The Logic of Kingdom Discipleship: The Gift and Grind of Kingdom Understanding

Imagine this scenario with me:

Your child comes to you and says that he is hungry. He might even say that he is

starving to indicate that his stomach is in desperate need of food! Since you love him and are responsible for his good, you prepare him something to eat. Now imagine that you have prepared all the foods that he says are his favorite foods. You sacrifice the best or your time and skill to demonstrate your love for him. The food is now prepared and ready! You place it before him with a kind of parental joy since you know he will be happy with what you have prepared. You call and tell him the food is ready. You delight in this moment because you know that you have done something that will not only satisfy his hunger but will make him happy too! He comes to the table with the plate of his favorite food is set before him. He, sits and, to your astonishment, he nibbles a bit, pushes back from the table and indicates that he is full.

In all of this you would conclude, perhaps with a right degree of anger, that they were not hungry! It is the only conclusion you can make, right? Well, yes and no.

It is true that they were not hungry, but this could be for several reasons. Let me give one that I have experienced with my youngest and, what I believe, Jesus is teaching. In the scenario he did not eat the meal prepared because, between the time he said he was hungry and the time the food was prepared, he had filled himself with junk food - chips, candy, etc. This meant that, even with his favorite foods before him, he had no appetite. What was before him was a gift, but being filled with jink, he did not want it.

At the heart of kingdom discipleship is the gift of understanding the Lord gives. We see the purpose and priority of this gift in Jesus’ response to the disciple’s question, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” (v10). He replied, “‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given’” (Matthew 13:11).

In other words, those who are disciples of Jesus have been given the capacity to understand the secrets of what God is doing in the world in bringing His kingdom to bear upon it (Matthew 6:10). This gift, however, is not given to “those outside” (Mark 4:10) for reasons that Jesus cites. Notice that, while it is God who hides these secrets from people (Matthew 13:12; see also 11:25), they, too, also play a role in this as well.  Jesus says in verse 15

“their heart has grown dull… with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed lest they…see…hear…and understand” (Matthew 13:15, italics added).

In both instances we can see the truth of the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man in the bringing about the Kingdom of God on earth. This is crucial to understand because God has chosen to use human beings as vessels for His end time glory. These vessels are created for honorable and dishonorable use (Romans 9:21). God decides this, but man participates in this as well. We will not understand the logic of kingdom discipleship without understanding this crucial truth concerning the sovereignty of God.

Look at the italicized words in Matthew 13:15 above. I placed emphasis on these words to show the responsible participation of man in their incapacity to understand. Yes, while God has sovereignly blocked them from seeing, hearing, etc., it is equally true that they are actively responsible for this negative engagement with truth.  Their hearts are dull, their ears are clogged, their eyes are closed – all to the truth of the Word of God.

The logic is true regarding those of us who understand. While God has sovereignly gifted us with the capacity to understand it remains our responsibility to consistently grind for more understanding (Matthew 13:12). This grinding after in in the Word of God is the evidence that we have been gifted to understand. To go back to the opening scenario, Jesus has set the table (the gift to understand) and has placed before us all that we say we love, desire and want more of. Yet, it remains our responsibility to grind for more understanding. To maintain this appetite, we must refuse to be filled with the junk food of this world and sin so that we only hunger and thirst after what the Father has prepared, and be satisfied (Matthew 5:6)

This sets the stage for understanding the Kingdom Logic of Kingdom Discipleship