July 29, 2025 • 12 mins
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Matthew 13: 44-46 - 'He sells everything he owns and buys the field.'
Catechism of the Catholic Church Paragraphs:
- 546 (in 'The Proclamation of the Kingdom of God') - Jesus' invitation to enter his kingdom comes in the form of parables, a characteristic feature of his teaching. Through his parables he invites people to the feast of the kingdom, but he also asks for a radical choice: to gain the kingdom, one must give everything. Words are not enough, deeds are required. The parables are like mirrors for man: will he be hard soil or good earth for the word? What use has he made of the talents he has received? Jesus and the presence of the kingdom in this world are secretly at the heart of the parables. One must enter the kingdom, that is, become a disciple of Christ, in order to "know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven". For those who stay "outside", everything remains enigmatic.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Hi everyone, Welcome back to theDaily Gospel Exegesis Podcast in
this short section. Before we get into today's
episode, I just wanted to respond to some feedback that
has come in about the podcast asI'd like to do from time to
time. And we're looking at some
feedback that's come in via the Apple Podcasts.
So Apple Podcast is one of the platforms that allows users to
(00:26):
leave written reviews and I would encourage you to do that
certainly if you're enjoying thepodcast.
So recently A1 Star Review has been left.
This is actually the first review that hasn't been five
stars, which is really remarkable that there's been so
many five star reviews and then this person has left a one star
review. So what I wanted to do is to
actually engage with the feedback they've left and to see
(00:49):
if we can address their concernsin that and see if I guess what
we're doing in this podcast is faithful to the teaching of the
church. So I actually had to read
through this person's comment a few times to sort of understand
what they meant. And before we get into it, I
think my personal opinion when Iread this is this person hasn't
actually listened to the podcastat all.
(01:11):
I think they've read the description of the podcast and
that in itself has put them off.But see what you think.
And hopefully this little exercise here before we get into
today's episode is helpful in clarifying the purpose of the
podcast and also helping you in your interactions with people
when they discuss different waysof interpreting the Bible.
(01:32):
So the heading of this review. Now here's where I think the
(01:52):
person has just read the description of the podcast,
because in the podcast description it says we're going
to look at the literal sense of Scripture.
The person has called this review Biblical Literalism is a
problem, and I'm just going to go through it a couple of
sentences at a time. It's quite a long review, so
this reviewer says I have qualms.
Biblical literalism is a major. This person has heard the word
literal and it has put them off.I think they've associated that
with some sort of fundamentalistinterpretation of Scripture, but
then they go on to say somethingthat is actually not true.
So they say here, as a Catholic,the Church's stance is that the
(02:16):
Gospels and the books of the Bible are divinely inspired, but
not the literal word of God or Jesus.
Now that's actually not correct.If you know the Church teaching
well, you'll know that the Church does believe the books of
the Bible are divinely inspired and they believe them to be the
literal word of God. If you read Dave Urban in
particular, which is a recent Vatican 2 document, it's not a
(02:39):
not an old school Catholic Church document, it's a recent
church document from Vatican 2. It actually says the Bible is
absolutely the word of God. So there is no false dichotomy
here between the Bible being divinely inspired and it being
the word of God. So I think this person might
just be a bit misinformed about what the Catholic teaching is.
(03:00):
Now, one thing we do want to stress that this person has got
right is the church doesn't takea literalistic interpretation of
Scripture, and we'll talk more about that.
But it does absolutely believe that the Bible is the literal
word of God. This person goes on.
They say for one, there are fourgospels, not one, which implies
different takes, different audiences, different intentions.
(03:22):
Now that's actually true. There are 4 gospels and we go
through that in the podcast. We talk about why some gospel
authors might have included somethings and why other gospel
authors have included other things.
But that does not take away fromthe Gospels being literally true
or literally the word of God. Just because there are four
people writing down the life of Jesus, that in itself doesn't
(03:45):
contradict them being the word of God.
This person goes on Jesus Yeshuaspoke and taught in parables,
which is symbolic stories that are both open to interpretation
and contain lessons. Often they're not meant to be
taken literally, otherwise we'd have an issue with the eye of a
needle and not giving up all of our things.
(04:07):
Now here's where I think the person is got the misconception.
They think that interpreting theBible according to the literal
sense, which is what the Catholic Church says we should
do, is going to lead us to taking Bibles which taking
parables literally. And that's just not the case.
The whole point of the literal sense is to work out what did
the original author intend, and then unpacking that clearly when
(04:29):
Jesus gave parables. In fact, it's very clear when
Jesus gives parables that he's not telling actual stories that
happened, he's making up a shortstory in order to teach a
spiritual lesson. That's what we do when we unpack
the literal sense as we think about why did Jesus use this
parable? What's the meaning of the
parable? So once again, this person has a
(04:50):
misconception of what the literal sense is.
We're not taking the Bible literalistically.
We're interpreting it according to the literal sense.
By the way, I want to quote herefrom the Catechism of the
Catholic Church if you have any doubt about whether Catholics
should interpret the Bible literally.
So this is from the Catechism ofthe Catholic Church, paragraph
115 through to 118, and I'll just read out sections of it.
(05:15):
According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish
between 2 senses of Scripture, the literal and the spiritual.
The literal sense is the meaningconveyed by the words of
scripture and discovered by exegesis following the rules of
sound interpretation. All other senses of Sacred
Scripture are based on the literal.
(05:37):
It is the task of Exeges to workaccording to these rules towards
a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of
Sacred Scripture. And then the paragraphs go on
from there. And if you look at Dave Urban,
there's even more specific guidelines on how to interpret
the New Testament as well, whichis very much in accordance with
this. So there it is.
This is the official teaching ofthe Church that all senses of
(05:58):
Scripture are based on the literal.
That's actually what the teaching of the Church is.
So it's our task as Catholic exegees.
First task is to unpack the literal sense of Scripture,
which is, as the Catechism here says, the meaning conveyed by
the words and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of
sound interpretation. That's simply what we're trying
(06:19):
to do in this podcast, That's what getting at the literal
sense is. On the other hand, literalistic
means to interpret a text without any reference to
context, without any reference to genre.
