Hidden Treasure

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” [Matthew 13:44]

Peter Whatling, a farmer from the town of Hoxne in England, lost a hammer in his field in November of 1992. Of course he wanted to find the hammer, but more importantly, a hammer lying in a farm field can do a lot of damage to mowers and harvesting equipment. So Whatling asked his friend Eric Lawes to try and find it with his metal detector. Instead, Lawes found something he wasn’t looking for: 24 bronze coins, 565 gold coins, almost 15 thousand silver coins, and nearly 200 silver and gold pieces of jewelry and tableware – all dating back to around A.D. 408. It was the largest hoard of Roman silver and gold from this era ever discovered in the United Kingdom.

It is believed the treasure was hidden as the Roman Empire was crumbling and losing control of Britain. The treasure was buried in a couple of wooden chests that rotted away, leaving behind their two silver locks. The careful burial suggests that the owner intended to come back and recover it later, but obviously something went wrong. Since British law requires such finds to be reported to the authorities, Whatling and Lawes immediately called the police. The next day a team of archaeologists came and excavated the treasure, which became the property of the British government. British law also required the government to pay the finders of the treasure its fair market value, so Whatling and Lawes evenly split the equivalent of $2.8 million dollars. And the hammer? It too was found and is now displayed alongside the treasure at the British Museum.

Can you imagine the joy of finding treasure worth millions of dollars? Would you be tempted to sell everything you have in order to obtain that treasure? God’s kingdom is something like that! When we search His words in the Bible, we find the treasure of salvation – “the exceeding riches of His grace” (Ephesians 2:7). When we get a glimpse of His grace, the world will mean very little to us – all that matters is having more of Jesus and His truth! Would you like to trade in your worn-out hammer for His treasure chest?