Over the next few weeks, I'm going to demonstrate a mystery for you.
The vast majority of my readers are Westerners and as such you usually read the Scriptures or any other piece of literature and seek the plain and surface meaning. Reason for this? Because we as a group don't write or speak using riddles and hidden meanings. We read as we write or speak, just as each culture does. Readers of all cultures read expecting that the author is communicating as is normally done within their culture. But the problem with our reading of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures is that they did not read/speak, then consequently write, as we do.
Now some of you will undoubtedly know where I'm going with this. If you do, then please play along, even imagining for a while that you don't know what it is I'm about to reveal. For those of you who don't, I'm glad you're here. Prepare to (eventually) see something you've never seen before.
Below is Matthew 13:31-32, the Third Mystery of Jesus' Seven.
Now modern day scholars think they know what this parable means. But do they? Most cannot even agree on the identity of the birds. Are they good? Are they bad? And they human? Does it really matter who/what they are? Demons? Children of God? Their lack of agreement alludes to something quite obvious. Anyway, what do you think?
Use your Western mindset and figure this one out. Read it straightforwardly and interpret it; each and every part, just as Jesus interpreted the two kingdom parables (13:19-23 & 37-43) that preceded this one.
31 He presented another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field;
32 and this is smaller than all {other} seeds; but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches."
Here are the questions you'll need to answer:
What is the mustard seed?
Who is the man?
How did he take the mustard seed?
What does it mean to sow it?
Where is the field?
What's the significance of it being the smallest seed?
What's the significance of it becoming larger than all the other garden plants?
What are the garden plants?
Mustard seeds grow into trees?
Who are the birds?
Why do they nest in the branches?
Comments