parable. Sure, sure. Well, I guess one of the things that strikes me about the parables is that they explicitly teach us what the kingdom is like. I Jesus says that, the kingdom of heaven is like.

But at the same time, I think they undermine preconceived ideas that we may already have about the kingdom. So it's both an explicit and implicit way of teaching. And I think with the mustard seed, we often read that from our modern perspective, not necessarily, I mean, I don't have a mustard tree in my garden. I've never planted a mustard seed. I've never planted much that's grown very well, actually. But I can read it and just assume, well, the point of all these things is something tiny that grows to be something absolutely enormous.

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There is something of growth, but really the Old Testament is full of times where nations were depicted as trees and they were enormous trees. Babylon is this vast tree and Daniel or Ezekiel talks about Assyria being this massive tree. A mustard bush really is like eight to 12 feet. So compared to the other nations, that's not great. I wonder if, but it still serves a purpose, right? The birds still come and find their shelter there.

So I wonder if Jesus is somehow undermining certain expectations that people had by saying, actually there will be growth, but compared to the other nations of the world, it's never gonna look that impressive. And if people had expectations of the kingdom that meant that Israel is gonna be this all glorious nation that towers above all the others, actually that's not quite how the kingdom works. And maybe there's something of that scale here in the bread as well. It feeds a hundred.

in one go, but it doesn't feed a thousand, it doesn't feed five thousand, doesn't feed you for the rest of your life. But then when you combine that with other things that Jesus said and did, like feeding five thousand with a tiny amount or saying, I am the bread of life, you think, he is offering something on a huge scale. I think the scale thing is really interesting. thank you for that insight, which had not occurred to me before. The other thing I think is interesting, and it goes with this idea of kind of

subverting meaning or being a bit sort of counterintuitive is the fact that elsewhere he talks about yeast in pretty negative terms. He talks about the yeast of the scribes and the Pharisees. He talks about the yeast of Herod. And these are negative things. These are evil influences, basically, which are spreading and can infect people or infect groups or societies. And so he's kind of turning that on its head here.

isn't he? And in referring to the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven as yeast, he's saying something completely different. He's saying that this can infect societies, but in a good way. Yeah, I think something that I find really interesting about what we've just said about scale, and Jesus could be saying this is going to be massive, but then he could also be saying it's not going to be massive as what you might expect it to be.

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to pulling that into our lives as Christians today, thinking about that. Because I think, at least for me, I'll say for me growing up as a Christian, I would think often to myself, well, Christians need to infiltrate society. So they need to get into positions of high power in society. So whether that's politics or business or even, yeah, anything like that.

in order to enact change because Christianity is going to change everything and it needs to infiltrate the whole world. And I guess that mindset is challenged. I actually find that mindset sometimes challenged by things like what we've just said, but also other places in the gospel where I find myself asking, well, in the life of Jesus, in some of these parables, do I actually see that model where we're saying, this is gonna be the biggest thing, we need to get into high positions of,

power or seek those things in order to sort of infiltrate everything. Does that make sense? I'm saying I kind of see a bit of tension there, and I find it difficult sometimes to know where I'm headed. Does that make sense? I think that's a really interesting insight, actually. it just makes me think if, because there is that philosophy, isn't it? You you've got to capture the high ground, you've got to

the levers of power and so on. If you have a Christian as a president or a prime minister, that's great, particularly if they're the right kind of Christian, of course. But that can so easily turn toxic, you know, and it can just become a power game. And I just don't think that that's what Jesus was about at all. I mean, I think we'll come back to that perhaps. But one of the things that I did think about while preparing for this was

was the way in which Christianity has changed the world. And I read, it's quite a well-known book by now, Tom Holland's book, Dominion, and he just talks about the difference. And he's writing as an agnostic, agnostic stroke atheist. But he just says, look, historically, the world will be far, far worse if it were not for Christianity. Founding hospitals, treatment of women.

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you know, a whole bunch of stuff basically. And this is because the ideas and the ethos of Christianity sort of permeated society from the bottom up, you know. So it's, I mean, there was a point at which Christians got into power, but more than that, there seems to be this bottom up thing which you were talking about,

because people's minds changed and people's values changed and they wanted different things. Yeah, I think that tension is at the heart of this parable and a whole load of the parable. So there is growth, there is expansion, we are to expect glorious things to break in. But where our expectations have been skewed, Jesus wants to undermine those as he so often does. So I think you're right that yeast

is sometimes used in a negative way, sometimes in a positive way. What unifies them is that it is something that spreads and it grows. And even actually, looking back at the mustard seed, think I've read somewhere, I forget where, one of the rabbis, think, or somewhere in Jewish law, I think it was illegal to plant mustard at particular times because it spread so fast. And so there is that sense of growth, but it's unexpected in the way that it comes. And Jesus so often,

preaches about a kingdom that is advancing, but then when people start to say, well, can I be the greatest in your kingdom or can I rule this way? says, no, no, we don't do it like the Gentiles or like the other nations, we come to serve. And so he wants to say both the kingdom is advancing, but not in the ways that you might think, or maybe not even at the speed or the scale that you might expect. Yeah, that's good. It makes me think about how Jesus, I mean, did have power, but he had a power that worked in different ways.