So don't let anyone ever tell you that as a Catholic, you're
not supposed to take the Bible literally.
Because the teaching of the church, it's clear.
In the Catechism, the teaching of the church is we are supposed
(06:40):
to take the Bible literally, provided that you understand
what that means, which is interpreting it according to the
author's original intent and theway the authors, the way the
original author would have received it.
We don't interpret the Bible literalistically.
So there is actually a distinction, and the Pontifical
Biblical Commission has actuallytalked about the difference
between these terms, the literalsense and literalistic
(07:04):
interpretation. We should have the former and
not the latter. This person goes on further.
A literal interpretation of the Christian Bible also has a
problem that will require the readers to learn Ancient Greek,
which is what most of the New Testament was originally written
in a language that Jesus probably didn't speak, but may
(07:25):
have heard as well as ancient Hebrew and Aramaic languages
that Jesus was probably more familiar with.
Translating those languages overthe last 1800 years has had a
long history, many interpretations, and again,
words at the are at the disposalof the translator, who is also a
human in a certain time or placewith a certain audience in mind
(07:46):
when translating. Now, this is a fair point.
Of course, it's possible that there's always translator bias
in our English translations thatdon't accurately reflect the
original Hebrew or Greek, and that is a fair point to make.
And in this podcast we're engaging with what are the
English translations of scriptural texts.
(08:07):
But on the whole, and scholars who work in the area of biblical
interpretation and translation will tell you that our major
translations today are quite accurate.
Occasionally there might be a word or two where we can't fully
capture the the richness of the original sense, but it's not
like there's major trouble interpreting the scripture.
(08:29):
The the translations we have, particularly the good academic
ones, are very faithful to the original Hebrew or Greek.
So this argument that it requires readers to be able to
read Hebrew or Greek in order tounderstand scripture is actually
not correct. That is not the Christian view
of Scripture. We believe the translations,
which are faithful, as as faithful as possible to the
(08:51):
original text, absolutely do convey the meaning of the word
of God. Although of course, in Catholic
teaching we do understand that only the original autographs,
which is the original documents written when the person was
divinely inspired, only those first versions of Scripture are
fully divinely inspired in the full sense, so that that part is
(09:13):
true. But the translations we have are
considered to be today anyway, of good faithful representations
of that. So this person goes on.
This complicates biblical literalism when looking at the
Bible in American English in the21st century.
There needs to be contextualization.
So here is where this the persontalks about their preferred way
(09:36):
of interpreting Scripture, and they just call it
contextualization. They don't offer any more
analysis of that. I think what they mean by
contextualization is keeping in mind that scripture was written
at a certain time for certain group of people, not for a 21st
century audience. And that's absolutely what we do
in this podcast. If you've been listening for a
(09:57):
while, we're trying to get out, how would the original readers
have understood what they were hearing?
That is what doing an analysis of the literal sense is.
So we do do contextualization and good biblical scholarship,
and the commentaries that I use in preparing these episodes
absolutely do that. Scriptural exeges know how to do
that. And then this person goes on to
(10:18):
say, but where these podcasts that present Bible literalism
as? They are on a foundation of
sand. So once again, this person is,
you know, trying to issue a warning to those who might be
searching for podcasts not to use any podcasts that advocate a
literal interpretation. This person has obviously had
some sort of negative experiencein their past with perhaps a
(10:39):
literalistic fundamentalist interpretation of Scripture.
And on top of that, this person doesn't realize that the Church
teaches that we need to do an exegesis of the literal sense of
Scripture. Now, I suspect that if you were
to drill down, we would probablyagree on this that we need to do
contextualization to make sure that we're interpreting it in
accordance with the original author and the original
(11:01):
audience. But that does not does not
negate it being the word of God that is absolutely all part of
the same package in Catholic teaching.
And this person goes on to say, yes, biblical contextualism is
harder, but far deeper in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and
more mature than the superficialliteral interpretations.
(11:23):
So this person clearly believes that their version of
interpreting scripture, which they're calling contextualism,
is harder. And I think by that they mean
it's requires a bit more work togo back and find out what the
original meaning was. But again, that's what we do in
this podcast, but far deeper in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and
more mature. So essentially, this person sees
(11:45):
any reference to a literal interpretation of the Bible to
be incorrect, and he calls it. He is superficial for the reason
that it doesn't consider the original audience and author,
but as I hope. I've clarified that's exactly
what the literal sense does. This person seems to have a bit
of a bias about believing that the Bible is really the literal
(12:06):
word of God. They prefer to approach
scripture from a different. Lens like clearly you haven't
got a super anti supernatural bias entirely because they
believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are present when you
take their particular version ofinterpreting scripture.
Now that that is a bit dangerous, though, because the
person has basically just rejected the Catholic Church's
(12:26):
official teaching on how to interpret Scripture and then
said that their version of interpreting Scripture is deeper
in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.Now that can't be correct.
So I think this person would agree if they dug a bit deeper,
that the Catholic Church's actual teaching on how to
interpret Scripture according tothe literal sense is actually a
very wise interpretation and probably agrees on the whole
(12:47):
with how they think we should goabout interpreting Scripture.
And if they actually listen to this podcast, they would know
that that is what we do in theseepisodes.
I think at some point this person has been exposed to false
teaching about what Catholics actually believe about the
Bible. There are some of these.
Unfortunately, there are some Catholic presenters who have a
certain school of thought about how Scripture should be
(13:10):
interpreted, who teach others this more critical version of
Scripture interpretation, and they put these things in there
like literal is incorrect, contextualism is correct, so
they actually teach other Catholics a false version of
what the Church teaches, and it's quite influential.
One thing that was kind of implicit in what this person was
saying that I didn't directly address before, but I think is
(13:32):
worth addressing is this reviewer seems to have this idea
that what the gospel authors have recorded is not actually an
accurate representation of Jesus, and instead it's actually
been developed by the gospel authors in a bit of a different
way according to the needs of the Church.
