The Pearl of Great Price

        Matthew 13 rapidly summarizes, or perhaps repeats in full, a series of teaching parables Jesus used to explain the search for salvation in a material world.  Most of these are similes in which the familiar comparative term is some ordinary mortal seeking for wealth or happiness, and the unfamiliar term is the ineffable divine concept he is trying to urge his hearers to attempt to imagine.

45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:
46 Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.  (KJV)

To read all of Matthew, Book 13, to establish this "pearl"'s context, click here.