This morning we are going to conclude our time in Matthew chapter 13 with the last parable, as some people call it, or just simple analogy in verse 52 and with a look at how Jesus was perceived by those who saw him grow up. The verses that we look at this morning contrast how people see teachers and how that perception can help or hinder their faith. On the one hand, you have Christ explaining to his disciples that those who are well trained and respected can bring forth treasure from their past experiences and continued study. On the other hand, you have a devaluing of ministry that can inhibit any or all work that is done before those who are set in their hardness of heart.
We are going to get right into the text this morning and so please open your Bibles and follow along with me as we read Matthew 13:51-58. Immediately following the parable of the dragnet our Lord continues, saying to the disciples,
“Have you understood all these things?” They said to him, “yes.” And Jesus said to them, “therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings out of his treasure things new and old.”
When Jesus had finished these parables, he departed from there. He came to his hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things? And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.” And he did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief.
Throughout chapter 13 we have seen the Lord explain, through the use of parables, the kingdom of heaven and how it will work itself out on the earth. We saw that the kingdom of heaven will be rejected by many who will continue to live and exist alongside the true seed of the gospel. The seed will be spread to many different types of soils, some rejecting outright from the very beginning, some showing initial growth only to be choked out by the difficulties or desires of life, and only the good soil growing to produce fruit. Alongside this fruit producing growth will sprout tares that will be allowed to continue to grow until the harvest.
We saw the humble beginnings from which the kingdom would begin grow into a massive organism that affects everything it touches like leaven amongst a batch of dough. And we saw how the kingdom is to be valued by those who enter into it; a value so great that all who come must be willing to give up all that they have in order to possess it. A value made all the more plain when we consider the judgment that is coming at the end of the age and what will happen to all those who reject the kingdom and its gracious and loving Lord.
Jesus revealed all of these things to the disciples, hiding these truths from those who had stopped up their ears and shut their eyes to the truth of the kingdom and to Jesus who was bringing it in to the world. Having come to the end of this series of parables, this new revelation of the kingdom and its future, Jesus asks his disciples, “have you understood all these things?”
“Does all of this make sense?” Literally, the verb there means “to piece it together.” “Are all the pieces fitted in your mind so that you can visualize what the kingdom of heaven will be like on this earth?” The kingdom is going to continue to grow and to influence the world, many will still reject the truth and evil will grow alongside the good, and in the end, there will come a gathering of all the earth, like a dragnet catching every living creature in its snare, all will be gathered together and then separated into everlasting reward or judgement, the wheat and the tares, the sheep and the goats. Eternal life or everlasting fire.
Back in the end of chapter 9 Jesus had said to them that the harvest is coming and that the Lord of the harvest is going to be sending out workers. Jesus knew exactly what was coming for all of mankind and he needed his disciples to be prepared for the work that he was setting them to. That is why they were called in chapter 10. Called as workers to the harvest, to be sent into the world to preach the good news of the kingdom. For the last four chapters, 10, 11, 12, and now 13, the Lord has been training his harvesters, sending him out to do on-the-job training and giving them the classroom lectures. All culminating with the question, “Have you understood all these things?”
I think that we can see in that question the concern and care that the Lord Jesus has for his disciples. He is interested in their understanding of all that they had been taught. He would never have asked the Pharisees if they understood any of his lessons because he knew that they did not care, they were not trying to understand, to be affected by his teaching. I think it is comforting to realize that the Lord Jesus, having unfolded all of these magnificent truths, then turns to them and asks with concern, “do you understand what I have been teaching you?”
And the disciples responded, “yes.” Now let us stop there for a moment, did the disciples really understand everything that Jesus had just said? I do not think they were claiming comprehensive understanding. The apostles did not think that they understood everything with complete clarity that Jesus had insinuated about the kingdom with these parables. But I believe they grasped the basics of what Jesus had been getting at. They would continue to have some false notions about the kingdom that needed to be cleared up, both by further teaching on the kingdom itself and through experience. We will see as we progress through Matthew that they were still expecting Jesus to initiate his earthly reign, in some way or another conquering the entire world and they were planning on seats of authority by his side within their lifetimes.
But they did understand that Jesus was telling them that the kingdom would have facets that they had not anticipated. They understood that Jesus was giving them new revelation about the kingdom that the Old Testament had not fully explained. And so, I think we can say they had an essential understanding of what Jesus was teaching about the kingdom, just not a comprehensive understanding about the kingdom.
Of course, Jesus knew exactly how much they understood. He knew exactly their preconceptions and how this new revelation was both changing and being fitted into what they thought they knew, and he accepted their affirmation of understanding as sufficient. How do I know that; because he says, “Therefore,” or “on account of this,” and carries right along with his next point. Jesus accepted their affirmation and carries along.
“Therefore, every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like the head of the household, who brings out of his treasure things new and old.” Jesus is comparing the disciples now that they have been trained, now that they have heard and understood his teaching, he is calling them scribes. A scribe as a scholar, a lifelong learner and student who made his living by sharing his knowledge, passing on to the next generation. Jesus has discipled these 12 men concerning the kingdom and is telling them that they are prepared, trained learners who now understand the things of the kingdom of heaven and are being sent out to teach others.
