Stringing Pearls

A pearl is a gem with a unique creation process.

It starts out as a tiny piece of irritating grit or sand that finds its way into an oyster. Over time and in defence of the irritant, the oyster secretes layers of a substance called nacre which gathers around the irritant to protect itself from the injury and as these secretions build up, so the little piece of grit transforms and grows into a beautiful pearl, highly valued, a symbol of purity, wisdom, salvation and eternal life. The analogy is that a real pearl can remind us of our spiritual transformation as God wraps His love and mercy around us to produce something of great value, precious and beautiful in His sight.

The Bible mentions the pearl several times and while preaching His sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught His followers to have discernment when spreading the Good News. Within just a couple of verses we have further analogies with dogs and pigs! A strange concoction, but the imagery is profound and was meaningful to those who listened.

Why? Because dogs and pigs of course are synonymous with not caring too hoots about the value and beauty of fine things. Have you ever met a pig or a dog that oohs and ahhs at the beauty of a strand of pearls or appreciates the process they underwent to become so precious and unique? They would trample them underfoot without a second thought. Sadly the value of what Christ has done for us can also be lost on many people. They may hear the message of the Gospel but they don’t appreciate it nor do they give what Jesus did for them on the Cross any thought or consideration. Likewise, we often pick out other people’s faults and fail to look at the irritating things we do and say that can cause distress and mental frailty. Thankfully He gave us the solution. First remove the irritant from our own lives by asking the Holy Spirit to show us and and then we will have wisdom to see how to embrace change and help others. Sometimes the irritant we once had can even be turned into a blessing!

The parable of the pearl of great price in Chapter 13 of Matthew’s Gospel shows that when we ‘dig’ into the Word of God, we find valuable nuggets of wisdom and truths that enrich our lives in the way that no earthly things can. The Kingdom of Heaven (God’s way of doing things) when it is found, is so precious to the believer that he will do what it takes to keep it. He is not afraid to be considered a fool by the world, because he knows that he has something so valuable, the world can offer him nothing comparable. You can also look at it from God's point of view as well. He considers each and every one of us to be of great value to Him, and no matter how low we've stooped and how insignificant we may feel, we are all uniquely and specially created for a divine purpose and plan in His sight.

The ancient rabbis, who taught the oracles of God and passed down commentaries of the Scriptures to generation after generation, had a technique that was well known in Jesus’ time. It was called ‘stringing pearls’. They venerated the Word of God and made it the bedrock of their civilisation and put such great value upon it that it was synonymous with the pearl.

Jesus Himself used this technique as a means of conversing with highly educated Jews such as the Pharisees and Sadducees, rabbis and scribes. Not to show off, but to communicate God’s faithfulness through Scripture. The words from the writings of Moses (known as the Torah) were passed down in oral form from generation to generation and these, together with the Midrash commentaries were considered the bedrock of society, a precious gift from God and used in everyday life as a yardstick by which everything in life was measured. The rabbis’ love for God’s Word was their treasure. Their conversations (usually at mealtimes) would run deep into the Scriptures and since most men had studied the Torah, the Prophets and the Psalms since the age of 12, their knowledge of God’s Word was profound. They would link passage after passage that shared the same word or phrase and then meditate by pondering and questioning how these passages might provide further understanding – and they still do this today, just for fun!

This practice of linking scriptures was very common in ancient times, so it was entirely familiar for them to hear Jesus using this method, but He did so in order to point them towards His own identity and fulfilment of those Scriptures and this of course caused a problem. He made a habit of mixing with the unclean, the unloved, the sick and the reviled - those outcasts of society that Jews were forbidden to be seen with. The laws of God, over time, had become warped with tradition and superstition, making them ineffective and fruitless and the Jews had forgotten their true meaning and intention. When we begin to hear the words of Jesus in light of their cultural setting and as if we were His contemporaries, the power and meaning become strikingly obvious and what’s more, we don’t need to be a scholar or a rabbi to understand.

Let’s ‘dig’ and see if we can string some pearls.

Jesus declared during that same sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”. This was a part of His sermon when he taught about those who were 'poor' in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the hungry, the merciful and the peacemakers and he told them that they were all blessed. These groups of people were sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to Him at that very moment. They were the outcasts of society who needed help and had sought Him out not just because they'd heard news of His miracles but because they earnestly sought acceptance and adoption. They had come in their thousands to hear Him preach and now here He was, right in their midst. His compassion, His love and His forgiveness – His Kingdom, His way of doing things – was seen where they were and they truly were blessed.