And this is a really influentialview.
(13:54):
There is one really powerful text here from Dave Urban that.
If you encounter someone like this who thinks the Gospels
don't actually reflect the historical accuracy of what
Jesus was doing, this quote is so powerful.
So this is from Vatican 2 and it's from Dave Urban.
And here's paragraph 19. Holy Mother Church has firmly
(14:17):
and with absolute constancy heldand continues to hold that the
four Gospels, whose historical character the Church
unhesitatingly affirms faithfully hand on what Jesus,
while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal
salvation. So that language there of it's
what Jesus really did and taught, is absolutely very
(14:40):
powerful in terms of helping us go about doing exegesis in the
correct way. The Church teaches that the
Gospels are a faithful account of what Jesus really said and
did, and that has to be our starting point as Catholics.
Hopefully engaging with this review has been helpful for you
because you might actually see this review when you type in
Apple Podcast reviews. All the others are
(15:02):
overwhelmingly positive, but there's this one from a person
who probably hasn't listened to the podcast.
If there was a way of actually responding to or replying to
this Apple Podcast Review on theApple Podcast platform, I would
do that. But there isn't.
So hopefully doing it in this audio form has been helpful and
hopefully you can see that I've tried to be fair to the person
(15:22):
who's written this review and it's helped in your own or
helped clarify your own understanding of what the church
teaches about the inspiration ofScripture and how to go about
doing good exegesis. Can I ask you, as listeners of
the podcast to please consider leaving a review on the Apple
Podcasts platform? Because we want people to see
good, positive reviews of the podcast.
(15:45):
So even if you just write a short comment, please consider
giving it five stars if you think it's worth five stars.
I think it's important that whenpeople read reviews of podcasts
that they actually read reviews that are fair to the content of
the podcast. So please, if you haven't left a
review for the podcast, considerdoing so.
Let's get into today's episode. Hi everyone.
(16:17):
Welcome back to Daily Gospel Exegesis.
What we're on about in this podcast is helping you
understand the literal sense of Scripture.
The Catholic Church teaches thatif you want to understand the
Bible, you need to make a distinction between the literal
sense and the spiritual sense ofthe text.
And we always must start with the literal sense that is the
(16:37):
Church's teaching. So this is the.
Only podcast out there, which every day helps you dive into
the text verse by verse. And take a look at the literal.
And as you'll see today, it's particularly important that we
do it. This way, when we're looking at
parables, because it's very easyto jump to a spiritual
interpretation of the parable, and we sometimes forget that
(16:59):
Jesus usually had one specific meaning in mind.
He had a literal sense that he was trying to communicate with
these parables. So that's what we will look at
today. And we're in Matthew, chapter
13, verses 44 to 46. This is the reading you would
hear at today's Mass. Jesus said to the crowds, the
Kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which
(17:22):
someone has found. He hides it again, goes off
happy, sells everything he owns and buys the field.
Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant looking for fine
pearls. When he finds one of great
value, he goes and sells everything he owns and buys it.
(17:44):
So that's our short reading today.
We have two little parables in here, and these are ones that
you may not have heard of beforeor certainly haven't heard very
frequently. So we're in Matthew chapter 13,
often called the Parables chapter in Matthew or the
Kingdom Parables chapter. So here Matthew has assembled 7
Kingdom parables that Jesus speaks throughout his ministry.
(18:05):
So it's possible that the parables we have here in Matthew
13 were not said on one occasion.
Maybe Matthew has just combined them together in the one chapter
and that would certainly make sense.
But what's interesting about some of these parables is that a
couple. Of them appear only in the
Gospel of Matthew, and that is the case today.
We have here 2 short parables which are the. 5th and the 6th
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of the seven parables in this chapter, and both of these are
unique to the Gospel of Matthew.So when we're interpreting
parables, exegesis is very useful.
We really need to do a verse by verse exegesis.
Really thinking about what the words would have meant in their
original context. It's probably true that parables
have lots of hidden meanings, but Jesus usually in general has
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one specific point about the Kingdom of God that he's trying
to make. And that's where we should
start. That's what we want to get at in
this podcast. What's Jesus main point?
He's trying to communicate with these parables.
So let's start here with the 5th.
Of the seven parables, which is the parable of the hidden
treasure verse 44, Jesus said tothe crowds.
Now, the original text in your Bible doesn't have this.
(19:12):
The lectionary has just added itin.
So keep in mind that it's possible Jesus is not speaking
to the crowds. Maybe he's just speaking to the
disciples. You could go either way with it.
And he says the Kingdom of heaven.
So here already we know this is a parable.
About the Kingdom, the Kingdom of heaven is synonymous with the
Kingdom of God. They're the same thing.
And basically, if you've been following these Matthew podcasts
(19:35):
through, you'll know that the Kingdom of God means God's will
and reign on earth, and Jesus invites people to be part of the
Kingdom when you become a Christian.
You become a part of the Kingdomyou're part of where God's will
is. Done on earth, the Kingdom of
heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.
Now this seems a bit odd to us, but in that culture it was quite
(19:56):
common to hide treasure in a field.
If you found something valuable,like gold or something in that
culture, you're probably not going to keep it in your house
because houses were very easy tobreak into.
So thieves could break in duringnight time and take any
valuables that were lying around.
So instead, if a person genuinely had something quite
valuable, that would usually just find a random field and
(20:19):
bury it. There, that would bury it in a
field. And that's a good arrangement
because there's no, there's no banks in that culture.
So really you're going to have to hide it in somewhere like a
field. As long as you know where it is,
it's safe. Of course, the problem with that
is if you don't own the field, it's just a random field, then
technically anyone can come along and claim the treasure.
(20:39):
Now, some scholars think there might be an additional element
here. Some think that possibly during
Israel's history there were certain wars and certain
activities where Israel had to. Israelites had to flee quickly
and then maybe. Actually did historically bury
their treasure in fields becausethey were leaving quickly, and
that's certainly possible, but it seems more reasonable to take
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this as just people. In Jesus time.
