I happened upon a scripture I didn’t really recognize a couple days ago. It was somewhat familiar but not exactly as I remembered it, so I began looking up Matthew 13:12 in every translation I could find, beginning with the KJV.

“For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.”

Yes, that’s it, the verse I had always thought was so unfair and just didn’t seem to belong in the Word of our Loving God. That scripture, and a few others that say the same thing, appear to be downright unloving and didn’t match very well with how we are told to help the poor and needy among us. Out of the seventy-five translations I read, only ten give the rest of the story.

 “For whoever has [spiritual wisdom because he is receptive to God’s word], to him more will be given, and he will be richly and abundantly supplied; but whoever does not have [spiritual wisdom because he has devalued God’s word], even what he has will be taken away from him.” (AMP)

Seeing the more detailed words of Christ given in these translations proves it is indeed fair…and it matches the other instructions God gives us throughout the Bible – to study (2 Timothy 2:15), to abide in Christ (John 15:4; 2 John 1:9), to strive to be Christlike (John 15:4), and so on.

My favorite interpretation of this verse is from The Passion Translation. It says,

“For everyone who listens with an open heart will receive progressively more revelation until he has more than enough. But those who don’t listen with an open teachable heart, even the understanding that they think they have will be taken from them.”

The Message version uses plain everyday language to explain this important piece of scripture this way:

^11-15 “He replied, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom. You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn’t been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people

toward a welcome awakening. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they’re blue in the face and not get it. I don’t want Isaiah’s forecast repeated all over again:

Your ears are open but you don’t hear a thing.
    Your eyes are awake but you don’t see a thing.
The people are stupid!
They stick their fingers in their ears
    so they won’t have to listen;
They screw their eyes shut
    so they won’t have to look,
    so they won’t have to deal with me face-to-face
    and let me heal them.”

Now I understand – it’s not at all unfair. It is what is required of followers of Jesus that we be not conformed to this world but that we be transformed by the renewing of our minds. (Romans 12:2) This is a deliberate choice on our part because the mind does not automatically just keep renewing itself like automatic updates on a computer or cellphone. So, to have some understanding should cause us to desire more, and we are promised that those who have understanding, pursue understanding, and are given more according to our active pursuance.

 Now that I have explored the subject of this scripture, it is obvious I was not understanding completely that Jesus is talking about the knowledge of the truth using parables to do so, not simply physical needs. Apparently, this is taken as physical by many more people besides me. I found commentaries and articles that tried to explain it without mentioning the knowledge of the truth, which is really the point. This makes sense of a passage many individuals’ questions.

 The bottom line is this: those who are open to spiritual truths will mature as we are exhorted to do in the epistles Paul wrote, such as 1 Corinthians 14:20,

“Brothers and sisters, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature.” (NASB)

And Philippians 3:15,

“Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.” (CEV)

Those who take for granted what God has given them, will lose whatever little understanding they once had. I watched this happen to someone I know very well and did not understand what was really taking place at the time. This is not hypothetical, this is real. And it is pitifully sad to see.

I was raised in church but always felt like I was missing something. Now the Word of God excites me! My curiosity enhances the pursuance of discernment. I have often felt discouraged, but not totally defeated knowing that in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.