Transcription

Connor
Hey, you’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Jeff
Hey, welcome back to the Bible guys. He’s Chris, I’m Jeff. Turns out we are the Bible guys. We are. And this is going to be a great episode today as we unpack some of the parables that Jesus told. Yes. But before we do that, we have a very exciting.

Chris
Very exciting segment. In fact, this is.

Jeff
One of those embarrassed Jeff segments.

Chris
I think that the coolest part about this segment is to see if you’re listening or watching, that you could actually try to shout out the word before Jeff gets it. So it’s really a competition to see if everybody’s better than Jeff.

Jeff
When it comes to these things. They probably are. Yeah.

Chris
So this is like a taboo type thing okay. Taboo. And really what it is, is they’ve given me. So it’s really difficult for me. They’ve given me words I cannot say to describe the key word. Okay. Right. Yes. So here we go. Are you.

Jeff
Ready. Yes. So I’m looking for a key word. And you have a whole list of words you’re not allowed to say. Right.

Chris
Okay. So so I’m going to try to get you to say the right word okay. Ready.

Jeff
Okay.

Chris
Number one is the condition of not being able to get rims.

Jeff
Sleeplessness.

Chris
In other word. Medical medical term.

Jeff
Insomnia.

Chris
Yes. All right. So the question is, did people say insomnia before you did? Yeah, yeah. Okay. How about this one? Ready? Starbucks serves mostly.

Jeff
Coffee.

Chris
Boom, baby. Oh, I probably should have said this in insomnia. I was not able to say sleep, toss, awake, bed or night. Oh, wow. Which is why I was able to say the condition of no REM. Right? Yeah. Okay, so for coffee, I wasn’t allowed to say drink. Morning. Caffeine, black or hot. Okay, so I just said Starbucks serves mostly. Yeah. That’s right. Right. Okay. How about this one? Ready? Okay. Yes. Oh gee whiz. Okay. The meaning of green then. Yellow. Blue. What’s the next one?

Jeff
Green yellow green.

Chris
Yellow.

Jeff
I don’t know orange.

Chris
You’re in a car. Green, yellow.

Jeff
Oh, red.

Chris
Stop! Stop. There it is. Okay, so I was missing the context of driving. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn’t about to say light sign. Pause. Quit or red.

Jeff
Oh, okay.

Chris
Okay. All right. So how about this one. Ready. Oh I got oh okay. I got this one ready okay okay.

Jeff
Here we go.

Chris
Under the arm. Out on the sun, under the arm.

Jeff
Under the moonlight.

Chris
We’ll be having some fun.

Jeff
I don’t know I don’t know the song.

Chris
People walking above you can keep singing it.

Jeff
I don’t know the song. What? I don’t know it.

Chris
Okay. This is my favorite game that I play. Board game. My favorite one. Okay. What is it?

Jeff
Monopoly.

Chris
Yes, and it’s the most expensive property.

Jeff
Boardwalk. Yes. Okay. Under the boardwalk.

Chris
Under the.

Jeff
Boardwalk. Okay. Up on.

Chris
The sun.

Jeff
Don’t know the song.

Chris
Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah.

Jeff
But it sounds nice.

Chris
Chris. Okay, so I wasn’t allowed to say Atlantic City Pier, beach monopoly or Ocean. Okay, but I was allowed to say my favorite game.

Jeff
Favorite game, which is monopoly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. Okay.

Chris
Okay. Ready? Okay.

Jeff
Last one is this last one. Last one. All right. Let’s see if we can do it.

Chris
I bet you people got boardwalk. They beat you on that one.

Jeff
They beat me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris
Although I didn’t sing it very.

Jeff
Well because you’re fine singing.

Chris
No, I did not sing that. I was off key the whole. You should.

Jeff
Make a record.

Chris
For full, whole.

Jeff
First thing you know, we have people who comment.

Chris
All right, I got it. I got it ready for this one. What is a mini acoustic called?

Jeff
Mini acoustic. Yeah. Acoustic. What?

Chris
Seriously? God, I’m so mad at myself. I thought that was a great clue. A mini acoustic guitar? Yes.

Jeff
Ukulele? Yes.

Chris
Yes.

Jeff
There you go.

Chris
I thought for sure your mind would go straight to guitar.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was like, acoustic. What? Yeah. Okay. Hey, that was a good one, Chris. Yeah.

Chris
So I wasn’t allowed to say banjo, guitar, music instrument or strings.

Jeff
Wow, that’s a tough one. Yeah, yeah, we got it, though. Hey, we’re five for five. Yes, it’s because you’re awesome. I’m. Hey, guys, I just wanted to take a second and ask you if you’re listening on any of the audio platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or Spreaker. Would you do us a couple of things? One, give us five stars, of course five stars. Only five stars. If you don’t want to give us five stars, we don’t want to hear from you. But give us five stars and then subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. And then on top of that, make sure that you click the little bell so you get notifications when we have a new episode come up. Thank you so much.