maybe you call it soft power or authority with certain things, but not. So he was changing things basically, but he's not doing it as you're saying in the way that people would have expected him to do it. That didn't mean he wasn't using power and authority to enact change. It's just a different way of doing it. Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder if there's something particular about that word hidden, which we could do with recovering actually. it strikes me as funny that it talks about this woman hiding the yeast in the flour.

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at least in my translation, I've never read a recipe that said, now hide the yeast, that's not the way we speak. It seems quite peculiar, but actually it's the same word that's used about things hidden since the creation of the world, the very same in the next verse. And then also further down, it talks about the treasure that is hidden in the field. And there seems to be something here about that word being thread through that makes me think, well, I think as Christians we are meant to.

infiltrate everything, we are meant to be mixed through, but probably we're meant to be more hidden than prominent, and we're meant to have an effect from the inside out. I mean, you put something under the ground to plant it, and then it grows in due time. You mix the yeast through the dough, and then it grows in due time. And I think sometimes Christians clamor for prominence in a way that goes against the hidden but active, powerful, subversive nature of the kingdom.

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Sometimes maybe it feels as if you're doing more for the kingdom if you are prominent, and it feels as if you're enacting more change if you are allowed. But I think you're right that in this case and in some of these parables, Jesus is saying you can enact it and not be prominent and be hidden, and you can still bring change. I think it's interesting that, I mean, Jesus didn't lay out a political or an economic program, did he? He didn't...

say this is how you solve your social problems and that sort of thing. he seemed to want to form the kind of people who would go on to do that, you know, low profile, not organized, not structured or anything like that, but changing the world one person at a time. And you think about one of the things that were called to prayer, which

we believe changes everything, but it's quite a hidden activity, isn't it? I know we can do it corporately, but Jesus says, the door behind you. But we still believe and have faith that this hidden activity can be the thing that catalyzes change in the areas that we want to see it, maybe without prominent sort of seen activity.

The next parable we wanted to look at is in the same chapter, Matthew 13, verses 47 to 50. I think that the two verses after that are very interesting, but I'll read the parable. Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away.

This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. It got me thinking about, so I guess if we would read this today, the dragnet is being pulled up and the evil are being separated from the good. I think for most Christians, our minds will go to afterlife, heaven and hell and that separation. The first thing I thought about was

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what would have gone through the minds of those hearing it then? What was their conception of the afterlife? We talked a bit in an episode recently about the Sadducees who wouldn't have had one really, who would have just thought that's it at the end. And so I guess I thought, well, if I wasn't thinking of this in terms of the afterlife, what would I have thought of? Basically, how would this have come across to them? And would it have come across differently as it comes across and strikes me? think

mean, one answer is that Jesus was not necessarily talking in this case to the Sadducees. know, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Sadducees were an aristocratic priestly class. And I think the Pharisees were probably more representative of the ordinary people. And they did believe in an afterlife and they did believe in judgment. So I think

that that is what's being envisaged here. And I think Jesus is, well, one thing to say is that earlier on in the chapter, you've got the parable of the weeds in the field where Jesus says, don't pull up the weeds, let them grow together until they harvest, and then they'll be separated out and burned. there's this same thing that there's a mass of people, if you like, all gathered together.

and that the separation comes at the end. There is a judgment at the end. you know, whatever you think of eternal punishment and stuff like that, that is an, it's an undeniable, it's an undeniable truth, I think, that we will all face judgment. And I think that's what's being stressed here.

Yeah, I agree. And I think in the Old Testament, there was this regular refrain about the day of the Lord and expected a day where God would intervene. And it was rooted in his character, actually, because he is a good God and a just God. And so of course, we can trust that he will intervene. And yet the Sadducees would have rejected the idea of the afterlife. And I think there would have been diverse views over the afterlife. But the majority view would have been there will be a day where God intervenes.

