Treasures New and Old

We have seen in a previous post how the primary message of Jesus during the time of his teaching on earth was the topic of the prophesied kingdom of God, referred to in Matthew as the kingdom of heaven. The Jews were expecting this kingdom, and Jesus’ message was that the kingdom was being offered, and he was the anointed king (Messiah) to reign over it. The idea of the Kingdom was not new; the prophets talked about it extensively. But the revelation of Jesus as the king was new.

In Matthew 13 Jesus gives a lot of parables, similes, about the kingdom of heaven. Near the end of the long chapter, he says this: “Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old” (Matt. 13:52). New treasures as well as old. Both the old and the new are considered treasures. The new treasure is the teaching about the kingdom, specifically the identity of the king. The old treasure seems to be something that was already in the possession of the teachers of the law, namely Judaism and the law itself.

We saw in our inaugural post how Jesus denied that his message was mostly new. He pointed out that you don’t fix an old coat with a new patch because that would tear the coat. He also used the metaphor of wineskins and wine, something that was universally acknowledged as being better when it’s old. (Luke 5:36-39)

Jesus’ teaching was Judaism, according to the Hebrew scriptures. But a part of his message was new, the fact that he was the culmination of the prophecies and hopes of Israel.

It’s a shame that most of the self-identified believers in Jesus in our day have discarded the old treasures that he was talking about, the Law of God. A read-through of Psalm 1, 19, or 119 will show how much of a treasure the psalmist considered God’s law to be. The church today, like the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2:4, has forsaken its first love, God’s law. When we regain that love and also understand the teaching about the end-time kingdom of God, ruled by Jesus, we will again be the church that God intended, with both new and old treasures in our possession.