General people would just sometimes bury their treasure in
the field if they had nowhere. Else to put it so Jesus here
says it's like treasure hidden in the field which someone has
found. So here we have someone who
somehow finds the treasure in the field.
Maybe they're digging for treasure and they're lucky
(21:21):
enough to find some. And Jesus says when he finds the
treasure he hides it again or? Literally covers it up.
So if someone found treasure in the field, that would be
overjoyed, because they're incredibly lucky to find this
treasure, this wealthy amount ofgold, the first thing they'll do
is bury it again so that no one else can get it.
But then he's going to have to do something else in order to
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claim the treasure for himself. So Jesus says after he hides it,
he goes off happy. Or what it literally says is in
his joy because the person is going to be overjoyed if you
find treasure worth this much. He sells everything he owns and
buys the field. So in order for the person to
claim this treasure as his own, he actually has to buy the field
(22:05):
that the treasure is buried in. Once he owns the field, then no
one else is allowed to come along and take.
The treasure, because it's it's literally his treasure at that
point. But of course, to buy the field
he needs money. So the person here who's found
the treasure sells everything heowns in order to have a bit of
money. Then he can buy the field.
So that's the order of events here.
He sells everything he owns so that he has money to buy the
(22:27):
field, and then he can lay claimto the treasure.
The key thing to understanding this is that the treasure is
numerically worth way more than all the possessions and money
that were lost in the process ofacquiring the treasure.
So certainly he has to give up some money and give up all his
possessions in the process, but the treasure is worth far more
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than that. So this person here who finds a
treasure in the parable sees this as a once in a lifetime
opportunity and takes it. So that's the end of the
parable. How is the Kingdom of heaven
like that? What is Jesus trying to teach?
It seems that the idea is something like this.
Entering the Kingdom of God willrequire sacrifice and in
(23:08):
particular money and possessions, and we know that
because of Jesus other teachings.
But of course gaining the Kingdom is worth far more than
the things the person has lost in the process of making
sacrifices for the Kingdom. So the Kingdom of God is worth
far more than that. Basically, this is a teaching
about putting earthly things in perspective of the Kingdom.
(23:30):
Earthly things are not worth anywhere near as much as the
Kingdom of God is, and in many cases they need to be sacrificed
in order to obtain the Kingdom of God, which of course fits
very well with other things Jesus teaches.
Jesus is now going to teach another parable with the same
basic meaning, and this one is often called the parable of the.
Pearl of Great Price, Verse 45. Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is
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like a merchant looking for finepearls.
In that culture, pearls were considered far more valuable
than gold. So apparently here we have a
merchant, someone who roams through towns looking for pearls
in marketplaces and things. He's looking in particular for
pearls that he knows. Are worth a lot.
So this is a merchant who's welltrained at spotting valuable
(24:18):
pearls and he's hoping he can find one for sale that he can
buy. Maybe he can find someone
selling it who themself don't appreciate the value of it, but
this man has an eye for fine pearls and he's hoping he can
find one and buy it. Verse 46, when he finds one of
great value he goes and sells everything he owns and buys it.
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It seems that the the key to understanding this little
parable is that pearls gain in value over time.
So in in order for this to work,it has to be that when the man
buys the Pearl, he gets more than the amount he paid for it.
So it must be the pearls gain invalue over time, so buying a
(25:00):
Pearl is a good investment. So in this case, the merchant in
the parable would be willing to part with all of his money and
possessions in order to get the Pearl.
Basically, buying the Pearl in the long term is going to
outweigh everything he's lost inthe process of buying the Pearl,
So it's very similar to the previous parable.
Both of these two parables stress that the Kingdom of God's
(25:21):
value is inestimable. It's worth far more value than
anything in this life. And on top of that, surrendering
earthly attachments is going to be required in order to obtain
it. In fact, the disciples
themselves have already done that.
They've already sacrificed. They've already given up all
their possessions basically in order to get the Kingdom, And we
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see that in Chapter 4 versus 20 to 22 of Matthew.
Now on top of this, you could say that both of the parables
emphasize that the Kingdom of God can only be found by
diligently seeking. And basically those who don't go
looking for the Kingdom, they'renot going to find it.
Only those who are seeking the Kingdom will find it.
(26:02):
Certainly this fits in with Jesus earlier teachings about
the point of the parables and how the Kingdom of God works.
Jesus has been suggesting that the Kingdom of God is hidden in
a sense. For certain people, it's only
revealed to those who are genuinely seeking, so these
parables build on those things. Jesus has one more parable to
tell the 7th parable, and we will look at that in tomorrow's
(26:24):
episode. Let's now turn to the Catechism.
And there's one paragraph which mentions these parables.
So that's paragraph 546, which is about how Jesus goes about
teaching the Kingdom. Jesus invitation to enter his
Kingdom comes in the form of parables, A characteristic
feature of his teaching. Through his parables he invites
people to the feast of the Kingdom.
(26:45):
But he also asks for a radical choice.
What use has He made of the talents he has received?
To gain the Kingdom one must give everything.
Words are not enough, deeds are required.
The parables are like mirrors for man.
Will he be hard soil or good earth for the?
Jesus and the presence of the Kingdom in this world are
(27:06):
secretly at the heart of the parables.
One must enter the Kingdom that is.
Become a disciple of Christ in order to know the secrets of the
Kingdom of heaven. For those who stay outside,
everything remains enigmatic. So that's quite a nice
paragraph, which brings togethervarious quotes from the parables
here, and you probably heard they're about halfway.
(27:28):
Through where it says to gain the Kingdom, one must give
everything, which of course links very well to these two
parables which emphasize that ifyou want the Kingdom, you need
to be willing to make sacrificesand be detached from earthly
possessions because the Kingdom of God is of far more value than
those things. We'll leave it there for today.
I hope you've learned something new.
(27:49):
If you enjoyed this podcast and learning about these parables,
which not many people have studied in a lot of detail,
please share the podcast around and also prayerfully consider
becoming a Patreon supporter of the ministry.
