This essay continues a sequence. Read the previous one here.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure
hid in a field;
the which when a man hath found,
he hideth,
and for joy thereof
goeth and selleth all that he hath,
and buyeth that field.
— KJV; Matt 13:44-46
Unravelling The Word as spiritual exercise…
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Who’s The Man?
A popular interpretation is that the man is Christ, the treasure is humanity, and Christ gave all that He had (being His physical life) to possess this treasure.
This conflates Christ’s Eternal Being with His short time on Earth, positions humanity as something desperately valuable to the Almighty, and reflects the belief that Christ’s primary Mission was not to bring Truth, but to die on a cross.
It presents a number of logical and factual challenges.
Before Abraham was, I am.
— John 8:58
To this end was I born,
and for this cause came I into the world,
that I should bear witness unto the Truth.
— John 18:37
Many misinterpretations arise from habits of anthropomorphism (ref. “God Is Neither Superman Nor Santa“), wherein we separate the Personality of Christ, The Word, and Divine Truth. This is wrong (ref. “What Is Truth?“).
Thus, we misinterpret passages like:
I am the living bread which came down from heaven:
if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever:
and the bread that I will give is my flesh,
which I will give for the life of the world.
— John 6:51
The bread that is His flesh is not his physical body, but His Word of Truth which is inseparable from His actual Being.
The flesh profiteth nothing:
The Words that I speak unto you,
they are Spirit, and they are Life.
— John 6:63
What’s The Field?
One interpretation states that the field is the world and the treasure is the Gospel.
The original meaning of “Gospel” was “Christian Message”, but later it became understood as “the books containing narratives about Christ”. Therefore, this interpretation could be taken in two entirely different directions…
A second interpretation is that the field is scripture, and the treasure is Christ. We are to continuously study the scriptures so as to possess the understanding of Christ and His Word.
A third interpretation states that the field represents spiritual investigation, and the treasure at the heart of this investigation is the zeal and desire for heavenly (or non-material) reward, which must be protected at all costs. Whether there is value in this perspective depends on our concept of reward (ref. “Everlasting Meat & Treasures In Heaven“).
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The Free Will To Be Born Anew
It would amount to diminishing The Word to claim that one particular perspective is the interpretation.
However, we can offer another potentially useful lens: that of the free will.
We have lost our free will through our enslavement to materialism (ref. “The Free Will To Be Born Anew“). In other words, the treasure of our free will is buried somewhere in our psyche, and we therefore do not “own” ourselves.
Through The Word, we begin to discover our own spiritual nature and get a glimmer of our free will and how different it’s promptings are from our existing habits and thought patterns.
Initially we are unable to properly express this earth-shaking and joyful inner divining in words or actions; it is something that we are now conscious of but are unable to fully reveal i.e. we hide it.
We perceive the gulf between who we currently are and who we now wish to be. In joy we begin the process of casting off all the old so that we can reclaim true humanity as described in “Ye Must Be Born Again, Part 2“.
A Perspective on Parables
Therefore speak I to them in parables:
because they seeing see not;
and hearing they hear not,
neither do they understand.
— Matt 12:13
Christ used parables in order to force us to think about the meaning of His Words. This enforces digestion of the life in The Word, which enables us to break the chains around our free will.
Today’s Resolution:
- We shall approach The Word with humility, and seek to understand It as it really is…
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