Chris
Well, hey, today we are continuing in our series about the harmony of the Gospels, and today we’re going to be looking at how Jesus tells the parable of the hidden treasure. The parable of the Pearl, the merchant, and then the parable of the Fishing net. And all three of these go together. They’re all from Matthew. Yeah.

Jeff
So this is remember he in Matthew 13, he did the parable about the weeds. Remember that? And then he also in Matthew 13 talked about the mustard seed and the yeast. And so Jesus has been teaching and it seems like this is a collection. I don’t know that historically, Jesus just stood there and went, let me tell you about weeds. Let me tell you about mustard seed. Let me tell you about yeast. Let me tell you about fields. Right. But I think what Matthew is doing is summarizing. Jesus taught a lot like this. I remember this story that he told. I remember this story that he told. It could be. Yeah, yeah. So because Matthew, a lot of times isn’t directly in order of things, he’s he clumps a lot of ideas together. So anyways, here we go. Matthew chapter 13, verse 44, he says, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.

Chris
And parable ended. And that’s it.

Jeff
Again. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it again. The kingdom of heaven is like a fishing net that was thrown into the water and caught fish of every kind. When the net was full, they dragged it up onto the shore, sat down and sorted the good fish into crates, but threw the bad ones away. And that is the way it will be at the end of the world. The angels will come and separate the wicked people from the righteous, throwing away or throwing the wicked into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Do you understand all these things? Yes, they said we do. Then he added, every teacher of religious law who becomes a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like a homeowner who brings from his storeroom new gems of truth as well as old. Yeah.

Chris
There you go. Yeah. And that one carries with it a whole new conversation. Yeah, but the first two let’s talk about the first two first, I love. So back when I was back when I was in Bible college and so were you. Since we’re the same age, you’re actually slightly older than I am. No, that’s not true.

Jeff
I am, but substantially younger.

Chris
But back in Bible college, uh, excuse me, we had. Do you remember those animated videos that that the previous Disney guy did? Do you remember those? They were called?

Jeff
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, kind of I remember those. They were like family videos, but they told. They told Bible stories.

Chris
Yeah, I can’t remember the name, but they were VHS cassettes and and they and so the guy who used to work at Disney, he actually was an artist on The Black Cauldron. Yeah. And then he actually started family entertainment. That’s what it’s called. Family entertainment videos.

Jeff
Wow. I bet they’re still available on YouTube or something. Yeah.

Chris
So and he created these cartoons and they were very, you know, 1989 animation like. And he took, he took all the, you know, parables and things and made them into videos. Well, you know, here it is, just one verse, you know, the pearl of great price. Yeah. Right. Or two verses and it talks about he found a great pearl, turned everything he owned and then bought it. There was an entire like 30 minute VHS video about the story of a man who sold everything he had to get the pearl of great price, and then it exposed the meaning and everything else. And I’m telling you, even back then, I was in I was in college, and I would cry every time I saw it. I would cry every single time, because it would, it really did was it had, you know, animation has a great way of somehow amplifying emotion. Yeah. Animation is really good at that. Yeah. Which, by the way, if you ever saw, like for instance, The Little Mermaid remake, which was garbage, the live animation remake of The Little Mermaid. Yeah, it’s sort of garbage in my opinion. But everything was lesser then because there was no emotion. So like every time, you know, King Triton talked to Sebastian instead of showing this wide array of emotion, he was just like, hey, go watch Ariel, okay? Bye bye. And everything was because.

Jeff
Because animation makes everything bigger.

Chris
You can make. You can draw expression and everything else. Well, this this animation video captured the heart of what it must be like for someone to discover who God is. And immediately you’re connected to every single story of. And so think about it. This represents every story of someone. In fact, my buddy Jeff just sent me a TikTok today. Actually, I think it was a Facebook video of some. You know, former Hall of Fame Super Bowl winner Guy who sat down and talked about how he received Christ in a hotel room by himself and he was dude, it was so funny. He’s like, he’s like, I had 15 cars in the driveway, but I wasn’t going nowhere. He said I had a 15,000 square foot mansion, but I didn’t have a home. And he was he was he was preaching, right? He was preaching and he was talking about how his life was just incredible. But he said, I had no peace. I had no this, I had no that. And he said, oh. And then he said, and then he said, God was calling me. He said, God was calling me all my life. And I heard, I heard God saying, you need me, you need me. And he was calling and he said, but I just didn’t want to answer the collect call because I knew it was going to cost me. And right. And he goes, he goes, it was going to cost me. And I just thought to myself, that is exactly like, this isn’t exactly it. That’s exactly it. And so but once you find it, it’s worth giving everything up for.