Take Matthew for instance. He was a tax collector. Hated and reviled in society, an outcast and symbol of foreign oppression, a traitor to his own people and even shunned by his own family. Tax collectors leached money from the people in order to aid the enemy Roman authorities which made them a despised group among the Jews, but an ideal evangelistic candidate. Jesus famously ate with these tax collectors and I can assure you that in those days it really mattered who you ate with! People couldn’t understand why Jesus would frequent with such 'dogs' of society. As it turned out, Matthew turned away from his tax collecting lifestyle in order to follow Jesus. He turned his back on his old life to follow a new path and received a great blessing in the process. Matthew came to understand that he was not just annoying and irritating both to his fellow Jews and to the Roman authorities, he was lacking in real riches.

Jesus gave us a ‘road map’ in order to find Him. If you are seeking God and want to find Him (and by the way, it’s not God who is lost), look for those who are in need. He’s right there with those who grieve, those who strive to keep the peace, those who hunger for Him and those who are humble enough to acknowledge that they need the One who offers acceptance to all.

As those crowds sat on the mountain listening to the Lord, many bearing the weighty burdens of sickness, disease, handicaps and condemnation, their hearts must have leapt within them as they wondered if this was indeed their expected Messiah and the fulfilment of King David’s Psalm 24 which they would have known well. Could it be that this Man was the One who would accept them, put them on the right path of life and show them how they, who were considered to be so unclean and impure, could attain purity and become clean just by trusting Him? Had they, who were hopelessly lost, found God Himself?

Psalm 24 (Living Bible) says:

"Who may climb the mountain of the Lord and enter where he lives? Who may stand before the Lord? Only those with pure hands and hearts, who do not practice dishonesty and lying. They will receive God’s own goodness as their blessing from him, planted in their lives by God himself, their Saviour. These are the ones who are allowed to stand before the Lord and worship the God of Jacob.

Open up, O ancient gates, and let the King of Glory in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, invincible in battle. Yes, open wide the gates and let the King of Glory in.

And Proverbs 20:9

Who can say, “I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin”?

The answer is not a single one of us. Only Jesus can make our hearts clean and purify us from our sins.

If you think about it, God’s wonderful attributes of mercy, forgiveness and justice cannot be extended within the Godhead. Have you ever considered that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit don’t need forgiveness, nor do they need mercy and justice? How could God extend these qualities of His nature to a divine community that had never sinned, nor would ever need forgiveness? That is why He made us and why He loves us so much. Because He has created us as his special treasure, His is able to extend to us the finest and most merciful attributes of His divine nature.

The word beatitude means 'supreme blessedness', so how can we experience this supreme blessedness without knowing what it is to be reviled and shunned? How can we experience God's mercy and forgiveness if we don't sin? How can we experience God's love if we don't suffer rejection ourselves? Jesus experienced rejection personally. He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth. When they heaped abuse on Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats, but entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His stripes you are healed.”… (1 Peter 2:24) Only He can make our hearts pure and wash our sins away with His precious blood.

Let’s link some more pearls and go back to Psalm 24

We see how a pure and humble heart is synonymous with the precious blessing of being in the presence of God. The words of Jesus, as He preached His sermon to them on the mountain top, would have resonated with His listeners and they would have also remembered Asaph’s Psalm (Psalm 73:1) “Truly God is good to Israel, to such as are pure in heart”. They were living out the words of the Psalms right there on the mountain mentioned in the Psalms and they were in the presence of God Himself! Their extensive knowledge of the scriptures would take them back to these verses and Jesus’ words would be confirmed to them as true. It also confirms that we in ourselves cannot make our hearts pure, nor can being able to quote great swathes of scripture. It’s those who seek the face of God and desire to know Him, regardless of their personal circumstances, who will be the ones to benefit from His gracious hand of blessing.

1 Timothy 1:5 says

“Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith…”

And 1 Peter: 1:22 says

“Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever….”

It might be that you think your past sins have sullied you and that you can never attain purity in God's eyes. You may feel unworthy and rejected because of your past or your track record, or even your profession! Well that would be where you were wrong! Our hearts become pure when we sincerely and fervently approach God as our Father, being born anew spiritually through the Word of God, which is Jesus Himself. We can’t do it by any other way! Our hearts have been made pure by the precious blood that Jesus shed for you and me, not by anything we have done or not done. The stripes that he bore for each one of us paid the price for our sin and healed us from hurt, rejection, pain and suffering. He sees our hearts. He sees our burdens.

