B (3:25)

Right? So this is a really important term to get down. Just take one step back. Big picture. Where are we in the Gospel of Matthew? Right? So Matthew is divided up into these five sections, and you have narrative and discourse, and narrative and discourse. And you can see the, you know, the broader structure of this gospel. You pointed out he's a tax collector, has, like, accountability, everything in its place. And so what we're doing now is we're making a shift now, right? So in chapters 11 through 12, Jesus was doing and saying a number of things. We had some narratives. Now we're moving into chapter 13 where we move into a speech of Jesus. And now he's speaking in parables. In Matthew 5, when we have the Sermon on the Mount 6 and 7, we don't really have the same kind of speech, right? Jesus doesn't really use parables like he does in Matthew 13. And the narrative helps us understand that. So Jesus has been rejected in Matthew 11, 12. And so now after that, in response to that, he speaks, as you said, clearly in the house to his disciples. But when he goes out, he has to be guarded and he has to be careful about what he says. And so he speaks in parables. So what is a parable? So a lot of people think a parable is just like a story, right? And in fact, that can be one of the meanings. But I'd like to drill down into this just a little bit. So a parable. The Greek term parabola actually translates a Hebrew term, mashal. And in the Old Testament, mashal can be lots of different things. It can be a wise saying, it can be a riddle, it can be an allegory. It can refer to someone being a byword or a tant, or it can be like a narrative, like a story. A lot of people don't realize this, but the book of Proverbs, Greek, is literally the book of parables, right? So Solomon, son of David, is famous for teaching in parables. And when you read proverbs, you just get these, you know, short little statements. Then you also have parables that are longer stories. And two of the most famous examples are found. One is found in 2nd Samuel, where we read about David having an affair with Bathsheba, right? And then he has her husband murdered. Nathan, the prophet, comes to David, and I don't think we should read the whole story, but.

A (6:01)

Yeah, but it's short.

B (6:02)

Please. Yeah.

A (6:02)

When you're a prophet, you have sometimes a short life expectancy, especially you have to be a prophet to kings, right? And so, you know, Nathan has this dilemma. He's got to convict David of his sin, which is murder. But David's the king, and David's killed a lot of men. He was a great warrior, and he's.

B (6:19)

Got a lot of power.

A (6:20)

And so if Nathan just goes up to David and says, look, David, you committed adultery and murder. You need to repent, he could get killed. And so Nathan approaches it a different way, because Nathan also has the sense that sinners don't like to be told that they're sinners. Look, none of us like to be told that we're sinners. None of us like to be corrected, even if it's not a sin, that we were doing something wrong or we made a mistake or we used a word, or our grammar was off, right? So we don't like to be corrected. But Nathan comes up with a way of doing the correction in an indirect way. So why don't you set up, tell the story that he uses, which is a parable.

B (7:01)

It is a parable.

A (7:01)

Tell a correction to David indirectly.

B (7:04)

That's right. So what he does is he goes to David, and we read the following. He came to him and said there were two men in a certain city, and one rich and the other poor. The rich man had many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. So he loves this little lamb. So cares for this little lamb. And then tragedy happens. Now, there was a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock and herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb and he prepared it. So instead of cooking one of his own lambs, an animal from his own flock, the rich man, who has plenty of animals, goes to this poor man, takes his beloved sheep and slaughters it. David is angry. David doesn't understand what's going on here.

A (8:11)

He can connect to this because he was a shepherd.

B (8:13)

Oh, that's great.

A (8:13)

So he's got an emotional connection to the story.

B (8:16)

David certainly would have had affection for his sheep. And of course he could connect to this. Thank you for making that point. It's really important. David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. And he said to Nathan, and as the Lord lives, that's an oath formula. The man who has done this deserves to die. Now, the story has served to convict David of his own sin because David is the rich man. Uriah is the poor man, Bathsheba is the beloved lamb that David took to.

A (8:52)

Himself, even though he had many wives himself.