This ministry is entirely independent, it's not funded by
any other ministries or diocese,so we need your support if we
want it to keep going. And there's all sorts of
(28:09):
exclusive. Bonus episodes available to you
if you do decide to become a Patreon supporter.
You can find out more information about that in the
episode description. There is a link to the Patreon
page. Thanks once again for listening
and hopefully you'll TuneIn again tomorrow.
Hi everyone, Welcome back to theDaily Gospel Exegesis Podcast in
this short section. Before we get into today's
episode, I just wanted to respond to some feedback that
has come in about the podcast asI'd like to do from time to
time. And we're looking at some
feedback that's come in via the Apple Podcasts.
So Apple Podcast is one of the platforms that allows users to
(00:26):
leave written reviews and I would encourage you to do that
certainly if you're enjoying thepodcast.
So recently A1 Star Review has been left.
This is actually the first review that hasn't been five
stars, which is really remarkable that there's been so
many five star reviews and then this person has left a one star
review. So what I wanted to do is to
actually engage with the feedback they've left and to see
(00:49):
if we can address their concernsin that and see if I guess what
we're doing in this podcast is faithful to the teaching of the
church. So I actually had to read
through this person's comment a few times to sort of understand
what they meant. And before we get into it, I
think my personal opinion when Iread this is this person hasn't
actually listened to the podcastat all.
(01:11):
I think they've read the description of the podcast and
that in itself has put them off.But see what you think.
And hopefully this little exercise here before we get into
today's episode is helpful in clarifying the purpose of the
podcast and also helping you in your interactions with people
when they discuss different waysof interpreting the Bible.
(01:32):
So the heading of this review. Now here's where I think the
(01:52):
person has just read the description of the podcast,
because in the podcast description it says we're going
to look at the literal sense of Scripture.
The person has called this review Biblical Literalism is a
problem, and I'm just going to go through it a couple of
sentences at a time. It's quite a long review, so
this reviewer says I have qualms.
Biblical literalism is a major. This person has heard the word
literal and it has put them off.I think they've associated that
with some sort of fundamentalistinterpretation of Scripture, but
then they go on to say somethingthat is actually not true.
So they say here, as a Catholic,the Church's stance is that the
(02:16):
Gospels and the books of the Bible are divinely inspired, but
not the literal word of God or Jesus.
Now that's actually not correct.If you know the Church teaching
well, you'll know that the Church does believe the books of
the Bible are divinely inspired and they believe them to be the
literal word of God. If you read Dave Urban in
particular, which is a recent Vatican 2 document, it's not a
(02:39):
not an old school Catholic Church document, it's a recent
church document from Vatican 2. It actually says the Bible is
absolutely the word of God. So there is no false dichotomy
here between the Bible being divinely inspired and it being
the word of God. So I think this person might
just be a bit misinformed about what the Catholic teaching is.
(03:00):
Now, one thing we do want to stress that this person has got
right is the church doesn't takea literalistic interpretation of
Scripture, and we'll talk more about that.
But it does absolutely believe that the Bible is the literal
word of God. This person goes on.
They say for one, there are fourgospels, not one, which implies
different takes, different audiences, different intentions.
(03:22):
Now that's actually true. There are 4 gospels and we go
through that in the podcast. We talk about why some gospel
authors might have included somethings and why other gospel
authors have included other things.
But that does not take away fromthe Gospels being literally true
or literally the word of God. Just because there are four
people writing down the life of Jesus, that in itself doesn't
(03:45):
contradict them being the word of God.
This person goes on Jesus Yeshuaspoke and taught in parables,
which is symbolic stories that are both open to interpretation
and contain lessons. Often they're not meant to be
taken literally, otherwise we'd have an issue with the eye of a
needle and not giving up all of our things.
(04:07):
Now here's where I think the person is got the misconception.
They think that interpreting theBible according to the literal
sense, which is what the Catholic Church says we should
do, is going to lead us to taking Bibles which taking
parables literally. And that's just not the case.
The whole point of the literal sense is to work out what did
the original author intend, and then unpacking that clearly when
(04:29):
Jesus gave parables. In fact, it's very clear when
Jesus gives parables that he's not telling actual stories that
happened, he's making up a shortstory in order to teach a
spiritual lesson. That's what we do when we unpack
the literal sense as we think about why did Jesus use this
parable? What's the meaning of the
parable? So once again, this person has a
(04:50):
misconception of what the literal sense is.
We're not taking the Bible literalistically.
We're interpreting it according to the literal sense.
By the way, I want to quote herefrom the Catechism of the
Catholic Church if you have any doubt about whether Catholics
should interpret the Bible literally.
So this is from the Catechism ofthe Catholic Church, paragraph
115 through to 118, and I'll just read out sections of it.
(05:15):
According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish
between 2 senses of Scripture, the literal and the spiritual.
The literal sense is the meaningconveyed by the words of
scripture and discovered by exegesis following the rules of
sound interpretation. All other senses of Sacred
Scripture are based on the literal.
(05:37):
It is the task of Exeges to workaccording to these rules towards
a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of
Sacred Scripture. And then the paragraphs go on
from there. And if you look at Dave Urban,
there's even more specific guidelines on how to interpret
the New Testament as well, whichis very much in accordance with
this. So there it is.
This is the official teaching ofthe Church that all senses of
(05:58):
Scripture are based on the literal.
That's actually what the teaching of the Church is.
So it's our task as Catholic exegees.
First task is to unpack the literal sense of Scripture,
which is, as the Catechism here says, the meaning conveyed by
the words and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of
sound interpretation. That's simply what we're trying
(06:19):
to do in this podcast, That's what getting at the literal
sense is. On the other hand, literalistic
means to interpret a text without any reference to
context, without any reference to genre.
So don't let anyone ever tell you that as a Catholic, you're
not supposed to take the Bible literally.
Because the teaching of the church, it's clear.
In the Catechism, the teaching of the church is we are supposed
(06:40):
to take the Bible literally, provided that you understand
what that means, which is interpreting it according to the
author's original intent and theway the authors, the way the
original author would have received it.
