The gospel for Thursday of the seventeenth week in ordinary time is taken from Matthew 13:47. 53. Jesus said to the disciples, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea which collects fish of every kind. When it is full, they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad, they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age, the angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them in a fiery furnace where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

Do you understand these things? They answered, yes. And he replied, then every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old. And when Jesus finished these parables, he went away from there. It’s clear from the way Jesus taught that he was something very new, something different than the Old Testament. Yet one needs to understand that the full story of who God is is in both the Old and the New Testament, and all of it is important.

So the reminder here is that if you really want to know and feel the wisdom of the kingdom of heaven, you must study it all, understand it all. The new and the old. Sam. Satan. Satan. Satan.

Father. The rich treasure of Scripture is such a gift. And we need to be wise in our understanding of all that is there. Bless us with good teachers. Bless us with an open heart. Bless us with the ability to ponder images that are loaded with meaning and purpose.

And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.