3/16/25 - Matthew 13 - Fruitful Ground

There is a detail in Matthew 13 that I would like to address right up front. Way back in Matthew chapter 4, I mentioned that Jesus left Nazareth and moved his family to Capernaum. I assumed that when He left Nazareth was when He was almost thrown off a cliff as Jesus’ move in Matthew chapter 4 follows the timeline of Luke’s gospel when, after being tested in the wilderness, Jesus goes to Nazareth and is run out of town. But this event doesn’t happen in Matthew until Matthew 13. Regardless of my mistake, there are some irregularities in the chronology of Matthew’s narrative. When Jesus announces himself as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s writings, the people ask, “isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” In Matthew 13, we see Jesus returning to his “hometown” despite already being in his new hometown, and the crowds respond the same way that they do in Luke 4, alluding to the fact that Jesus is in Nazareth, and not Capernaum for this “hometown” visit. Yet, in Matthew’s telling, Jesus had already preached the Sermon on the Mount, picked His disciples out, and sent them on their first missionary journey. But in Luke’s telling, all of that happens after Jesus was run out of Nazareth. Considering that Matthew already acknowledged Jesus’ moving to Capernaum, which again in Luke doesn’t happen until he’s been run out, either Matthew or Luke seem to be mixing events around.

This brings up a very good point. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John take a look at Jesus’ ministry through different lenses and tell their narratives for different purposes. Matthew’s purpose was to portray Jesus as the fulfillment of messianic prophecy. Mark focuses on the supernatural and the miraculous, showing Jesus to be Divine, the Son of God. Luke takes the most systematic and chronological approach as his purpose was to investigate and compile the stories of Jesus to the best of his ability on the request of a person named Theophilus. And John’s focus is mostly zoned in on the last week of Jesus' life and ministry, relating Jesus to a primarily Greek audience, showing Jesus as the Divine Reason, God come in the flesh to take upon Himself the sins of the whole world, taking especial attention to Jesus relation of Himself to the Bread and the Wine.

Sometimes these discrepancies are pointed at by people who are either questioning or hostile to the Faith and use the differences as “proof” that the Bible is inconsistent or contradictory. However, what is going on here is perfectly natural. Matthew, Mark, and John are telling their stories of Jesus through different lenses and points of view. This does not make the narrative untrue nor the events spurious. Rather, it shows that the authors of these books were likely not taking counsel together to fabricate stories of Jesus that never happened. Just like an investigator interviewing eyewitnesses will get slightly different versions of the same story from each interviewee, so also we see slight variations throughout the Gospels.  The relation of events in different orders would be expected in the retelling of true events seen by people recalling to memory what they had heard and seen. And relating events in conformity to underlying narratives is also a very common way of communicating when you wish to highlight specific aspects of events and motivations.  What would be more suspicious would be if all four Gospels agreed in exact synchrony. If you look at the religious documents and testimonies of cults and their devoted followers, exact collaboration is a common theme and is one of the red flags that something might not be right or true in what is being said.

So the presence of details that are out of order or not quite related clearly are not really an issue, such as Jesus delivering one man from the Legion of demons rather than two men, or Jesus’ return to Nazareth and the townspeople saying, “isn’t this the carpenter’s son, and aren’t His mom and siblings with us?” Details like this should not be worrisome details but rather marks of the greater likelihood that what is being related came from the memory of normal people and not the collaborative efforts of a group trying to make sure their story lines up perfectly.

In Matthew 13, Jesus has just had a run in with the Pharisees in the synagogue. They started making plans of murdering Jesus so He left the synagogue and was met with a large crowd. Having healed their sick and demon possessed, Jesus is called as being demon possessed by the Pharisees, and Jesus contradicts them with sound reasonings and solid evidence. Now, He wishes to teach the crowd so He goes and sits by the lake. So many people show up that Jesus gets onto a boat and preaches from the waters to those on the shore. This is a very smart utilization of the physics of sound, this would have been like the ancient version of micing up.