When my Dad was in his final weeks of life, bedridden and dependant upon me to look after him and see to his every need, he shared how he felt devoid of any value to anyone. To him his life no longer had usefulness and purpose. So I read to him the scripture in Matthew 10 that says "Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s knowledge. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows." And then I read to him Matthew 6:26 "Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns--and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" I told him that his whole life had been of great value not only to us as a family, but also to God and even then, in his weakest moments, he was precious in His sight. His attitude instantly changed from one of hopelessness to one of thankfulness, just by hearing those verses of scripture. Just a few weeks later, his final word as he slipped away into the arms of Jesus, was "thankyou".

When we become “born again”, we become 'spiritually alive', having been previously 'spiritually dead', or unaware of Christ's ultimate sacrifice for us. We can experience new life in God and His Blessings when our spirit (the deepest part within us) is united with God and His Word. The two are inseparable. We ‘put away’ our old life and our idolatry behaviour by seeking Him first. When we seek Him we will find Him (Jeremiah 29:13) and when our spirits are 'born again', our new eternal life begins at that very moment.

Jesus was telling his followers that the pure in heart, those who sincerely and fervently seek Him, will experience all that God has for them and be of great value to the Kingdom of God. All the blessings, all the joy of having a ‘clean heart’ washed from the sin that separation from God brings, is ours for the taking. And this sincerity is met by God also with great joy – just like a natural parent who longs for a child to love them - , not just because they think something good will come their way, but with wholehearted earnestness and a genuine desire to be close.

The love that the rabbis and scholars had for God’s Word was undeniable, but there was one thing they had grown away from in their quest to search and string together the scriptures, and that was to seek God Himself. You see, God is a relational God. As awesome and wonderful as our creation is, with all the wonder and majesty of the mountains, the ocean and nature all playing their part in the beauty of what He has created, His true desire is for mankind to know Him. This is God’s Plan for our eternity - that we know Him (John 17:3). That word 'know' in the Hebrew language (in which the Old Testament was largely written) has deep and intimate connotations. It has nothing to do with acquiring information or practical understanding, it's something you gain only by being vitally connected to Him, like a branch is to a tree, like a bird is to the air and like a fish is to the sea. It's to do with true identity and value, being the person you were always created to be. In John's gospel Jesus said "as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." Abiding is where we live and move and have our being. It's our natural dwelling place and where we are at our most productive and fruitful. We are hard-wired by God to abide in Him and He in us so that we can live out our most fulfilling lives and be who we were always intended to 'be'. No wonder our old life was such a struggle!

This was Jesus’ message. Quoting scripture and linking up the passages was very clever, and Jesus proved that He knew them just as well, if not better than the Pharisees and Sadducees, but the message these scriptures gave all pointed towards a Father who longs for us to seek His face, to come to know him and His Beloved Son intimately and to find our joy and expression in Him in a personal way. He cares for us deeply and longs for us to seek Him, especially when times are hard and we struggle to muster up the will to do so. This was God’s message as far back as creation itself when he created mankind to walk with Him in the cool of the day.

In her book ‘Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus’, Lois Tverberg explains that the Church today finds the words of Jesus hard to understand because we are so unfamiliar with the Old Testament. With it’s long verses, difficult to pronounce names and often ridiculous sounding rules and laws, it’s easy to skip over into the New Testament and forget the Old. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are names that mean little to the Church today, and as a result the Church has no concept nor understanding of how she came about, who she is or where she came from. Another commentator, Sandra Richter explains that ..."the Church is suffering from a kind of spiritual Alzheimer’s. The great tragedy of this terrible disease is that is robs a person of their true identity, their memory, their experiences and relationships".

It behoves us to understand the traditions and scriptural techniques of the Hebrew people because they are the foundation of our Christian Heritage. The scriptures that the Jewish rabbis would read aloud, passage by passage, week by week, were adopted by the early Church and are part of our liturgical calendar today. Scriptures from the Old and New Testament that can be linked together into a common theme form the basis for our readings and sermons each Sunday. The story of how God created mankind to walk with Him daily and the lessons we have to learn from those who went before us and, frankly messed up, are just as relevant today as they were in the days of Moses, Abraham, King David and Jonah. From Genesis to Revelation, we can learn how to develop a pure and clean heart, not by our own strength and goodness, not by being perfect, but by simply putting God first place so that in the ages to come, all those who have accepted Christ will see the face of God – what an awesome privilege that will be!

Further study:

Next time you go to church, read the passages for that day carefully and prayerfully. Earnestly seek God for the ‘pearls’ that link those passages together. How do they relate to us today? What lessons can we learn from them? What are the common phrases and words that link these passages?