B (8:56)

Oh, so what happens? David says, he deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity. And Nathan says to David, you demand, but not in a good way. It's a bad. You are the man. Right? He says, you are the man. And of course, what happens is this breaks through. This penetrates David's defenses, and he repents. All right, so when you're speaking truth to power, it's often a good idea to use a parable because no one wants to be convicted of their own sin. But when it's a story about somebody else, it's a lot easier to see things clearly. Right, exactly. So that's one kind of parable that we find in the Old Testament. It's a parable a prophet would tell. Another parable that is, and this is the last one that I'll mention, is found in Isaiah, Isaiah, chapter 5. Now, here the prophet is delivering an oracle of judgment. And we're going to see later in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is going to deliver oracles of judgment and use parables to do so. So here is what we read in Isaiah 5. Let me sing for my beloved, my love song concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines. He built a wal watchtower in the midst of it. He hewed out a wine vat in it, and he looked for it to yield grapes. But it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? I've done everything for my vineyard. The Lord is saying, I looked to it to yield grapes that yielded wild grapes. Now I will tell you what I will do with my vineyard. I will remove its hedge. So all the things that he did to care for it, remove its hedge, it'll be devoured, it will break down its wall. It'll be tramp, trampled on. And then he goes on to say, for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel. So the image of the vine or the vineyard here is applied to Israel as a symbol. So we have all kinds of different parables. We've got the short proverbs of Solomon, we've got narratives. It's a broad range here. Right, so with Matthew, chapter 13, what happens? Well, we're going to see in Matthew 13 a series of parables, right? And we're going to. We can count them. Normally, people count them as seven. We have the parable of the sower first from verses 1 to 9, and then 18 to 23. We have the parable of the wheat and tares from 1323 to 30, and then 36 to 43, where he explains it. The mustard seed, which is in verses 31 to 32. The hidden leaven, which is in verse 33. The hidden treasure, which is 1344. The pearl of great price, which is 1345-46. The dragnet 1347-50. And then there's a. So most people say, okay, there's seven parables here, but there's one last saying at the end. We already mentioned it about the scribe who's been trained for the kingdom of heaven, who's like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old. I think that might also be a parable. Now, we don't think of these short little sayings as parables, but we would if we read the book of Proverbs as the book of parables, right? So we're going to have stories here of different lengths and different size, and all of These would fit broadly into the kind of thing that Solomon, the son of David did and that prophets did. Jesus, of course, is both.

A (12:37)

He really is. And it. I love the connection with Christ because you see him as the son of David. He's the son of Solomon. And I love that. Parable of judgment was a parable that was used on David by the prophet Nathan. And now Jesus is coming, and he's using a parable of prophetic judgment. With the Pharisees and scribes, we're going to see those kinds of parables more and more as we go. Let's dive into the first parable. Wonderful. We've got probably just enough time to cover the first one.

B (13:06)

Sure.

A (13:07)

And so in chapter 13, verse 3, Jesus talks about. Matthew tells us he told them many things in parables. And so we get the first one. A sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, and there they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell along the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear. So, you know, the disciples are going to ask him why he's teaching in parables a little bit later. And we'll come to that maybe a little later. But let's just jump to the interpretation that Jesus gives of this parable, because the key image here is the seed. That's what we find in every scene of the parable. There is the seed on the path, the seed on the rocky ground, the seed with the thorns and the thistles, and then the seed on the good soil. And the key to unlocking what this parable is really all about is understanding the meaning of that seed. What does the seed represent? Well, Jesus is going to give him the golden key to that right out of this chute. When he gets into the interpretation, you want to jump to that, right?

B (14:32)

So in the interpretation, Jesus. So Jesus takes his disciples aside now, and he's going to explain to them what this is about. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, very interesting expressions, the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it. So notice the key here is understanding. This is really important for us to emphasize because a lot of people reduce their faith to sentimentality. A lot of people reduce their faith to emotions. A lot of people think of love as just an emotion. It's not the way the church has thought about love. I'll tell you that Jesus wants us to understand that the key is to understand. So the first person hears the word of the kingdom, does not understand it. The evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. That's the person who. That's the seed. The sower throws the seed, it lands on the path. The birds come and eat it up. So Satan's like that bird. Come, you hear it, you hear the word proclaimed, not really paying attention, and you lose it.