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and none of them quite knew how it was going to work out and when that day would be as we still have questions today. But yeah, this parable for me is rooted in the character of God, our God must be able to deal with the problems of the world in a way that no human can. And however that works out, I think it taps into a longing that all of us have, Christian or non-Christian actually, I think.

non-Christians, people who maybe don't believe in God, can have an objection to the idea of a God who judges. And yet deep down, we long for someone to be able to do something about the evil in the world. And so actually, I think the idea of God as a judge, a good, just judge, is truly good news, even if it doesn't naturally sound that way to us. Yeah. I think that's really good and very true. We often don't want

judgment, but we want justice. But in order to have justice, we must have judgment. yeah, makes sense. wondering if we could tease out a little bit about the parallels between the weeds in the field and this parable of the dragnet. Because I think of the parable of the weeds in the field as being a sort of warning against us judging too soon.

and the weeds and the weeds grow together. And I think of church life, for instance, where, you know, I've known churches, which have been so, so hot on church discipline and that kind of thing. You do the wrong thing and you're disfellowshipped or whatever. And it's not a healthy situation. It's not a healthy approach to things. And there's something about being patient with people and understanding of people and just admitting that in a church situation, there are going to be weeds as well as wheat.

in our own lives that, you know, I sometimes think, you know, Mark, you are being really weedy today, you know, and not being not being so hard on ourselves that we can't function anymore. And I just wonder if it's the same sort of image with the dragnet, you know, the gospel sort of sweeps up everybody in the same net. And some people we think, yeah, yeah, you're you're you're good fish. And

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others we look at and we think, well, this is a bit of a, you know, a dreadful specimen, but it's not up to us to judge, you know, it's up to God to judge at the end of the age. Yeah, I think so. I think it's specific in the parable of the dragnet, the angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous. And then the parable of the weeds. Yeah, I think that's the most compelling thing is that we're very quick to go.

Should we pull that weed? Should we pull that weed? Should we pull that weed? We can do it. Like, I'll do it. And the Lord is saying, no, like, I basically I'll handle that. That's not your job. I think that's, that's the thing that compels me the most. But yeah, I do think there's a similarity. Yeah. Yeah. But it's only a few chapters later that Matthew 18, that is the sort of key chapter that people often go to when they think about church discipline. Because it talks about our process of

enacting discipline upon a church. And I think it's easy just to go to that and to think, okay, if as a pastor, I do have to, from time to time, take a particular process to, I guess, both guard the church and also call people to discipleship. It's easy just to go to that chapter in isolation. But five chapters before, here we have something that says, actually, there is patience. You're absolutely right. But also says that

We get it wrong at times. And like you said, Noel, it's the angels that judge or that separate. And so I think when we do come to those moments where we have to enact discipline, it needs to be on the humility of knowing that actually, ultimately, this is God's call and I need to be in line with him. I need to not put myself in the place of God. I wonder how many people read the parable of the fisherman and assume

I'm the one that gets to sit down and no, no, no, if you're reading it like that and thinking you're the one who's able to sift between it, well, you're reading it totally wrong, it's the angels. And I should be asking, gosh, what kind of fish am I? Like that's the question I should be asking myself and examining my own heart. Yeah, that's good. I wonder if you guys think, as I was reading this, I don't know, but these two verses that come after this parable, I found sort of, I found strange.

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Have you understood all these things, Jesus asked? Yes, they replied, which I found strange. They just understood it right there, they've got it down. And then verse 52, he said to them, therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old. I guess because of the therefore, I thought, is this Jesus' comment on the parable that he's just told, the parable of the dragnet? Or do you guys think this is,

separate or is that way too difficult a question for us to answer? Yeah, I think if you look back over the whole chapter, it seems to be that this is a group of parables that is probably not just the case that Matthew has put them together. They seem to have actually come in an order. So the very beginning, Jesus is sitting by the Sea of Galilee and he tells and then

He tells another parable and another parable, and these are all taught to the crowd, and then there's a moment, I think it's around verse 36, where he shifts indoors and he talks more explicitly to his disciples, and I think we're meant to assume that he carries on talking to his disciples up to this point here, and then straight after that, when he's finished these parables, he moves on. So this is a moment of addressing his disciples, I think. And, you know, I said earlier that sometimes Jesus' teaching

about the kingdom in new ways, but sometimes he's also undermining old ways of thinking. And I think there's something of that mixture here that the parables both have an ability to bring out things you've never seen because they're brand new, and also to draw out old truths and sometimes draw out old truths in new ways as well. And so I think Jesus is saying that through his ministry, he is bringing new revelation and correct revelation about old ways of thinking.

