Keys of the Kingdom 32

The next parable about the kingdom of God is found in Matthew 13:47-50: 47 “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. 48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth..

1. The kingdom is compared with the experience of fishing with net and how the fishing operation works: dropping down, hoisting up full of fishes, dragging to shore, and separating.
2. The focus of the parable is not on fishing nor on the mixture of folks the kingdom fishing attracts, but on the judgment at the end of the age.
3. Those who do not respond to the kingdom will be judged — and here I see the primary focus to be the experience folks have with 70AD when Jerusalem was sacked but the secondary (and larger) context to be the inevitability of consequences for one’s respond to kingdom. In other words, the point of the parable is that all will be judged.
4. The intense anguish spoken of parabolically here intends to communicate regret and the impossibility of returning to undo one’s non-response.