The Parables of the Kingdom

Matthew’s third discourse (Matt. 13) gathers seven parables of the Kingdom of heaven — the sower, the wheat and the tares, the mustard seed and the leaven, the hidden treasure, the pearl of great price, and the dragnet — and the Gospel returns to Kingdom-parables throughout. This file sets out the parables, the reason the Lord teaches in them, the patristic exegesis, and the Orthodox understanding of the Kingdom as a reality both present and still to come.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle and Evangelist)

The Parable Chapter

The third of Matthew’s five discourses is a chapter of parables, all on one theme: “the kingdom of heaven is like…” (Matt. 13). It opens with the parable of the sower (13:3–9), in which the seed falls on the path, on rocky ground, among thorns, and on good soil, with its allegorical interpretation given privately to the disciples (13:18–23): the seed is “the word of the kingdom,” and the soils are the hearers in whom it is snatched away, withers, is choked, or bears fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold. Between the parable and its explanation stands the saying on the purpose of parabolic teaching: “This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear” (13:13), with the citation of Isaiah’s “you shall indeed hear but never understand” (13:14–15, Isa. 6:9–10). The parable both reveals and conceals — it opens the mystery of the Kingdom to those given to know it and leaves it veiled to the hardened.

There follow the wheat and the tares (13:24–30), an enemy sowing weeds among the wheat, the servants forbidden to pull them up lest they uproot the wheat, and both left to grow until the harvest when they are separated — with its interpretation (13:36–43) identifying the field as the world, the good seed as the sons of the Kingdom, the weeds as the sons of the evil one, and the harvest as the end of the age. Then the twin parables of growth, the mustard seed that becomes a tree (13:31–32) and the leaven hidden in three measures of meal until all is leavened (13:33), figuring the Kingdom’s hidden beginning and pervasive growth. Then the twin parables of supreme worth, the hidden treasure for which a man sells all he has to buy the field, and the pearl of great price for which a merchant sells everything (13:44–46) — the Kingdom worth the renunciation of all. Finally the dragnet (13:47–50), gathering fish of every kind, sorted at the end of the age, the good kept and the bad thrown away — a second parable of the final separation. The chapter closes with the householder who brings out of his treasure “what is new and what is old” (13:52), an image the Fathers read as the scribe trained for the Kingdom who joins the New Testament to the Old.

Why the Lord Teaches in Parables

Matthew makes the parabolic method itself a theme. The disciples ask, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” and the Lord answers, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given… seeing they do not see” (Matt. 13:10–13). The Fathers read this not as an arbitrary withholding but as the just response of God to the disposition of the hearers: the parable is a mirror that gives light to the humble and willing and remains opaque to the hard of heart, so that the same word both reveals and judges. Chrysostom stresses that the parables are framed to draw the attentive into deeper search while leaving the careless without excuse, and that the Lord interprets the parables of the sower and the tares precisely to teach the disciples how the rest are to be read (John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew, Homilies 44–47 [on Matt. 13]; NPNF I/10). The parable is thus a pedagogy of the Kingdom: a teaching suited to a mystery that must be received, not merely informed.

The Kingdom Already and Not Yet

The parables together disclose the Orthodox understanding of the Kingdom of heaven as a reality at once present and future — inaugurated in the coming of Christ and consummated at the end of the age. The mustard seed and the leaven show the Kingdom already at work, hidden and small but growing; the treasure and the pearl show it present and findable now, demanding all; the sower shows it sown now in the word and bearing fruit now in the hearer. Yet the wheat-and-tares and the dragnet point unmistakably forward to the harvest, the “end of the age,” when the angels gather and separate and “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:43). The two are not in tension but are the single Gospel rhythm: the Kingdom has drawn near in the person of the King (Matt. 4:17) and will be revealed in glory at his coming. The wheat-and-tares carries a further pastoral teaching the Church has long drawn from it: the visible community contains both wheat and weeds until the end, and the final separation belongs to God and his angels, not to the premature zeal of the servants — a word against every attempt to purify the Church by force before the harvest (cf. Augustine’s use of the parable against the Donatists).

The Kingdom Across the Gospel

Beyond chapter 13 the Kingdom-parables run through the whole Gospel and concentrate again in the final, eschatological discourse. The laborers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1–16) teach the freedom of God’s generosity; the two sons and the wicked tenants (21:28–46) and the wedding feast (22:1–14) press the warning that the Kingdom may be taken from those first called and given to others; and the eschatological discourse closes with the parables of the ten virgins, the talents, and the great judgment of the sheep and the goats — “as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:31–46). The last is among the most quoted texts in the Eastern tradition, read on the Sunday of the Last Judgment before Lent and woven into the whole Orthodox theology of mercy: the King is met now in the hungry, the stranger, the prisoner, and the Kingdom is entered through works of love. The Gospel of the called publican thus ends its teaching where it began — with mercy outranking all, and the Kingdom opened to those who show it.

See Also

References

  • The Holy Gospel according to Matthew 13; 20:1–16; 21:28–46; 22:1–14; 25:1–46. With Isa. 6:9–10. Cited by chapter and verse.
  • John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew, Homilies 44–47 (on Matt. 13). Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vol. 10.
  • Augustine of Hippo. Tractates on the Gospel of John and anti-Donatist works (on the wheat and tares and the mixed Church). NPNF I/4, I/7.
  • Jeremias, Joachim. The Parables of Jesus. Rev. ed. Trans. S. H. Hooke. London: SCM, 1972.