great supper

167:2.1As Je­sus fin­ished speak­ing at the break­fast ta­ble of the Phar­isee, one of the lawyers pres­ent, de­sir­ing to re­lieve the si­lence, thought­lessly said: “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the king­dom of God”—that be­ing a com­mon say­ing of those days. And then Je­sus spoke a para­ble, which even his friendly host was com­pelled to take to heart. He said:

167:2.2“A cer­tain ruler gave a great sup­per, and hav­ing bid­den many guests, he dis­patched his ser­vants at sup­per­time to say to those who were in­vited, ‘Come, for ev­ery­thing is now ready.’ And they all with one ac­cord be­gan to make ex­cuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a farm, and I must needs go to prove it; I pray you have me ex­cused.’ An­other said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I must go to re­ceive them; I pray you have me ex­cused.’ And an­other said, ‘I have just mar­ried a wife, and there­fore I can­not come.’ So the ser­vants went back and re­ported this to their mas­ter. When the mas­ter of the house heard this, he was very an­gry, and turn­ing to his ser­vants, he said: ‘I have made ready this mar­riage feast; the fatlings are killed, and all is in readi­ness for my guests, but they have spurned my in­vi­ta­tion; they have gone ev­ery man af­ter his lands and his mer­chan­dise, and they even show dis­re­spect to my ser­vants who bid them come to my feast. Go out quickly, there­fore, into the streets and lanes of the city, out into the high­ways and the by­ways, and bring hither the poor and the out­cast, the blind and the lame, that the mar­riage feast may have guests.’ And the ser­vants did as their lord com­manded, and even then there was room for more guests. Then said the lord to his ser­vants: ‘Go now out into the roads and the coun­try­side and con­strain those who are there to come in that my house may be filled. I de­clare that none of those who were first bid­den shall taste of my sup­per.’ And the ser­vants did as their mas­ter com­manded, and the house was filled.”

167:2.3And when they heard these words, they de­parted; ev­ery man went to his own place. At least one of the sneer­ing Phar­isees pres­ent that morn­ing com­pre­hended the mean­ing of this para­ble, for he was bap­tized that day and made pub­lic con­fes­sion of his faith in the gospel of the king­dom. Ab­ner preached on this para­ble that night at the gen­eral coun­cil of be­liev­ers.

167:2.4The next day all of the apos­tles en­gaged in the philo­sophic ex­er­cise of en­deav­or­ing to in­ter­pret the mean­ing of this para­ble of the great sup­per. Though Je­sus lis­tened with in­ter­est to all of these dif­fer­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tions, he stead­fastly re­fused to of­fer them fur­ther help in un­der­stand­ing the para­ble. He would only say, “Let ev­ery man find out the mean­ing for him­self and in his own soul.”