We don't interpret the Bible literalistically.
So there is actually a distinction, and the Pontifical
Biblical Commission has actuallytalked about the difference
between these terms, the literalsense and literalistic
(07:04):
interpretation. We should have the former and
not the latter. This person goes on further.
A literal interpretation of the Christian Bible also has a
problem that will require the readers to learn Ancient Greek,
which is what most of the New Testament was originally written
in a language that Jesus probably didn't speak, but may
(07:25):
have heard as well as ancient Hebrew and Aramaic languages
that Jesus was probably more familiar with.
Translating those languages overthe last 1800 years has had a
long history, many interpretations, and again,
words at the are at the disposalof the translator, who is also a
human in a certain time or placewith a certain audience in mind
(07:46):
when translating. Now, this is a fair point.
Of course, it's possible that there's always translator bias
in our English translations thatdon't accurately reflect the
original Hebrew or Greek, and that is a fair point to make.
And in this podcast we're engaging with what are the
English translations of scriptural texts.
(08:07):
But on the whole, and scholars who work in the area of biblical
interpretation and translation will tell you that our major
translations today are quite accurate.
Occasionally there might be a word or two where we can't fully
capture the the richness of the original sense, but it's not
like there's major trouble interpreting the scripture.
(08:29):
The the translations we have, particularly the good academic
ones, are very faithful to the original Hebrew or Greek.
So this argument that it requires readers to be able to
read Hebrew or Greek in order tounderstand scripture is actually
not correct. That is not the Christian view
of Scripture. We believe the translations,
which are faithful, as as faithful as possible to the
(08:51):
original text, absolutely do convey the meaning of the word
of God. Although of course, in Catholic
teaching we do understand that only the original autographs,
which is the original documents written when the person was
divinely inspired, only those first versions of Scripture are
fully divinely inspired in the full sense, so that that part is
(09:13):
true. But the translations we have are
considered to be today anyway, of good faithful representations
of that. So this person goes on.
This complicates biblical literalism when looking at the
Bible in American English in the21st century.
There needs to be contextualization.
So here is where this the persontalks about their preferred way
(09:36):
of interpreting Scripture, and they just call it
contextualization. They don't offer any more
analysis of that. I think what they mean by
contextualization is keeping in mind that scripture was written
at a certain time for certain group of people, not for a 21st
century audience. And that's absolutely what we do
in this podcast. If you've been listening for a
(09:57):
while, we're trying to get out, how would the original readers
have understood what they were hearing?
That is what doing an analysis of the literal sense is.
So we do do contextualization and good biblical scholarship,
and the commentaries that I use in preparing these episodes
absolutely do that. Scriptural exeges know how to do
that. And then this person goes on to
(10:18):
say, but where these podcasts that present Bible literalism
as? They are on a foundation of
sand. So once again, this person is,
you know, trying to issue a warning to those who might be
searching for podcasts not to use any podcasts that advocate a
literal interpretation. This person has obviously had
some sort of negative experiencein their past with perhaps a
(10:39):
literalistic fundamentalist interpretation of Scripture.
And on top of that, this person doesn't realize that the Church
teaches that we need to do an exegesis of the literal sense of
Scripture. Now, I suspect that if you were
to drill down, we would probablyagree on this that we need to do
contextualization to make sure that we're interpreting it in
accordance with the original author and the original
(11:01):
audience. But that does not does not
negate it being the word of God that is absolutely all part of
the same package in Catholic teaching.
And this person goes on to say, yes, biblical contextualism is
harder, but far deeper in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and
more mature than the superficialliteral interpretations.
(11:23):
So this person clearly believes that their version of
interpreting scripture, which they're calling contextualism,
is harder. And I think by that they mean
it's requires a bit more work togo back and find out what the
original meaning was. But again, that's what we do in
this podcast, but far deeper in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and
more mature. So essentially, this person sees
(11:45):
any reference to a literal interpretation of the Bible to
be incorrect, and he calls it. He is superficial for the reason
that it doesn't consider the original audience and author,
but as I hope. I've clarified that's exactly
what the literal sense does. This person seems to have a bit
of a bias about believing that the Bible is really the literal
(12:06):
word of God. They prefer to approach
scripture from a different. Lens like clearly you haven't
got a super anti supernatural bias entirely because they
believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are present when you
take their particular version ofinterpreting scripture.
Now that that is a bit dangerous, though, because the
person has basically just rejected the Catholic Church's
(12:26):
official teaching on how to interpret Scripture and then
said that their version of interpreting Scripture is deeper
in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.Now that can't be correct.
So I think this person would agree if they dug a bit deeper,
that the Catholic Church's actual teaching on how to
interpret Scripture according tothe literal sense is actually a
very wise interpretation and probably agrees on the whole
(12:47):
with how they think we should goabout interpreting Scripture.
And if they actually listen to this podcast, they would know
that that is what we do in theseepisodes.
I think at some point this person has been exposed to false
teaching about what Catholics actually believe about the
Bible. There are some of these.
Unfortunately, there are some Catholic presenters who have a
certain school of thought about how Scripture should be
(13:10):
interpreted, who teach others this more critical version of
Scripture interpretation, and they put these things in there
like literal is incorrect, contextualism is correct, so
they actually teach other Catholics a false version of
what the Church teaches, and it's quite influential.
One thing that was kind of implicit in what this person was
saying that I didn't directly address before, but I think is
(13:32):
worth addressing is this reviewer seems to have this idea
that what the gospel authors have recorded is not actually an
accurate representation of Jesus, and instead it's actually
been developed by the gospel authors in a bit of a different
way according to the needs of the Church.
And this is a really influentialview.
(13:54):
There is one really powerful text here from Dave Urban that.
If you encounter someone like this who thinks the Gospels
don't actually reflect the historical accuracy of what
Jesus was doing, this quote is so powerful.
So this is from Vatican 2 and it's from Dave Urban.