Jeff
Oh, absolutely. The premise of both the treasure in the field and the the Pearl of Great Price is that God’s kingdom? One. We’re searching for something. Yeah, right. We’re looking for something we don’t usually realize. It’s the kingdom of God that we’re looking for. Yeah, right. And then when we stumble on it, then those that really realize what you have, you’re willing to sell everything to get it. I was listening to a message. An old preacher turned out I was listening to it. Today, 1959, is when he preached this message, and it’s probably one of the best messages I’ve ever heard him preach. But he was talking about this field. And to be sure, he’s taking a principle here. The meaning of this verse, the genuine meaning of this verse is God’s kingdom is worth whatever it takes to have it right. But then he took an application from it. Talking about this is true in so many areas that we we are going through life and we’re looking for something and we’re walking through a field maybe, and then we find a treasure and then we bury that treasure. We hope nobody else gets that treasure. Yeah, right. And he said, dude, I think this applies to he didn’t say dude back in 1959, but yeah, he said, I think this applies to marriage. He might have.

Chris
Said, fella, yeah.

Jeff
Fella. This applies to marriage. This applies to careers. This applies to so many things. When, when when you met, you know, so many people were struggling in their marriage. When you met your spouse, you found a treasure that you thought was worth sacrificing everything for. Yeah, right. And you were willing to lay it all on the line, and you hope nobody else came and stole that treasure while you were trying to get that treasure. Right? Right. And then then finally you sacrifice everything. You sell everything so you can get that treasure. And finally, the two of you say, I do. You run off to the honeymoon and it’s just treasure, man. It’s treasure. Oh, it’s treasure. But then you get to walk around that field. Later on, you start to realize, hey, wait a minute, there’s spiders in this field. There’s. There’s old tires in this field.

Chris
There’s spiders in this.

Jeff
There’s newspapers blowing around this field. Yeah, plastic bags blown out on this field. What in the world? And you start. What happens is we start looking at the field, right? And we begin to forget the treasure.

Chris
There’s a drain in the field, and there’s hair in it.

Jeff
Exactly. There’s a skunk went off in this field, right? All of this stuff. So. So it used to be all about the treasure. But then we get distracted by the field. And the reason why you were willing to sacrifice everything is because you figure if if there’s that little bit of treasure, there’s probably more treasure. Yeah. Right. And you find a couple nuggets of gold. The assumption is there’s more gold down there. Yeah. Right. And so the work it takes so often we are not prepared for all the work it’s going to take to really extract all the treasure. Right. And so we give up. And a lot of times I think we gave up six inches deep. And we never go deep enough to really find the real treasure. And I think it’s true in Christianity, the kingdom of God I think is this way too. We get so excited. What heaven? I can have my sins forgiven. God will answer my prayers. Woo hoo! And then you realize, oh, wait a minute, people at work hate me. Yeah, I need to tithe. My God wants my money. What? Right? And we start going. We start to look around at all the junk in the field. We don’t want to. We don’t want to go more than six inches deep in the field. And we miss out on the treasure. And it’s the same thing with the pearl. You would never if you didn’t sacrifice everything for the pearl. This guy wouldn’t have gotten that pearl right. And so that’s I think the an application to it is don’t give up. There’s going to be a lot of hard work, and it’s not going to be as, as glamorous after you acquire the field. Jeff
Yeah.

Chris
So so the guy that I watched in the Facebook video today, he would say, keep on digging because there’s more treasure, right? I mean, everything’s a sermon.

Jeff
Point, right? Yeah.

Chris
Yeah. So and by the way, that is true. The. Location of that is true in everything. Yeah, right. Because you do the hard work and you know, so I think that the, the pearl of Great Price is can you imagine back then when if your job was only pearls, right. Your job was only pearls and you were in the business of pearls. So what would it take for a man to recognize that this one pearl that they discovered is worth everything else? Right, right. So we’re talking about an this isn’t just a normal person that says, is that a pearl? This is a expert pearl merchant. Who who who’s on the lookout? It says he’s on the lookout for choice pearls. So he knows what it is. And you know what? There’s an application in there because it is those people who recognize the word of God for its authenticity. It’s the people who recognize just how valuable. You know, God’s way is over every other way. Yeah. It’s the people who understand how real God is, how much you know, it’s worth it to to discipline ourselves and, and, you know, take the good and the bad or serve him when it’s most difficult. Because after all, listen, there are people who go through life and they don’t understand that. Like, you know, God doesn’t take away the bad. It’s just that he promises never to leave us through any of it. Right? So that’s, that’s that’s the thing. So the application of this is like, hey, it’s worth it. It God is still worth it, you know? Do we recognize who it is we’re praying to and serving? God can be trusted. You know, God is faithful. God is just. And we don’t understand the why, but we just trust in the who because we know that God is who he says he is. Chris
Yeah.