A (15:38)

It's such a powerful verse and image that Jesus gives because the devil can take the word out of our hearts if we don't understand it. And I think of so many Christians who. I mean, right now, we live in a time in the west, whether you're in Canada or England or the United States, where we have this great falling away, people are leaving the church, whether evangelical or Catholic. And now there's places that are, you know, there's churches that are thriving and growing. But the general rule is people are. There's less Christians practicing today than there was 10 years ago, than 20 years ago, than 50 years ago. And Michael, according to Jesus teaching here, the number one reason, the first line of casualty of losing people who had the word of God sown in their, you know, given to them, proclaimed to them. But then the devil is able to take that word and that faith away from them. It's because they didn't understand. I mean, is that how I'm interpreting? Is that a right interpretation to say that so many people today who are leaving Christianity or the Church or Catholicism are leaving primarily because they never really understood the faith?

B (16:52)

I think that's right. And I think the Catechism of the Catholic Church actually would back you up on that. One of my favorite lines in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is found in Catechism 2707.

A (17:03)

Which version do you have?

B (17:06)

This is.

A (17:06)

Is this the Australian one?

B (17:07)

It's the Australian version.

A (17:08)

I love that one. Okay. I couldn't. I looked blue.

B (17:10)

Hold it in my pocket.

A (17:11)

I know that color. I have that one.

B (17:12)

I love that one. Yeah, that's a good one. The catechism says this Christians owe it to themselves to develop the desire to meditate regularly, lest they come to resemble the first three kinds of soil in the parable of the sower. Now here, the catechism is giving us some. A good interpretation Some vital information. You know, I speak a lot around the country at Catholic conferences, Catholic parishes, things like that. One of the things I get asked more than almost anything else, how do you keep your kids Catholic? So many friends, so many loved ones. Even my own children have fallen away from the faith. Now, my kids are young, so I got a lot to learn about parenting. So I'm hoping that what I'm about to say will bear fruit in their lives. But what the catechism is saying is the reason people fall away, the reason the devil is able to come and snatch the word away, is because people fail to understand, because they fail to meditate. If you fail to meditate, then you will become like the three kinds of soil that does not bear fruit. That's the key. The first three, soil, right? The one on the path, the one in the rocky ground, the one that's on the thorns. These three, they don't bear fruit. How do you bear fruit? How do we not fall away? We have to understand. Jesus says, well, what do you mean, understand? Well, practically, that means sitting with the word of God. It means praying from the word of God. It means not just going to prayer and saying, God, give me this, God, give me that, Bless this, bless that, bless this, bless that. Amen. It means something more than just formulaic prayer. We need to hear. The Lord is speaking to us in sacred Scripture. If we have ears to hear.

A (19:03)

Well, that's the key phrase. And that's what Jesus says at the end of the parable in verse nine. For those who have ears to hear, AKU in the Greek, which goes back to the Hebrew word shema, to listen, to hear, which is the great word of the covenant, right? And the greatest Jewish prayer is, hear, O Israel, Shema, listen, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. But what Jesus is saying here, let him, he who has ears, let him hear. He's saying, look, you need to listen. And the key to the listening here in Jesus interpretation is understanding. You have to listen aggressively and attentively so that you can understand the word of the kingdom, you can understand the teaching of Jesus so that the devil can't take that word from your heart. And that's so important.

B (19:55)

It's crucial. It's crucial. The next kind of soil is explained as for what is on the rocky ground. This is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet has no root in himself, but endures for a While and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the Word, Right. Immediately he falls away.

A (20:17)

Notice that again, the seed is the word of God. It's the word of the kingdom. It's the Word. And so the seed is the word.

B (20:24)

That's right.

A (20:25)

And to receive it, to be good. So you have to hear and you have to understand. So go ahead.

