At the Feet of the Master

In our final week working through our fall festivals study guide, Pilgrimage and Parables: Our Walk to the Kingdom, we give a little contextual background on the parables of the kingdom of heaven, plus three general categories you can look for as you read them: the unexpected nature of the kingdom, the questioning of human values and systems of status, and the crisis of decision. In place of a study guide, please spend a few moments with the Feast of Tabernacles-themed prompt below, featuring Romans 14:17.

Verses referenced in this week’s reflection prompt: Romans 14:17, Psalm 15, Luke 6:45, James 1:19, Proverbs 20:5, Psalm 118:24, Romans 15:13

[Transcript]

Welcome back to Stir. This is our fourth week of content that goes along with Pilgrimage and Parables, Our Walk to the Kingdom. If you're following along, we have made it through the Songs of Ascent, and are now switching focus this week to talk about parables of the Kingdom of Heaven, which were given by Jesus Christ. When I sat down to film this video, I thought, What could I talk about?, and I thought I would dive into specific parables… but I realized that when we started talking about the Songs of Ascent, we provided a lot of background information.

Chiastic Structure in the Kingdom Parables?

There's so much to offer, as far as the structure of the songs, and the authors, and the purpose, and the functionality of how they were assembled together. We had not done similar research about the parables of the Kingdom of Heaven, so I just started doing a little bit of digging, and—wouldn't you know—I discovered that scholars tend to agree that the parables of the Kingdom of Heaven also have a chiastic structure.

Now, as I dug into this, words started swimming in front of me. It was all very unclear, and it seems as though scholars can't agree as to what the structure actually is and what the intent of that structure is, but they think that there's a structure there. So you can take it or leave it. The Internet has lots of great information on this; if you like chiastic structure, go dig into it. (Girl, get you some.)

The Context of—and Reactions to—the Kingdom Parables

But I did find a really interesting segment on a Bible Project podcast that I would like to talk about, and I was reminded that we need to look at the context of scriptures. One of the things that was pointed out was that the Kingdom of Heaven parables are all in response to this question of, How are you going to respond to this information? So Jesus is saying He is the Messiah; everyone's talking about it, and the parables deal with people's reaction to that information. And there are some very legitimate human reactions that you could have, right? And that we see in the Bible.

There's the, "Naw, that's not true. You're not the guy.”

There's also, "Wait a minute. This looks very different than what I thought it was going to be," right?

And then finally, there's the, "Yeah, this is totally clear. I understand that you are the Messiah."

So the parables about the Kingdom of Heaven are all, in some sense or another, responding to people's reactions, speaking into that moment, which is an interesting thing to remember.

Three Themes Found in the Kingdom Parables

The second really interesting thing that I found was that they kind of fall into three general themes.

The first theme is the surprising nature of the Kingdom of God. Think about Christ saying it's like a weed that's run wild through the earth—this is surprising! Really? We're gonna go with that metaphor? O-Okay. Same with yeast going through loaves—that's different; that was unexpected.

Next, the kingdom parables really question human values and human systems of status. In a number of them, the audience is called to change everything about who they thought they were in a radical, upside-down sort of moment that would have been—and still kind of continues to be—disturbing, right? “Go and sell everything”… “Go and change everything about how you've lived your life.”

And then finally, some of them highlight a crisis of decision. This is another theme you can look at the parables through as you move through this material this week. You have a choice, and it's a big choice, and it's going to change everything about how you live your life. Selling all for the pearl of great price or for the treasure in the field… Will you attend the wedding supper?… Will you respond to that invitation? It's a crisis-of-decision sort of moment.

So these are three general themes that I thought were very helpful in understanding the context and the lens through which we can view these parables of the kingdom. I hope you have a truly inspirational Feast of Tabernacles. These parables can add incredible layers of meaning and poignancy as we reflect on the decisions that we've made to accept God's calling and to pursue His ways.