What do pearls represent in the Bible?

CBN.com -- I had never really liked pearls, yet I changed my mind when I came across a set of earrings and necklace that I liked so much that I bought them for my wedding.

The other day I looked for my wedding pearls because I thought that my daughter might like to wear them for her upcoming wedding this year, since she needs something old, borrowed, and blue.  

I remembered that I had just ordered pearl jewelry for myself, and thought about how I had changed over the years.  I don’t know how or when I changed in my taste for different styles and color choices, but somewhere along the line it happened.

In my reflection of these pearls, my mind wandered to the story of how a pearl is made. A tiny sandstone finds its way under an oyster shell, and it is so irritating to the oyster that it works on the stone, and eventually one day this sandstone becomes a beautiful, smooth, shiny pearl.

Pearls are costly to mankind, and it takes so many to make just one necklace. It's no wonder that the real ones are really expensive. They are certainly priceless and precious to the one who finds them.

After pondering these things, I immediately went on a search through my mother’s old jewelry that I had inherited, and was glad to find that I had kept her strand of real pearls. I just sat and looked at them for quite a while.

Jesus tells us in the Bible of the parable of a merchant looking for fine pearls, and how this is similar to finding the Kingdom of Heaven. When you find the Kingdom of Heaven, your salvation is like a precious pearl! There is nothing more valuable than security for your soul. Just as in the parable when the merchant found just one pearl, he sold all he had to purchase it.

Likewise, when you discover the Kingdom, it is worth everything you have to give up because you gain eternity with the Lord, the Creator of your soul, and without Him you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

I have now been able to see pearls in a different light, and can appreciate their value. They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but since pearls are mentioned in the Bible, and because Jesus thought it very important to teach a lesson through pearls in His parable, “The Pearl of Great Price,” I have become rather fond of them.

Oh how precious is a pearl. It reminds me of how precious a soul is to God!

Matthew 13:45-46 says,

"Again the kingdom of heaven is like a man who is a dealer in search of fine and precious pearls, who, on finding a single pearl of great price, went and sold all he had and bought it." (Amp.)

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Meaning of pearls in the bible?.

A precious jewel that forms around an irritating substance between the shell and the mantle of some pearl oysters and certain molluscs. It grows in size as the animal secretes calcium carbonate to wrap it with successive layers until round or semi-round objects of iridescent or bluish-white are formed.

Those of good quality is obtained from the Pinctada margaritifera oyster, abundant in the Persian Gulf and near Sri Lanka.

The Hebrew word translated “pearl” appears only once in the OT (Job 28:18). The word he was also translated “pearl” in the RVR. nôfek (Ez. 27:16), but its meaning is not clear. In the NT, however, the identification is secure. Jesus warned against throwing them into pigs (Mt. 7: 6) and compared the kingdom of heaven with a merchant who was looking for good quality (13:45, 46).

Paul advised the women of the church not to adorn themselves with expensive materials such as gold or pearls (1 Tim. 2: 9). John, the developer, describes Babylon as a woman covered in jewels, including pearls (Rev. 17: 4; cf. 18:12, 16). Each of the 12 gates of the new Jerusalem appears as a single pearl (21:21).

THE PEARL OF GOD “It’s you.”

In the Bible, he speaks of a pearl that God seeks so that to read Matthew, we find a beautiful story where you and I are involved, Let’s read:

Matthew 13:44 Moreover, the kingdom of heaven is similar to a treasure hidden in a field; who finds him a man, protects him, and joyful for it, goes and sells everything he has, and buys that field. 45 Also, the kingdom of heaven is similar to a merchant who seeks edible pearls; 46 who, finding a precious jewel, went and sold everything he had, and bought it.

 47Likewise the kingdom of heaven is similar to a net, which was cast into the sea, and caught all kinds; 48 which filled up, they brought her to the shore, and seated, they picked up the good in baskets, and the bad they threw out. 

49 So it will be at the end of the world; the angels will come, and will separate the wicked from among the righteous, 50 and throw them into the furnace of fire; There will be crying and gnashing of teeth. 51 Jesus said to them: Have you understood all these things? They replied: Yes, Lord. 52 Then He said to them: That is why everything writes learned in the kingdom of heaven is similar to a father of a family, who brings out new and old things from his treasure.

In this story, some parables become the story of the children of God. He speaks of a man, typifying God, who finds a treasured figure of real Israel, but who hides it. And here we can see clearly and through many texts and contexts of the Bible that this treasure refers to Israel.

But in the next verse, he speaks of a merchant, typifying Christ Jesus who looks for beautiful pearls and that when finding a gem of high price, we Representing us as spiritual Israel, he turns and sells everything he has and buys it. By paying a little attention to the time in which our Lord Jesus Christ speaks, we see that He speaks in the past tense: He bought the precious pearl; that it was an eternal plan prepared, from the preexistence. One more proof that we were predestined to be his acquired people.

In examining the process of a pearl, we see as the first point that pearls are formed in secret; where hardly anyone will see that a gem is developing, in an oyster. Its formation begins when the oyster is feeding and is discarding the sand and everything that does not serve it. But at a particular moment, it remains inside the oyster garbage that cannot be expelled from its shell and that garbage causes it to hurt its flesh inside.

At that moment he begins to put nacre on the trash that is causing him pain and the bigger the pain is and the bigger the trash is the pearl that will give birth when he finishes his process, (bigger waste plus nacre). Another feature is that pearls are called organic gems because they are born from a living being and the only flower that carries a process like the one described,

Moving it into a spiritual figure. A being called Jesus opens on the cross after being hurt, nailed to a tree, I take away the curse, while He is nailed to the cross and dies, with a spear his side is pierced from where blood and water begin to come out. Typify the blessed mother-of-pearl to cover us who used to be a waste, so starting a process. But that would not be a pearl, but it would be that it would be the most precious pearl of all creation since preexistence.

Which kept and formed in secret until this time that the Holy Spirit is coming and then our Lord allows us to be used by how to put on his neck on his chest near the heart where one day the blood flowed the blessed nacre that covers us,

He is using us next to his chest as a very dear treasure.

Our Lord came to this world to be a shepherd, to take care of them for a while so that they would then give him his pay, his wife, who is the church.

The fact that Jesus came down to earth, not only meant the salvation of his people that we are, He came down because he wanted a pearl of high price, God chose us to be his bride, to be his pear Beautiful and that is something we should never forget.

Christ paid salvation, but within the saved, he has chosen us to shine alongside his heart for Eternity.

Revelation 21: 9 And one of the seven angels who had the seven cups full of the seven last plagues came to me, and spoke with me, saying, Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. 10 And he led me in the Spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the great holy city of Jerusalem, which came down from the heaven of God, 11 having the glory of God; and its light was similar to a precious stone, like a jasper stone, translucent as crystal.

So beloved brother friends, we have a blood price, but that blessed blood not only redeemed us but also transformed our lives. Before we were something without a name (garbage-sin) and he with his mother-of-pearl, with his spilt blood, he covered us until we became that precious stone.

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