B (20:29)

This is crucial for interpreting the parable of the sower, but also all the parables. Let's just say this. Usually Jesus parables have a twist. There's something unexpected in the parable. Jesus does this all the time. So in the parable of the sower, who the heck is this sower? He's the worst sower ever. He's throwing it everywhere. I mean, if you want to sow seed, well, you concentrate it in the right area, right? What is this guy doing taking the seeds and throwing everywhere? Give me a break. Seems a little weird. Right? So there's a twist there, Right. What's going on? Well, Jesus sows the seed. Seed everywhere, Right. He is not sparing in spreading the Word.

A (21:16)

And that's what we're seeing in the gospel. He is proclaiming the gospel to everybody.

B (21:20)

That's right.

A (21:20)

The crowds to the scribes and the Pharisees. He's giving the word of God generously and proclaiming it to everyone.

B (21:28)

Right. And so the oddity in this parable is we actually have the choice to be what kind of soil receives the Word. We get the choice of picking one of these to be like. So we could be like, the one who hears the word. How often has that happened to you? It's never happened to me that I've been sitting at mass and, you know, we got to the second reading, I was like, well, I don't know. I was paying attention to the first reading. Right. Or sometimes we have pious. John Seehorn, our friend here, professor in the graduate school, talks about the danger of pious inattention. Right. Where you're listening with piety, but you're not really following the story or asking important questions. Like, how many times have you read the parable of the Sorrow and thought to yourself, this is a really weird scene that this guy's throwing seed everywhere. We just become so accustomed to the story, we fail to be surprised by the imagery anymore.

A (22:18)

No, I always tell students, don't think Bible world. This is the false piety. But Bible world, well, yep, it's in the Bible, so I'm just going to go with it.

B (22:26)

That's right.

A (22:27)

And we should use our reason and Say, wait a minute, that sounds a little odd. Is that normal? Is that what farmers did back then? That they threw their seed on paths in front of their house or on the way to the barn, not just in the field? Yeah, they have. I mean, these people are really stupid. And we realized, no, they actually weren't stupid. And now it makes us puzzle. Like, what's going on?

B (22:51)

That's right.

A (22:51)

And then we can catch the deeper meaning.

B (22:53)

That's exactly right. And so then are we the kind of person who receives the Word, but then when it becomes difficult, we fall away? Oh, I love doing Bible study. It's so much fun. I love doing Matthew 5. I love doing Matthew 12, Matthew 13. Oh, Leviticus. I'll forget that. And then you fall away. Right. So we have to persevere. The third kind is the one that is sown on the thorns. This is the one who hears the Word. But the cares of the world and this, the deceitfulness of riches, choke the Word and it proves unfruitful. So, yes, I love Jesus. I want to follow Jesus. I also want all these worldly things. I want reputation. I want to spread the Word and I want to be recognized for it.

A (23:37)

It's almost like each one gets worse in a sense of. I think this temptation is the most subtle because the people who fall into the cares of the world that choke out the Word, they never renounce the Word. They never say, I'm going to stop being Christian. And that's what happens to so many people who stop going to church. You know, they stop practicing their Christianity, but they still consider themselves usually Christians.

B (24:00)

Yes, yes.

A (24:01)

And that's this third sowing amongst the thorns.

B (24:04)

That's right.

A (24:05)

But it is choking out the Word because they're not meditating, they're not praying, they're not reading the Bible, they're not hearing the Word God proclaimed. And so they're Christian. Discipleship is withering and they don't know it.

B (24:17)

