Reflective Bible Study

As we are nearing the end of Jesus’ parables, we come to one of His most challenging parables, which He shared during the week leading up to His crucifixion. In this two-part parable, the first part contains great news, while the second part contains a pretty significant warning. Most Christians living today would prefer to focus only on the first portion of this parable and skim or skip over the second half, but the downside to ignoring the second half of Jesus’ parable is that we might end up missing out on the benefits we see included in the first half.

The parable we are talking about in this episode is the parable of the wedding banquet. We can find this parable in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 22, and we will read it from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 1, Matthew tells us that:

¹ Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: ² “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. ³ He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

⁴ “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

⁵ “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. ⁶ The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. ⁷ The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

⁸ “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. ⁹ So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ ¹⁰ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

Let’s pause reading here because we just finished the first half of the parable. In many ways, this is a great place to end this parable, because the wedding hall is now full of guests, and the king has people to celebrate with him at the wedding of his son.

The big theme in this first half of Jesus’ parable is that regardless of your past, you are invited to the God’s wedding banquet. The king’s servants gathered anyone and everyone willing to come, and all that is necessary to gain entrance into this wedding feast is for us to accept the invitation.

This is incredible news, because it means that our past, regardless of how bad it is, does not exclude us from being given an invitation. We can thank the original invitees and their refusal to accept their invitation for this amazing opportunity and gift.

However, while it is very tempting to stop reading here, Jesus continues sharing the second half of this parable, and this second half of the parable sounds almost the exact opposite of the first half.

Continuing in verse 11, Jesus then told those present:

¹¹ “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ¹² He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

¹³ “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

¹⁴ “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

In the last verses of this parable, what had been an open invitation to everyone becomes an opportunity for the king to throw someone out who wasn’t dressed appropriately. On the surface, this sounds incredibly harsh and it runs completely opposite of the loving God we see pictured in the first half of this parable.

However, when we begin looking a little closer at this parable’s details, an interesting secondary gift begins to come into view, and this secondary gift is probably more important than the first gift of an invitation.

Here’s the details we should pay attention to in order to discover this second gift.

First, the wedding banquet is fully ready. The king had invited and reminded the original invitees at least twice of the banquet’s readiness. The food was already prepared and there wasn’t much time left before the food would start becoming dry and/or stale before going bad.

This all sets the stage for the last minute invitees. Those who the king’s servants invite at the last minute don’t have time to go home to get ready for the banquet. The banquet is already ready and waiting, and any delay doesn’t benefit anyone involved.

The second detail we should pay attention to is that none of the last minute invitees would have woken up that morning thinking they would be receiving an invitation for a banquet. None of the last minute invitees began their day preparing to be invited to the king’s banquet. They all would have gotten dressed for a normal day’s set of activities and unless going to banquets was what they normally would have done each day, which is unlikely, any wedding clothing they had would have stayed in their closets.

These details together form the interesting truth that none of those who were invited at the last minute would have had wedding clothing when they received the invitation. However, when the king comes in for the second half of the parable, everyone except for one person is wearing wedding clothing.

The only way for the two halves of this parable to fit together is if when the last minute invitees arrived, they were given a second gift of wedding clothing. The first gift is the invitation when they had done nothing to deserve it. The second gift is wedding clothing fit for the king.

If the king has given everyone present two gifts, specifically an invitation into the banquet and clothing to wear while present at the banquet, then the king can arrive for the second half of the event and get upset at someone who obviously accepted the first gift of an invitation, but who declined the second gift of clothing.

In this parable, we see two gifts being offered freely to people who do not deserve them. We love focusing on the invitation, because it is inclusive and available to everyone. However, we should not neglect the second gift of the king’s wedding clothing, because without it, we will lose out on the rewards that come from accepting the invitation because we will be thrown out.

What do the wedding clothes in this parable represent?

In my own study, I believe the wedding clothes represent the righteous deeds that God’s people do. More specifically, I believe the wedding clothes represent the singular righteous deed that Christ did on our behalf. When we accept the gift of wedding clothing, we are accepting Jesus into our hearts and we ask Him to transform our lives into being a reflection of His.

Accepting the invitation can be done in an instant, but letting Jesus put His wedding clothing on you in order to transform your character into His takes closer to a lifetime. We don’t earn salvation when we put on Jesus’ character. Instead, we acknowledge that we need His character in our hearts and lives in order to be the people God created us to be!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, continue seeking God first in your life and choose to accept both free gifts. Accept God’s invitation to the wedding banquet and also accept God’s gift of wedding clothing that represents Jesus’ character. Don’t accept one gift while believing the other one is not necessary. Both gifts are needed to enjoy the King’s banquet.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself because prayer and study are the best ways that I have found to open my heart to God and let Him transform me with the gift of wedding clothing. In order to fully have Jesus’ character in our hearts and lives, it helps if we actually know what Jesus was like and how Jesus lived. Prayer-filled Bible study helps us learn who Jesus really is!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or walk away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As John shifts his attention onto Jesus facing the cross, we discover a powerful prophecy that was fulfilled in this event, and we see evidence that Pilate was more impressed by Jesus than he was by the religious leaders.