Jeff
So I was in Abu Dhabi a few years ago when we went to Dhabi, Abu Dhabi and you know, a lot of those villages Dubai, Abu Dhabi, all these villages that were along the, the, the coast there in the Persian Gulf, they were all pearling villages. That’s what they did. Fish and pearls. Wow. For hundreds of years. So they’re relatively new cities now. But back, back, you know, 50 years ago, 75 years ago, they were still pearling villages. And so I was in a market that is all about gems and those kinds of things. And they had entire stores that were just pearls, and I was just riveted by it. And so there’s, you know, pearls aren’t always perfect. You know, a lot of them, most pearls are little misshapen or whatever. So to find a perfectly round pearl is really something. But then there’s they’re they vary in sizes and but there’s kind of a standard size if you ever like necklaces and earrings and stuff that there’s kind of a standard size. And then every once in a while they’ll find some extraordinary a black pearl or a or a bigger pearl. And the thing that I think amazes me is these are not if they’re natural pearls, not cultivated pearls, natural pearls. They never know what they’re going to get. They just keep diving. They’re out in the hot sun, out on the ocean. And these guys most of the time are free diving. So they just dive, hold their breath, go down, find the oysters, come back up, open up. And they never know what they’re going to find. But they keep going and they keep going and they keep going. They don’t give up. Right? The just the commitment to it. Jeff
And then every once in a while they’ll find a really great one. And I think that there is something to that that, you know, sometimes people feel like, you know, I’m wasting my time. I don’t really feel like I got anything out of my devotions today. And if you use the Bible guys as devotions every morning, we’re sorry. You should. Right.

Chris
But as a full replacement.

Jeff
Yeah, but as as you know, you’re a professional Christian. You get paid to study the Bible. I do, I do, and so do I. And there’s many, many times I’m just willing to be honest and say, there’s a lot of times I feel like I’m diving in and not coming up with much. Yeah, right. There’s many, many times over the 40 years that I’ve been a Christian, there’s been many times where I would go days or even weeks and feel like, man, I just don’t feel like I got a lot. And then all of a sudden you come across a thing and it’s just like, oh my goodness, that’s the thing, right? And so I think it’s worth it to just stay with it. And then we don’t understand the value of day after day after day after day. So sure, that guy’s jewelry store full of pearls, he has 1 or 2 that are phenomenal. Yeah, but he has millions of dollars worth of pearls because he kept going down and taking the regular ones. Right? Right. He didn’t quit. He kept going down and getting the average pearl, the average pearl, the average pearl. And it built up into something that really set his family up for success for a long period of time. And I think it’s the same thing. Just stick with it. Keep diving into God’s Word. Keep entering into the presence of God in your prayers. Every once in a while you’ll come up with a very, very, very valuable one. But the reality is, over time you’ll build all this spiritual wealth.

Chris
So let me squeeze in a story real quick. So one time I saw a strand of pearls on my mom’s dresser, and actually I saw it for quite a while. But one day I decided to, you know, take it off and and mess with it. And I noticed that the pearls were like, sort of not perfect. Yeah. And. They were mid-sized and they were they were strong and and and they just they just weren’t very pretty, but they were genuine pearls. And I remember she said, don’t mess with that. That’s very precious to me. And I said, why? And she said, well, when I was five years old, my uncle Jack went to the Korean War and we were worried about him and we were thinking about him. We were praying about him. And she said every week, every Friday he would go down to the Fishers dock, fisherman’s dock, and he would spend $5 and he would say, give me one of your pearls that you know that you aren’t going to use. And she said he would take one pearl and put it in a little manila envelope, and he would and he would seal it, and then he would put that inside an envelope with a handwritten letter. You get emotional talking about it. And she said, and then she said, I was just every Friday, you know, it would come like the following week. And she said, I would just run to the mailbox. And she said the entire length that he was gone, he would mail me one pearl a week with a letter. And then I took all the pearls and and she strung them together. So after he passed, that was so precious to her that she didn’t want me touching it. Chris
And I thought to myself, man, that is, you know, there’s a parallel there. You know, when something contains that much value, a priceless necklace. It is a priceless necklace. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn’t perfect in this illustration, but the word of God is perfect.

Jeff
It was priceless to her. Right. And so that’s the idea is when you when you invest, when you find God’s kingdom, when you find God’s way, invest in it. And it will be priceless in your life, irreplaceable in your life. And so it’s not always finding the great big giant piece of gold or the giant nugget. It’s not always finding the most perfect, biggest pearl. A lot of times it’s about stringing it together over time and it becomes priceless in our life.

Chris
That’s awesome. Well, that’s a great place to end, I think. And so we will see you next time hopefully on The Bible Guys.