Right. Or we hear the Word and we fail to embrace its meaning because we have all these cares of the world and the desire for riches. So we read the parable. What's the basic image here? The kingdom of heaven. What is the kingdom of heaven? My definition for students is it's that realm in which all things are made subject to God in Christ. That's the kingdom of heaven. And the idea is we're to give everything to God, Everything we have, everything we are. And so if you are serving two masters, Jesus, but also, I want to make money. Also I want worldly fame. Also, then it's going to cancel out the ability for you to enter into that kingdom, that realm in which we subject everything to God. And then finally, the one who sows on good soil is the one who hears the word and understands it. And they bears fruit. Now, I want to underscore something here. We're not all called to get graduate degrees in theology, but we are all called to be disciples. And the word disciple in Greek literally means students. That's what it means. And so if we are to not fall away, if we are to be fruitful, Bible study isn't one nice thing that you can do. Right. It's not just one option. And no reading the Word, trying to understand the Word, trying to come to a deeper appreciation where God is trying to speak to us. This is absolute for Jesus. This is it. This is where it all hangs. Do you understand it or not? And by the way, that's why we get to do what we do here. And I have so much fun doing these Bible studies, but I'm also really excited because I know this is airing, I think, on the feast of St. Jerome, the great saint of the church, who models for us that devotion to Bible study. And, of course, we've got a big Scripture conference coming up that we're all excited about here with Dr. Gray and myself. And my friend Dr. Brad Pietre is also on faculty here, Dr. Mark Giescheck and Dr. Nina Heuerman, these are all great Catholic Bible scholars. And we just launched the website today, and I think we're already at 5,5000 people registered. And I think there's a limit to how many people we can take. So we're going to need to get.

A (26:37)

People to sign up, register quickly if you want to get in. It's a free conference, but it's going to fill up really quickly. So if you want to go to this Bible conference, which we hope to see you there, it's called Anchored, the.

B (26:49)

Anchored Augustine Institute Bible Conference.

A (26:52)

Yep, Anchored. Anchored in the storms of life, Anchorage. And so it's all going to be about hope and all kinds of good things.

B (27:01)

Right. It's a free conference. And the reason we want to make it free. Thank you. For the donor who made this possible, is because we really believe that the way to renew your spiritual life and renew the church broadly is through listening to Jesus, hearing the word and understanding it.

A (27:18)

Now, Michael, this last sowing, that's on the good soil.

B (27:21)

Yes.

A (27:22)

That bears 100 fold, 60 fold, 30 fold.

B (27:26)

Yeah.

A (27:27)

You know, I was talking with a farmer about a Year ago. And he was telling me how he calculated this and he's like, nobody gets those kinds of return on sowing seed. You don't get a 30 fold crop. I mean even the lowest level here is far beyond. I mean he was thinking maybe he would get 12 to 14% or 18% crazy. If you got a really great bumper crop in terms of return on investment, in terms of the seed sown. So to have it return at that multiple is really, really crazy. So again, most of us, if you're like me and you grew up in the suburbs, you're like, oh, okay, I didn't know that. But if you're an agrarian society, you're like again, that's like throwing the seed on the path. That's crazy. And so here you thought the farmer was insane by throwing on rocky ground and on the path. But in the end, this foolish farmer is able to get a hundredfold 60 fold, 30 fold return. And notice you get three numbers because you get the three areas beforehand and now you get the three numbers again. So he's going to get a great return on his investment. And so this farmer's not as foolish as we thought.

B (28:47)

That's right. Wonderful. And that's the way it is in the spiritual life, right? We always get a greater rate of return than we could have ever imagined if we'd spent our energies and resources elsewhere.

A (28:59)

Well, you know, one of the things, one possible interpretation of these, you might think, well, what kind of soil am I? Am I on the path? Am I the rocky ground? Am I in the choke thorns? Or am I the good soil? And it's not simply that. You're just predestined to be one or the other. What we find is the disciples.

B (29:17)

This is so key.

A (29:18)

The disciples are going to go through all of these levels. They're going to be called hard hearted by Jesus because they don't understand and they're not really listening. They are going to be distracted by carers and pursuits of who's the greatest in positions. They are going to fall away when there's persecution. And yet in the end they make their hard heartedness and they make their distraction and all those different things they have. They end up humbling themselves through penance and becoming the good soil. So we may not start as good soil, but we can become that by the grace of God and by turning to Christ in faith. So thank you for joining us in this Bible study. I'm grateful for all the support that all of you who are in our mission circle give. That's how we're able to do the Bible Conference for free and all these different things that we do. Grateful for all of you who joined the mission circle. Thank you for being partners with us and may the Lord bless and keep you.