But I also wonder, he doesn't just say, therefore, I am bringing out old things and new things. He seems to actually somehow entrust his disciples to do the same. Maybe he's making a contrast between himself and the other teachers of the law of his day. I don't know. But there seems to be a sense in which I wonder if he's commissioning his disciples to go and do the same for others. And for me as a preacher, that's how I see my task. I am to be faithful to the scriptures.

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I am to not just try and bring out new things for the sake of novelty, because that's going to take us to unhelpful places. But I do want to help people see old things in new ways. Yeah, that's great. So let's look then at our last parable. This is in Luke 15. We've got a bit of a different context here. At the start of Luke 15, Luke tells us,

This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. And then Jesus, in response to that, tells them some parables. So this is the parable of the lost coin, which is in verses eight to 10. I'll read it.

In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Well, I guess first we could talk about the context in which he's saying this, because this is really sort of set in between some other parables that seem to have the same sort of theme, isn't it, of something being lost and then found. Yeah, we've got the lost sheep and we've got the lost son or the prodigal son. And there are these

themes that run through all of them aren't there. But a big part of it is the idea of celebration. When, when whatever is lost is found, there is a party. And that's a huge thing, I think. Absolutely. Yeah. And it strikes me that the

you're right to draw attention to the context. So Jesus isn't speaking just to his disciples or even to this bunch of people around the Sea of Galilee. He's got a dual audience here. So there's the people he's been hanging out with already and the people who are judging him. And I think these parables are told in such a way as to speak to both these audiences. So to those who are the tax collectors and the sinners, he is effectively telling these stories about God chasing them and then celebrating them.

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And the implicit question to the Pharisees and those who are sneering at him is to say, where are you in this story? Are you celebrating? And I think Jesus is trying to vindicate his own ministry approach and saying, this is why I am chasing after these people, because that's what God does. And I celebrate and heaven celebrates with you in a way that does good for their self-esteem, right? But also then implicitly,

I was going to say criticize, but I think it's more than that. I don't think Jesus is just criticizing the approach of the others. I think he's inviting them to change and to find a different way. And to say, why don't you come and join in the celebration of heaven? think the other interesting thing here is that there is something to be said about the worth of the people, the things in these different parables. the it's interesting that Luke uses the word drachma.

not denarius. So he uses the Greek word, not the Roman word for this coin. It's worth about the same. But it's relatively small value. You know, it's not nothing. mean, it's a day's wages. But it's not an absolute fortune. You know, it's not 10,000 talents, which was billions. So, you know, it's not worth a huge amount. And then you've got the lost sheep, which all right, well, a sheep was reasonably valuable, but it's worth about

the same, think it's worth about a denarius. And the lost son, of course, I mean, he was completely worthless because he turned his back on his family and he'd run off and done, you know, horrible things and everything. And so there is something about the worth of what was lost. And in all of these cases, it's not much, but even so, the celebration is massive. And this said something, I think, about the value that God places on people.

lost people. And I think that's just wonderful. That raises a question for me about how we measure worth, because I think you're absolutely right. to us who are standing back who have neither drachma nor sheep, I assume, we measure it in terms of sort of financial value and that sort of thing. But if you are the one who owns the sheep, maybe it has a different sense of worth to you.

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And it's certainly the case with the son, right? So according to society, he would have been deemed worthless because of his actions. And I think we're meant to understand that. But of course, a father to a son, there's an emotional connection that goes beyond how others measure worth. And I think partly Jesus is drawing us to the emotional connection of God our Father to people. He doesn't just simply measure your value.

based on how others see you or the societal, you there's something deep in his heart that calls out. And yeah, I think that mixture of just emotional motivation coupled with joyous raucous over the top celebration tells us something about the emotional life of God, which maybe the Pharisees had little time for a little understanding of. think too, this is a bit convicting. think if we think about

So for example, something like the war going on in Gaza right now, those are God's children. But often something that I want is I want, not that it probably is possible, but basically I want my heart to break for people as God's heart breaks for people. And that's something interesting here for pulling that out of the father's heart for the prodigal son is so great because it's his son. But if we are...

God's children, we want to feel for his people or for the lost as God feels for them. We actually want to take that sort of ownership, don't we? So that our hearts are affected similarly to how God's heart is affected. There's something I found puzzling. I wonder if you guys have got an answer to because I don't. In verse nine, where it talks about the lady finding the coin, she calls her friends and neighbors and says, rejoice with me, I found my lost coin. That seems a little odd to me.