He was telling them that he has trained them just as the Jews train their scribes. Now that they are trained, they are like the head of the household who brings out of his treasure, his storehouse, things new and old. Now first, we can see that this applies to the disciples who had been listening to Jesus. This applies to them. But he does not just say “now you have been trained and are like the head of the household.” He says “therefore, every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven.” He is referring to all people who study and appreciate the truth of the ministry of the Holy Spirit and instruct others in it. Anyone who becomes a disciple of the kingdom of heaven, who learns it is truths and applications and seeks to train others in those same understandings is like the head of the household who brings out treasure, good useful things for those under his care.
The first principle that we must see is that one must be instructed before he can become an instructor. If anyone is to be a teacher of the truth of the word of God, they must first themselves be taught the truth. We cannot expect to proclaim the truth of God with effectiveness if we ourselves have not learned that truth of God. Every scribe is like a man who brings forth treasures old and new. The old treasures are the things that they have learned, all that has been poured into them. To be effective in ministry you need to have been poured into by others.
If ever you think I have a particularly good lesson or metaphor, something that really helps you grasp a biblical truth, it is a good bet that I am simply repeating someone else’s words of wisdom. One of my seminary professors had a saying, “plagiarism is stealing from one source, research is stealing from many.” In that vein, my sermons, my Sunday school lessons, are very well researched. All I am doing is bringing to you the treasures that I have collected from other wise teachers who share those treasures with me. That is all I do all week, search for treasure in sermons, in books, in articles. I take those treasures, compare them against each other, see what is the best, what I believe to be the closest to the truth and the most accurate and effective way of communicating them, compile those together and then present them to you.
Now, I also spend time in the text itself and contemplating all of this stuff that I have learned in my study and occasionally I come up with a good idea here or there. The new treasures are often simply the way in which I have to apply the same truths in our current context.
The statement of Jesus here is the same for all kinds of teachers of the truth of God’s kingdom. Not just men who stand behind the pulpit as I do, but everyone who is called to teach whether that be in Sunday school or in Bible study, a parent or grandparent that teaches the truth of Scripture to a child, the biblical counselor who helps someone struggling with a particular sin understand how the precepts of Scripture can be applied.
Throughout the 20th century there was a massive missions movement that swept the American church. Young Christians were made excited by the prospect of going abroad and serving the kingdom by preaching the truth to the lost. That is great and exciting and godly. The problem was that these inexperienced missionaries were being sent out without any kind of training. A few years of Bible study, maybe a degree from a Bible college and then right out the door. Where some of these missionaries were effective, the majority caused more harm than good by teaching false doctrines simply because they did not know better or by causing cultural incidents because they had never been instructed in the basics of intercultural missions.
Now, I am not saying that we should always require a fancy degree with a bunch of letters after your name before you are allowed to go out and teach or preach the gospel to the lost. Not at all. What I am saying is that to be ineffective teacher of the truth we need to be well versed in it, well-trained and constantly searching for greater and better understanding of the word of God.
We are all called to this training and reteaching in some way or another. That is what discipleship is, to be a learner, not just a follower. And we are all under the same command of Jesus which he will give in Matthew 28, just as he is ascending into heaven, in verse 19 he commands all his disciples “Therefore, as you go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, (doing what?) teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.” We should all strive to live up to the charge Paul gave to Timothy, to “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.”
If you are going to be teaching the commands of Christ to new disciples then you need to know them. That means every person who calls themselves a Christian is required to engage in the study of Scripture, not just the preacher, not just the church elder, not just the seminary professor, it is the duty of every disciple of Christ. Yes, some people are more gifted in it than others and God has called them to be pastors and evangelists and teachers, but their job, as Paul says in Ephesians 4, is not to grow the church themselves, but to equip all who are in the body of Christ. “He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to do the building up of the body of Christ… (Which) causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”
Now we move into the next part of our text for this morning, the account of Jesus in his hometown of Nazareth and how they reacted to him. Jesus had begun his public ministry there but was rejected outright. In Luke chapter 4 we read about his first public announcement of the beginning of his messianic ministry. He went into the synagogue there and Nazareth on the Sabbath and the reading for that day was Isaiah 61:1-2. A familiar messianic text that all in attendance would have known and recognize the significance of. It says, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” When the reading was completed, Jesus, instead of giving a lesson or interpretation of the passage, said, “today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” At this, the people were filled with rage and got up to drive him out of the city in order to stone him.
Just over a year later Jesus returns to Nazareth. In the interceding time his fame had spread throughout Galilee as accounts of his teaching and his miracles reached far and wide. As he returns to his hometown, the people get a chance to hear and see these things firsthand. But instead of repenting from their earlier rejection of him, their familiarity with this great teacher and miracle worker simply serves as an excuse when they reject him as Messiah again.
Their initial response to the Lord at his return is that of amazement. “He came to his hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished.” Just as the crowds had been amazed by his wisdom and his teaching throughout Galilee, so the people of Nazareth recognized the genius of the teachings of Jesus. They knew there was something different, there was more to what he was saying then what they were accustomed to hearing. But just as the crowds of people throughout the rest of Galilee had heard the amazing teaching of Jesus and still rejected him, so the people of Nazareth allowed their unbelief to obscure the obvious.