And here's paragraph 19. Holy Mother Church has firmly
(14:17):
and with absolute constancy heldand continues to hold that the
four Gospels, whose historical character the Church
unhesitatingly affirms faithfully hand on what Jesus,
while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal
salvation. So that language there of it's
what Jesus really did and taught, is absolutely very
(14:40):
powerful in terms of helping us go about doing exegesis in the
correct way. The Church teaches that the
Gospels are a faithful account of what Jesus really said and
did, and that has to be our starting point as Catholics.
Hopefully engaging with this review has been helpful for you
because you might actually see this review when you type in
Apple Podcast reviews. All the others are
(15:02):
overwhelmingly positive, but there's this one from a person
who probably hasn't listened to the podcast.
If there was a way of actually responding to or replying to
this Apple Podcast Review on theApple Podcast platform, I would
do that. But there isn't.
So hopefully doing it in this audio form has been helpful and
hopefully you can see that I've tried to be fair to the person
(15:22):
who's written this review and it's helped in your own or
helped clarify your own understanding of what the church
teaches about the inspiration ofScripture and how to go about
doing good exegesis. Can I ask you, as listeners of
the podcast to please consider leaving a review on the Apple
Podcasts platform? Because we want people to see
good, positive reviews of the podcast.
(15:45):
So even if you just write a short comment, please consider
giving it five stars if you think it's worth five stars.
I think it's important that whenpeople read reviews of podcasts
that they actually read reviews that are fair to the content of
the podcast. So please, if you haven't left a
review for the podcast, considerdoing so.
Let's get into today's episode. Hi everyone.
(16:17):
Welcome back to Daily Gospel Exegesis.
What we're on about in this podcast is helping you
understand the literal sense of Scripture.
The Catholic Church teaches thatif you want to understand the
Bible, you need to make a distinction between the literal
sense and the spiritual sense ofthe text.
And we always must start with the literal sense that is the
(16:37):
Church's teaching. So this is the.
Only podcast out there, which every day helps you dive into
the text verse by verse. And take a look at the literal.
And as you'll see today, it's particularly important that we
do it. This way, when we're looking at
parables, because it's very easyto jump to a spiritual
interpretation of the parable, and we sometimes forget that
(16:59):
Jesus usually had one specific meaning in mind.
He had a literal sense that he was trying to communicate with
these parables. So that's what we will look at
today. And we're in Matthew, chapter
13, verses 44 to 46. This is the reading you would
hear at today's Mass. Jesus said to the crowds, the
Kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which
(17:22):
someone has found. He hides it again, goes off
happy, sells everything he owns and buys the field.
Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant looking for fine
pearls. When he finds one of great
value, he goes and sells everything he owns and buys it.
(17:44):
So that's our short reading today.
We have two little parables in here, and these are ones that
you may not have heard of beforeor certainly haven't heard very
frequently. So we're in Matthew chapter 13,
often called the Parables chapter in Matthew or the
Kingdom Parables chapter. So here Matthew has assembled 7
Kingdom parables that Jesus speaks throughout his ministry.
(18:05):
So it's possible that the parables we have here in Matthew
13 were not said on one occasion.
Maybe Matthew has just combined them together in the one chapter
and that would certainly make sense.
But what's interesting about some of these parables is that a
couple. Of them appear only in the
Gospel of Matthew, and that is the case today.
We have here 2 short parables which are the. 5th and the 6th
(18:26):
of the seven parables in this chapter, and both of these are
unique to the Gospel of Matthew.So when we're interpreting
parables, exegesis is very useful.
We really need to do a verse by verse exegesis.
Really thinking about what the words would have meant in their
original context. It's probably true that parables
have lots of hidden meanings, but Jesus usually in general has
(18:51):
one specific point about the Kingdom of God that he's trying
to make. And that's where we should
start. That's what we want to get at in
this podcast. What's Jesus main point?
He's trying to communicate with these parables.
So let's start here with the 5th.
Of the seven parables, which is the parable of the hidden
treasure verse 44, Jesus said tothe crowds.
Now, the original text in your Bible doesn't have this.
(19:12):
The lectionary has just added itin.
So keep in mind that it's possible Jesus is not speaking
to the crowds. Maybe he's just speaking to the
disciples. You could go either way with it.
And he says the Kingdom of heaven.
So here already we know this is a parable.
About the Kingdom, the Kingdom of heaven is synonymous with the
Kingdom of God. They're the same thing.
And basically, if you've been following these Matthew podcasts
(19:35):
through, you'll know that the Kingdom of God means God's will
and reign on earth, and Jesus invites people to be part of the
Kingdom when you become a Christian.
You become a part of the Kingdomyou're part of where God's will
is. Done on earth, the Kingdom of
heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.
Now this seems a bit odd to us, but in that culture it was quite
(19:56):
common to hide treasure in a field.
If you found something valuable,like gold or something in that
culture, you're probably not going to keep it in your house
because houses were very easy tobreak into.
So thieves could break in duringnight time and take any
valuables that were lying around.
So instead, if a person genuinely had something quite
valuable, that would usually just find a random field and
(20:19):
bury it. There, that would bury it in a
field. And that's a good arrangement
because there's no, there's no banks in that culture.
So really you're going to have to hide it in somewhere like a
field. As long as you know where it is,
it's safe. Of course, the problem with that
is if you don't own the field, it's just a random field, then
technically anyone can come along and claim the treasure.
(20:39):
Now, some scholars think there might be an additional element
here. Some think that possibly during
Israel's history there were certain wars and certain
activities where Israel had to. Israelites had to flee quickly
and then maybe. Actually did historically bury
their treasure in fields becausethey were leaving quickly, and
that's certainly possible, but it seems more reasonable to take
(21:00):
this as just people. In Jesus time.
General people would just sometimes bury their treasure in
the field if they had nowhere. Else to put it so Jesus here
says it's like treasure hidden in the field which someone has
found. So here we have someone who
somehow finds the treasure in the field.
Maybe they're digging for treasure and they're lucky
(21:21):
enough to find some. And Jesus says when he finds the
treasure he hides it again or? Literally covers it up.
