The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who cast a net into the sea. The net gathered all kinds of things. The man was so shocked to discover some useless things inside the net that he tossed it aside and vowed never to go fishing again.
Taken from the book “Not the Parables of Jesus“
In the original parable (Mt 13:47-50) all kinds of fish were caught but it was only at the end that they were sorted.
However we are before the end and so we exist in the time when all sorts of people are gathered into the church: some who are believers but are still on the journey of sanctification and some who call themselves ‘Christian’ but are in name only.
That means things will be messy. People are going to offend and others are going to get upset.
The easiest thing to do is give up on the whole church thing or maybe even the whole Christian thing as they’re “all hypocrites”.
But maybe this parable is telling us to expect this mess to be the reality. Maybe Jesus is telling us truthfully how it’s going to be. Maybe we shouldn’t be quite so shocked about how things really are. Maybe
Let us run the race with perseverance and fix our eyes on Jesus (Heb 12:1-2) and not get distracted by the mess around us. Let Him perfect us and let us trust that He will perfect others on their journeys.
Not the Parables contains more than 40 different takes on the original parables to snap us out of our over-familiarity and to open our eyes to the truth of the Gospel.
Half tongue-in-cheek, half right between the eyes
Often fun, sometimes poignant, and occasionally painful; these parables reveal our cultural biases, hidden assumptions, and the lies we believe.
