Week 25—Thursday Matthew 23:25-28
Week 25—THURSDAY
“WHO CAN PRODUCE FROM HIS STORE”
Another telling passage: “When, therefore, a teacher of the law”—the Word become word—“has become a learner in the kingdom of Heaven”—the Word become flesh—“he is like a householder who can produce from his store”—from within himself, from the Word become flesh—“both the new and the old” (Matt. 13:52, NEB).
This is penetrating: “A teacher of the law”—a scribe, who merely quoted what others wrote, a dry-as-dust teacher of written law, now becomes “a learner” or “disciple to the kingdom of God” (Moffatt), or “trained for the kingdom of heaven” (RSV) becomes committed to the kingdom of God, so becomes vital. He can “produce from his store.” He is not quoting from others—he has something within and can produce from his own store. He is creative. He is the Word become flesh. That is transformation—the quoter becomes the creator.
This is what the transition from the Word become word to the Word become flesh produces. It turns the noncreative into the creative. “Life for me began at seventy-two,” said an Anglican bishop in India. Up to seventy-two, he had been a dry-as-dust ecclesiast, quoting the past, its rules and regulations, and living in that quoted past. He was an ecclesiastical mummy, bound by the grave clothes of yesterday. Then he made his surrender to Christ—the Word became flesh. Now he was creative. He did more in the next ten years than in the previous seventy-two.
This new man, “trained for the kingdom of Heaven,” now produces “from his store”—from the depths of his subconscious “both the new and the old.” He doesn’t repudiate the old—he makes it alive in the present. But his primary emphasis is on the new—the new is first. He is primarily a voice, not an echo.
O Jesus, if I’ve been a quoter instead of a creator, forgive me. But not only forgive me—fire me with the Kingdom. May it absorb me, possess me. In vital contact with the Creative make me creative. In your name, Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “The kingdom of heaven is within you,” therefore, I have an abundant store for everything I need.