So if someone found treasure in the field, that would be
overjoyed, because they're incredibly lucky to find this
treasure, this wealthy amount ofgold, the first thing they'll do
is bury it again so that no one else can get it.
But then he's going to have to do something else in order to
(21:43):
claim the treasure for himself. So Jesus says after he hides it,
he goes off happy. Or what it literally says is in
his joy because the person is going to be overjoyed if you
find treasure worth this much. He sells everything he owns and
buys the field. So in order for the person to
claim this treasure as his own, he actually has to buy the field
(22:05):
that the treasure is buried in. Once he owns the field, then no
one else is allowed to come along and take.
The treasure, because it's it's literally his treasure at that
point. But of course, to buy the field
he needs money. So the person here who's found
the treasure sells everything heowns in order to have a bit of
money. Then he can buy the field.
So that's the order of events here.
He sells everything he owns so that he has money to buy the
(22:27):
field, and then he can lay claimto the treasure.
The key thing to understanding this is that the treasure is
numerically worth way more than all the possessions and money
that were lost in the process ofacquiring the treasure.
So certainly he has to give up some money and give up all his
possessions in the process, but the treasure is worth far more
(22:48):
than that. So this person here who finds a
treasure in the parable sees this as a once in a lifetime
opportunity and takes it. So that's the end of the
parable. How is the Kingdom of heaven
like that? What is Jesus trying to teach?
It seems that the idea is something like this.
Entering the Kingdom of God willrequire sacrifice and in
(23:08):
particular money and possessions, and we know that
because of Jesus other teachings.
But of course gaining the Kingdom is worth far more than
the things the person has lost in the process of making
sacrifices for the Kingdom. So the Kingdom of God is worth
far more than that. Basically, this is a teaching
about putting earthly things in perspective of the Kingdom.
(23:30):
Earthly things are not worth anywhere near as much as the
Kingdom of God is, and in many cases they need to be sacrificed
in order to obtain the Kingdom of God, which of course fits
very well with other things Jesus teaches.
Jesus is now going to teach another parable with the same
basic meaning, and this one is often called the parable of the.
Pearl of Great Price, Verse 45. Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is
(23:54):
like a merchant looking for finepearls.
In that culture, pearls were considered far more valuable
than gold. So apparently here we have a
merchant, someone who roams through towns looking for pearls
in marketplaces and things. He's looking in particular for
pearls that he knows. Are worth a lot.
So this is a merchant who's welltrained at spotting valuable
(24:18):
pearls and he's hoping he can find one for sale that he can
buy. Maybe he can find someone
selling it who themself don't appreciate the value of it, but
this man has an eye for fine pearls and he's hoping he can
find one and buy it. Verse 46, when he finds one of
great value he goes and sells everything he owns and buys it.
(24:40):
It seems that the the key to understanding this little
parable is that pearls gain in value over time.
So in in order for this to work,it has to be that when the man
buys the Pearl, he gets more than the amount he paid for it.
So it must be the pearls gain invalue over time, so buying a
(25:00):
Pearl is a good investment. So in this case, the merchant in
the parable would be willing to part with all of his money and
possessions in order to get the Pearl.
Basically, buying the Pearl in the long term is going to
outweigh everything he's lost inthe process of buying the Pearl,
So it's very similar to the previous parable.
Both of these two parables stress that the Kingdom of God's
(25:21):
value is inestimable. It's worth far more value than
anything in this life. And on top of that, surrendering
earthly attachments is going to be required in order to obtain
it. In fact, the disciples
themselves have already done that.
They've already sacrificed. They've already given up all
their possessions basically in order to get the Kingdom, And we
(25:42):
see that in Chapter 4 versus 20 to 22 of Matthew.
Now on top of this, you could say that both of the parables
emphasize that the Kingdom of God can only be found by
diligently seeking. And basically those who don't go
looking for the Kingdom, they'renot going to find it.
Only those who are seeking the Kingdom will find it.
(26:02):
Certainly this fits in with Jesus earlier teachings about
the point of the parables and how the Kingdom of God works.
Jesus has been suggesting that the Kingdom of God is hidden in
a sense. For certain people, it's only
revealed to those who are genuinely seeking, so these
parables build on those things. Jesus has one more parable to
tell the 7th parable, and we will look at that in tomorrow's
(26:24):
episode. Let's now turn to the Catechism.
And there's one paragraph which mentions these parables.
So that's paragraph 546, which is about how Jesus goes about
teaching the Kingdom. Jesus invitation to enter his
Kingdom comes in the form of parables, A characteristic
feature of his teaching. Through his parables he invites
people to the feast of the Kingdom.
(26:45):
But he also asks for a radical choice.
What use has He made of the talents he has received?
To gain the Kingdom one must give everything.
Words are not enough, deeds are required.
The parables are like mirrors for man.
Will he be hard soil or good earth for the?
Jesus and the presence of the Kingdom in this world are
(27:06):
secretly at the heart of the parables.
One must enter the Kingdom that is.
Become a disciple of Christ in order to know the secrets of the
Kingdom of heaven. For those who stay outside,
everything remains enigmatic. So that's quite a nice
paragraph, which brings togethervarious quotes from the parables
here, and you probably heard they're about halfway.
(27:28):
Through where it says to gain the Kingdom, one must give
everything, which of course links very well to these two
parables which emphasize that ifyou want the Kingdom, you need
to be willing to make sacrificesand be detached from earthly
possessions because the Kingdom of God is of far more value than
those things. We'll leave it there for today.
I hope you've learned something new.
(27:49):
If you enjoyed this podcast and learning about these parables,
which not many people have studied in a lot of detail,
please share the podcast around and also prayerfully consider
becoming a Patreon supporter of the ministry.
This ministry is entirely independent, it's not funded by
any other ministries or diocese,so we need your support if we
want it to keep going. And there's all sorts of
(28:09):
exclusive. Bonus episodes available to you
if you do decide to become a Patreon supporter.
You can find out more information about that in the
episode description. There is a link to the Patreon
page. Thanks once again for listening
and hopefully you'll TuneIn again tomorrow.
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