If my son had returned, I would call the family and have his family say, I understand that. But if I'd lost a day's wages and then went, would I really go and get my neighbors to come and celebrate with me? That seems a bit odd. I remember I lost my wedding ring a few years ago and for a week I didn't have it and I searched everywhere and then I found it and I didn't call everyone on the estate to come and celebrate. So what's going on there? Did you have any thoughts on that? Well, the other interesting thing is that, you know,

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when it says that she called her neighbors to celebrate, that implies a bit of a party, which presumably she would have paid for. So, you know, she's spending on the party worth of what she's just found. So what's going on there? I'm not sure I'm any the wiser really, Liam. I think I share your puzzlement there. I guess the only thing that comes to my mind is that like, it says something about the character of the nature of the kingdom of heaven that

if there's an excuse to celebrate, we're celebrating. Like there seems to be this real value for it, for celebration, even over small things. And think about how that would change my life if I celebrated the fact that it was sunny today. I mean, actually, think English people do that all the time. Like, yes, sunny. But do you get what I mean? Like celebrating in small things, that can change everything, can't it? I like that one. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm going to steal that. Thank you. I think one thing that convicted me when I read this as well is I thought, celebration my first response to salvation? And I think on the surface it is. If you hear someone get saved, you go, that's amazing. Yes. But I thought about how often my thoughts will go to discipleship of like, okay, how is this person going to be discipled? We've got to make sure they're coming to church.

Are they ingrained enough in community? Do they have Christian friends? Is this person's salvation genuine? Like, is this person, are they really willing to give everything? I thought about all the other thoughts and things that flood my mind when a new Christian comes to faith at my church. And a lot of those are just worry or fear or not trusting the person's decision.

So I think when I read this, was convicted to celebrate and to trust. And not that those things aren't important, but I guess I thought, is that actually my go-to? That I just go, this is amazing, and just sort of revel in that for a bit before I sort of begin thinking about all those other things. Yeah. love the thought of churches as communities of celebration.

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I'd really like to do a bit of work on that, think. Yeah. Yeah, I really love that as well. And I've been thinking this week about there are stories about sort of high profile conversions of celebrities who come to faith. I think it's one thing if I have walked with someone in the context of my church to have seen them go through that journey.

And generally I think I do celebrate because I've seen them through it and I've prayed with them and that sort of thing. And when I see a story about a later celebrity who's maybe had a difficult past or checkered past and they suddenly become Christians, I find it quite hard to celebrate because there is a part of me that's cynical and thinking, well, is this temporary? Is it going to stick? Maybe I'll wait and see. And maybe I'm a bit more like the Pharisees than I think, which is a horrible realization to have particularly on the podcast.

But actually it takes my mind back to the dragnet story. I can often assume that I have to be the one, and the weeds, I have to be the one to say, that's genuine and that's not genuine. We need to have discernment, we need to have wisdom, and I don't want to sort of champion and promote someone before they've actually shown some of the fruit, there's wisdom in that. But I do need to remember, knows God ultimately that knows the difference between the weeds and the wheat and the fish. And if I am in danger of putting myself

the position of thinking I can judge from a distance, then I'm more like the Pharisees than like Jesus. And that's not the side of the story I want to be on. Yes, me too. Maybe we could just close with some, I don't know, closing thoughts, maybe something that you thought about today for the first time, something that struck you, maybe something that you take away from these that you want to share, and then we can end there. Yeah, I was thinking about the leap.

yeast. And it's very easy to think about how Christianity has changed the world. And you know, I'm a bit of a history nerd. So I love all that stuff from Tom Holland and everything. That's great. It's, I found it harder to think about how I can change the world today. To be honest, how can I be yeast in my situation with the people that I know, and, and all of that kind of thing. So that's something I'm going to go away and think about. For me, I think it's

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Maybe something around humility has really struck me today. if you think about the just the slow progress of the kingdom, it doesn't always go as fast or be as big as I might expect, or the humility around recognizing that I'm not able to judge. Actually, I'm in need of grace and God's intervention as much as anyone else. And even the humility of thinking is my first impulse to celebrate or to be a bit more like the Pharisees. I think

Yeah, I think humility and celebration are the things I want to ponder further and cultivate more in my life. Yeah, that's good. I think for me, I'm still a bit caught up in Jesus's way here of teaching and his way of communication. think the more I read the parables and just Jesus's way of teaching and communication, I feel the love in it and sort of the pull of the character of Jesus. And it's just very...

moving to me, very compelling. feel very drawn to it and to him and his way of doing this so kindly and so carefully for humanity. And I love that. Thank you, Liam, so much for talking with us about the parables. Thank you for being here. Thanks. It's been great to be back with you. We will be back next week for another episode. If you love the podcast, please do feel free to leave us a review or rating and...

That's it. We will see you next week for another episode.