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” He
was a merchant who found something so precious that it far surpassed even
the sum of all the other treasures he held dear.
The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding
one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:45–
46)
One supremely precious pearl. One single pearl of exceedingly great value. So
great, in fact, so precious, that he sold everything, including all his other fine
pearls, to buy this one surpassingly great pearl.
Neither parable minimizes the cost. In fact, both draw attention to it: literally,
“all things, as much he has.” There is a cost — a great cost — to this
discipleship. But the Discipler, who is himself the Treasure, so far outstrips
the cost that we gladly say, “Gain!” This one great pearl is so surpassingly
precious that many even say with the great army of missionaries and martyrs,
like David Livingstone, “I never made a sacrifice.”
What will it look like for Christ’s kingdom to come to us like this? How do we
receive Jesus as an infinitely valuable treasure, or a singularly great pearl, that
far surpasses all else? The concept of superlative worth or supreme
preciousness in Matthew 13 points us to at least two pictures elsewhere in the
New Testament.
Exceedingly Precious
The first is the anointing at Bethany (John 12:3–8; also Mark 14:3–9). Martha
served. Lazarus, freshly resurrected, reclined at table. Their sister Mary “took
a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of
Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair” (John 12:3). Here, expensive is the same
word used for the one great pearl in Matthew 13 (Greek polutimos,
“exceedingly precious”). So manifestly, uncomfortably valuable was the
ointment that the disciples, and chiefly Judas, registered their concerns. “Why
was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”
(John 12:5).
A denarius was a laborer’s daily wage. This ointment represented a whole
year’s earnings for a six-days-a-week worker. Likely this was Mary’s nest egg
for the future. And yet, as precious as it was, she saw Jesus as more precious.
She saw him as surpassingly valuable. She poured her future on his feet, and
in doing so, she demonstrated who was supremely precious to her.
Supremely Valuable
Paul takes up the same search, sacrifice, and joy in Philippians 3. Did he
perhaps see himself in the merchant of Jesus’s parable? If so, what were the
“fine pearls” he amassed before encountering the supreme preciousness of
Christ? He provides a list: “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a
Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the
law, blameless” (Philippians 3:5–6).
As a leader among the strictest sect of his religion, he had an unassailable
pedigree (what he couldn’t control, by birth) and performance (what he could,
by effort). These were fine pearls indeed. Until he stumbled upon a Treasure
who confronted him, knocked him off his horse, and opened his eyes. This was
a Treasure that had been hidden from Paul, and yet one he had long been
seeking. Now Paul saw Jesus as the one great Pearl of all-surpassing
preciousness, and he counted all to be loss — both pedigree and performance
— in view of “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”
(Philippians 3:8). Jesus became to him both an infinitely priceless Treasure
to gain and a supremely precious Pearl to know.
God, in all his divine goodness, took on flesh in this one man Jesus. “In him
the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Finding him as your
one Precious will not poison and shrink your soul. He is the antidote to what
ails us, the catalyst to expand our small hearts, the surprising remedy we’ve
long been seeking.