They ask each other “where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” Their rejection of Jesus the first time might be understandable. The first time Jesus announced his messianic role and was rejected the people had not seen his miracles, had not been listening to his teaching. But now they were seeing it all and instead of recalling that first announcement of Jesus as the Christ, they continue to question the obvious.
When Nicodemus came to Jesus at night in John chapter 3, he immediately acknowledged that Jesus had come from God as a teacher because, he says “no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Even the antagonistic Jewish leaders recognized and understood that he had real power and authority over nature. Their unbelief took them to the illogical and blasphemous conclusion that Jesus was empowered by Satan. The people of Nazareth demonstrated their unbelief in the same way, by refusing to acknowledge the divine power behind his teaching and miracles.
Those who reject Jesus, then and now, do not reject him for lack of evidence but because their hearts are hardened by sin. Some people today often think that if Christians could perform miracles, if somebody just went around healing the sick, curing cancer, that everyone would reject their sin and turn to Christ. If only God would prove his existence with a few cosmic miracles everyone would turn to him. Well, we see here and again and again throughout the Gospels that it does not make any difference. The people of Nazareth had all the evidence you could want, miracle after miracle and divinely inspired teaching and yet they found an excuse to remain in their unbelief.
The excuses of sin come in all shapes and sizes. For these people, it was their familiarity with Jesus. “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” “We know this guy, he is Joseph’s kid, the carpenter. Hey Joe, didn’t he build that addition to your house a couple years ago? There is no way he could be the Messiah, we know his brothers and sisters, he grew up right down the street there, his mother still lives in that house.”
Instead of recognizing Jesus for who he is and feeling honored that they were from the same town, instead of thanking God that they were on a first name basis with His chosen Messiah, the people of Nazareth, blinded by their sin, could not see past their familiarity and recognize all that Jesus is.
It is so often the little things that seem to keep people from accepting Jesus. The people of Nazareth were just like so many throughout history who have found whatever silly reason to justify their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah and King. Maybe they do not like the attitude of the one witnessing to them, they do not like the organized nature of “church,” all that standing up and sitting down and singing those weird old songs, maybe they are offended at the perceived holier-than-thou attitude of some Christians, or at the fact that the Bible has objective standards of behavior and does not accept everyone’s choices equally. In the end, all they are doing is putting up a smoke screen, one excuse after another to justify their unwillingness to believe the claims and promises of Christ.
Responding to the offense that they took at him, Jesus makes the proverbial observation, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.” It is often difficult for those who are particularly close to someone to see accept them as a great leader or particularly insightful teacher. They know their flaws, they have seen them fail at other things, they are incapable of seeing in the individual the greatness that those on the outside can see. Even when an individual is personally liked, it is not easy for them to gain the respect that an outsider with the same capabilities would enjoy.
To me, that shows the amazing levels of humility within Jesus. This is God incarnate standing before these people and yet all they see is the carpenter’s son. Jesus was so ordinary that the people who watched him grow up, never causing a problem, never sinning, always such an incredibly hard worker, even when he was performing miracles they could not see anything particularly special about him.
Finally, we have verse 58, “and he did not do many miracles because of their unbelief.” When those within the word of faith, name it and claim it offshoots of Christianity are confronted with why the miracles they claimed were possible did not happen, they have to come up with an excuse. In this simple verse, they find a great copout. When they are questioned why the desperate prayers and money did not save the life of a child or spouse who was dying from cancer, all they have to do is flip the situation on the person who is suffering. “You did not get your miracle because of your unbelief.” “The reason why God could not heal your child or your spouse was because you did not have enough faith.” And they can point to a verse like this saying, “see Jesus wanted to heal people in Nazareth but there was so much unbelief that he could not.”
Now that is simply not true. We see time after time Jesus performing miracles that had nothing to do with the individual’s faith. All the miracles that Jesus did were done to strengthen the faith of those who believed in him but many of his miracles were performed on or for someone who had no faith in him at all. Whether it was a blind man who had no idea who he was or a dead girl. What we see very clearly throughout the Gospels is that unbelief is no barrier to God when it comes to miracles.
Since it was not that Jesus was restricted from doing miracles, then why this statement? I think that it is simply Jesus recognizing the unbelief and deciding not to waste his time. Back in Matthew 7:6 he warned his disciples “do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, lease they trample them under their feet and turn in tear you to pieces.” The hardened unbeliever despises the truth and blessings of God and will often use them against the Lord and his people if he can. When unbelief investigates the supernatural work of God it will always come up empty. It cannot recognize the works of God because it will not recognize the truth of God. Though we must always continue to pray, we must also recognize when our efforts are in vain when it comes to evangelism. We must see our ministry as an investment in the kingdom and be intentional with how we invest. Sometimes it is better to stop pouring time and effort into someone who clearly wants nothing to do with Christ and instead pour that effort into others where there will be a greater return. Is a very difficult thing to consider, especially when we think about eternity but it is a truth that Jesus models for us here.