However, leading up to Jesus facing the cross, John describes the road to the crucifixion a little differently than the other gospels. Let’s read about what happened.

Our passage is found in John’s gospel, chapter 19, and we will read it from the New Century Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 17, John tells us that:

¹⁷ Carrying his own cross, Jesus went out to a place called The Place of the Skull, which in the Hebrew language is called Golgotha.

Let’s pause reading for a moment. While Matthew, Mark, and Luke all describe how part way into Jesus’ trip with the cross, a bystander is called in to help Jesus carry the cross, John does not describe this. Instead, John focused on Jesus carrying his own cross.

While this may seem like a discrepancy, there are at least two ways we can reconcile this supposed conflict. The first is that John focuses on Jesus as He begins the trip, and Jesus starts on the road to Golgotha carrying the cross. None of the gospels say when Simon, the bystander, is called to help, but it could have been as late as Jesus having arrived at the hill, but not having the strength left to climb it.

Another way to reconcile this supposed conflict is by understanding that John may have been referring to Jesus’ spiritual cross. From the prayers in the garden less than 12 hours before this, Jesus had been carrying the sins of humanity on His shoulders, and this was more of a cross, or burden, than the wooden structure Jesus was dragging to the crucifixion site. While carrying humanity’s sins would crush anyone else, Jesus was strong enough, and He carried this spiritual cross when no one else could.

After arriving at the Place of the Skull, John continues in verse 18, telling us that:

¹⁸ There they crucified Jesus. They also crucified two other men, one on each side, with Jesus in the middle. ¹⁹ Pilate wrote a sign and put it on the cross. It read: jesus of nazareth, the king of the jews. ²⁰ The sign was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. Many of the people read the sign, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city. ²¹ The leading priests said to Pilate, “Don’t write, ‘The King of the Jews.’ But write, ‘This man said, “I am the King of the Jews.”’”

²² Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

Let’s pause again briefly because Pilate’s sign and brief conversation with the religious leaders is fascinating. In Pilate’s message, we catch a glimpse of the impact Jesus had on Pilate, and I suspect that Pilate believed Jesus may have even had divinity within Him because of how Pilate responded when hearing the claim that Jesus was God’s Son.

While Pilate didn’t think highly of Jews or the Jewish religion, the children of gods would ultimately be gods and kings in all the other religions of the region, so Jesus being the Jewish God’s Son would make Jesus the King of the Jews.

Pilate understands this, and he also likely understood that Jesus never would have said He was the king of the Jews. From how Jesus frames Himself in His conversations with Pilate, Pilate understood Jesus as much more than simply a Jewish revolutionary.

The words Pilate wrote I suspect were aimed directly at the religious leaders. I suspect that Pilate wrote them as a challenge to them for crucifying their King, even if they didn’t believe Jesus to be that. Pilate’s words challenge the religious leaders because they draw attention to Pilate’s suspicion that Jesus was the Messiah these religious leaders had been waiting for.

Pilate doesn’t change the wording he used because Jesus never made the claim. Pilate wants this message to be a statement aimed at the religious leaders who were the ultimate ones responsible for Jesus’ death.

However, there is another part of the crucifixion event left for us to look at in this episode. Continuing in verse 23, John tells us that:

²³ After the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, with each soldier getting one part. They also took his long shirt, which was all one piece of cloth, woven from top to bottom. ²⁴ So the soldiers said to each other, “We should not tear this into parts. Let’s throw lots to see who will get it.” This happened so that this Scripture would come true:

“They divided my clothes among them,
    and they threw lots for my clothing.”

So the soldiers did this.

When looking at what happened while Jesus was on the cross, and at this prophecy specifically, it is amazing to think that it was predicted centuries before this. Perhaps it was normal for the soldiers to gamble or divide a crucified person’s possessions among themselves, but the way this prophecy is framed is powerful.

This prophecy states that dividing would happen among Jesus’ clothes, but that Jesus’ “long shirt” as this translation describes, or Jesus’ undergarment according to some other translations, would not be divided but instead gambled for. In this prophecy is two direct conditions, and both are fulfilled exactly as predicted.

Jesus had no control over what Roman soldiers would do with His clothing, but God knew, and God gave this prophecy many centuries before to help draw attention to Jesus when the time was right.

Everything in Jesus’ life and ministry focused on and led Jesus to the cross, and this is because Jesus facing the cross opens up salvation for you and me. We have failed God in our lives. We likely will continue to fail God in the future. However, Jesus offers to take our failures and our sins onto Himself, and die a death He did not deserve in order to give us the opportunity to live a life we could never earn and a life that we don’t deserve.

The life Jesus offers us can begin right now, and when it begins, it has the potential to extend into eternity!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to let God lead and guide your life both today, and every day leading towards eternity. Intentionally accept Jesus’ gift to take our sins onto Himself and accept the gift of a new life He offers to us when we accept His life in exchange for ours.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn, grow, and move closer to God each and every day. A personal relationship with God is possible, and it begins when we personally take steps to grow closer to Him through prayer and reading His Word.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or fall away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!