"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast
into the sea, and gathering fish of every kind; and when it
was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down and gathered the
good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away.
Insights:
The picture of this parable is found in today’s verses. The imagery used by Jesus was common to
everyone who heard the parable. Basically
there were three ways to fish. First, one could use a line and hook which caught
fishes one at a time. Second, one could
use a casting net. Third, one could use
a drag net, which is what is being described in this parable. Lensky, the commentator, says that some of
these nets covered one half mile of area.
The following is how this net was used:
One end of this large net was attached to the shoreline. The other end
was attached to a boat. As the boat left
the shore, it pulled the net into a form where the net was stretched between
the boat out in the lake and the net hooked to the shore. And then the boat
would begin to move in a circle. As it moved in a circle, everything in its
path would be swept into this massive net. It would complete an entire circle,
come all the way back to where it was attached, and would have gathered into
that net all the life that was in the sea covered by that net. The top of the net had floats, therefore, it
floated on the surface of the water. The bottom of the net had weights, it sunk
to the bottom so that the net moved through the sea like a vertical wall
capturing everything. Now what our Lord
wants us to understand about this net is basically two things: One, the immense
size of the net. Two, the net brings in
everything. The central figure of the
parable is a group of fishermen. They're
on the shore and lying there at the edge of the water is this recently drawn
massive net and it is literally soaking and teeming with life, filled with the
conglomerate of creatures taken from the water.
And then begins a very slow, deliberate careful, patient, unhurried,
accurate, knowledgeable, skillful process of sorting out the good from the bad.
Now this scene would be very common to
the people to whom our Lord spoke, particularly the disciples. They would take
the good and put it into some vessels and they would just throw away the bad. Tomorrow, we are going to examine the
principle of this parable.
Questions:
- Do you recognize and understand that the net is very
large?
- Do you recognize and understand that the net brings everything in?
Prayer: Father, help
prepare me to understand this parable throughout this week because it is the
climax of these Kingdom Parables and must be understood by all
Christ-followers. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment