P A Downs

Christianity retold

P A Downs

What’s in the box? (Matthew 13: 51-52)

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Image by Irina_kukuts from Pixabay

What’s in the Box? is an adaptation of Matthew 13: 51-52

So Jesus asked his students, “Have you understood all these parables?”

And they said, “Yup.”

Jesus replied back to them, “So, listen, everyone who’s been trained to teach, trained for God’s nation is like someone who’s got a jewellery box in their house. They can bring out the old jewellery, the new jewellery – or both!”

Commentary

Yes, I know. I usually put the commentary on a different blog page. But this parable is really only one sentence long and it also doesn’t fit thematically with the parables it comes after. Matthew seems to be suggesting Jesus used this parable to round off a teaching session (about parables) with another mini-parable on how to use what he’d just taught.

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Commentary: The Donations (Matthew 13:47-50)

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Image by Olivia Gonzalez from Pixabay

The Donations is based on Matthew 13: 47-50

Fishing

A fishing net catches anything too big to fall through the netting, all jumbled up together. After they’ve brought up their net, fishermen would need to sort through the catch. They’d keep the fish that were edible (had visible scales and fins) and throw away anything that wasn’t.

As far as we know, Jesus only told one parable about fish. It’s surprising, because Jesus spent a great deal of his ministry around and on the Sea of Galilee and several of his disciples were fishermen. The various Gospels contain many passages where Jesus is on the lake – telling the disciples where the fish were, sorting out a sudden squall, taking a short cut across the lake instead of around it. Perhaps, in this case, actions spoke louder than words.

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Commentary: Forcing Old and New Together (Mark 2: 21-22)

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Image by Michael Schwarzenberger from Pixabay

Forcing New and Old Together is from Mark 2: 21-22

What’s the Problem?

The main ‘problem’ with these two mini parables is that they’re now the ‘old’ and we’re the ‘new’! They’re both good candidates for retelling, because they’re almost impossible to understand without explanation. So, people listening today might get the idea that there’s some kind of problem putting old and new together, but what they might not realise is that Jesus swaps the problem item between the two parables.

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Forcing New and Old Together (Mark 2: 21-22)

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Image by Michael Schwarzenberger from Pixabay

Forcing New and Old Together is from Mark 2: 21-22

No one repairs an antique chair with a plastic leg. Why? Because the new leg will just make the chair worse, so you end up repairing it again! And no one puts a new processor into an old laptop, either, because the old processor is soldered in! If you put a new one in, you’ll likely wreck both the motherboard and the new processor.

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Commentary: The Unproductive Biotech Company (Luke 13: 6-9)

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Geralt at Pixabay

The Unproductive Biotech Company is based on Luke 13: 6-9

Retelling the Unfruitful Fig Tree

  • Jesus used a fig tree in a vineyard, so he was probably thinking about individuals. Not Israel as a whole.
  • A fig tree is supposed to produce figs! The parable is about people not doing what they’re ‘meant’ to do.
  • The fig tree might just need a bit of help (loosening the soil, adding fertiliser).
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