This is now the 3rd dialogue cycle of Matthew’s 5 of Jesus' main dialogues. Before, Jesus was shown in the light of the Greater Moses in the sermon on the Mount, and in Matthew 11, Jesus was portrayed as a Greater Joshua. Now, Matthew relates Jesus’ parables, some of which were spoken at different times and different places. While Matthew relates some of Jesus’ parables later on, the majority of Jesus’ parables are collected and related here. This section almost reads like a chapter out of Proverbs, displaying Jesus as the Greater Solomon. Jesus' purpose for these parables is to teach what the Kingdom of Heaven is like in a way that was hard to understand. When the disciples ask why Jesus speaks in parables but only explains them to themselves, His primary answer is that the secrets of the Kingdom have been given to the disciples and not to the crowd.

Before we are tempted to believe that Jesus is being permanently selective, remember that back in Matthew 10 Jesus instructs His disciples, “What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.” Jesus was not withholding knowledge for the sake of withholding knowledge, but His purpose here goes along with the Parable of the Sower and it instead reveals that Jesus wants the people to get the meaning. The heart and mind that don’t understand have the implanted word stolen from them, while the undisciplined heart and the heart divided by contrary loyalties have what grows die out. But the heart that is ready to receive, the mind that understands, bears fruit. Jesus, speaking in parable, forces people to think deeply or not at all. The act of pondering the deeper meaning of the parable would have made it all the more likely that the heart and mind were prepared and ready to receive understanding when the meaning hit them.

Jesus’ secondary explanation to the disciples of why He speaks in parables is hair-raising. He quotes Isaiah 6 where God tells Isaiah, “go tell the people, ‘“He said, “Go and tell this people: “ ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Jesus does not quote the next verse, but he says that this passage is fulfilled in the people. The rest of the passage has a harrowing exchange between Isaiah and God, “Then I said, 'For how long, Lord?’ And he answered: ‘Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged, until the Lord has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken. And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste. But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.’” Again, Jesus is not witholding knoweldge from everyone for the sake of withold knowdlge, instead He recalls the prophecies of Isaiah to the minds of His disciples to prepare their minds and hearts to receive His pronouncement of judgment over Jerusalem and to take seriously His warning to flee the city when they see Rome’s armies on their way to besiege it.

When Jesus finishes teaching the crowds, He goes back home, but not to Capernaum, to Nazareth. Matthew’s insertion of this moment is odd as it’s not chronologically accurate. When Jesus goes to His hometown and is met with skepticism, “isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” That skepticism was shortly met with Jesus offending the crowd and being run out of town and almost being thrown off a cliff. Matthew leaves that detail out and only takes note that they took offense at Him and He wasn’t able to do many miracles on account of their lack of faith. If you’re looking for a consistent flow chronologically, Matthew 13 is a frustrating chapter.

Despite the chronological discrepancy, the narrative flow is brilliant here. Matthew relates events in the way he does to drive a hard point. After He has just taught the crowd in parables, starting with the Parable of the Sower and moving onto Jesus foreshadowing of Israel’s hardened hearts to His words, Matthew then shows the tragic application of this in real time with the narrative. Jesus goes home where He is known, where his mother, brothers, and step-father are known. When they hear His words and see His miracles, their response is skeptical. The brush off the wonders they see, recalling that many of them had possibly known Him when He was in diapers. So instead of being convinced by the gracious words of Christ or the miracles displayed to back up His words, they seem to all but accuse Him of being a sorcerer. “Where did He get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” And instead of amazed they are offended.

Matthew 13 starts off relating the Parable of the Sower, where there is at least some optimism that the Gospel might take root in the heart and be fruitful. Matthew ends chapter 13, as he often does, on a tragic note. “He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” Instead of ready ground, the people of Nazareth’s hearts were hard as stone. How easy it might be for us who are so familiar with the Gospel message to miss the present movements of the Spirit because we assume we know who Jesus is and what He’s like. May we all be sensitive to the Spirit and respond to Him daily. May the Lord grant that our hearts are plowed and ready, able to bear fruit. And may we abide in Christ so that no weed or stone interrupts the fruitfulness God desires in us.