My Corner Online

 

Reading through the Gospels 85

Matthew 13:24-30

 

Matthew 13:24-30 THE PARABLE OF THE WEEDS

Jesus tells another parable by the sea with a great crowd as the audience. A man sows good seed (believers), but the enemy (devil) sows weeds (unbelievers) among the good wheat. What a tangled mess with the weeds and the wheat! That is the whole purpose of the devil to tangle us up hoping our faith is destroyed.

 

The servants ask if they should weed and the man indicates to leave it lest the wheat be inadvertently pulled up as well (believers and unbelievers live side by side). It is not my job, or the church's job, to sort the genuine people from the ungenuine people or judge someone's faith. Such actions might inadvertently affect someone's faith. As a gardener, I can relate to the accidental plucking of a good plant from the weeds.  Sometimes I have to replant the good plant, but only if I realize I've inadvertently plucked it. It is often easy to toss away the good with the bad. Unless I know the small plants well in how they look, it is difficult to discern if a plant is a weed or not. Sometimes I inadvertently let the weeds grow and grow only for them to become huge and never flower! My abilities to judge are weak, but God's are perfect. Leave it up to Him!

 

The King James Version uses the word "tares" instead of weeds. A "tare" is an injurious weed resembling wheat when young. This would suggest that the unbelievers are proclaiming faith, but their faith is not genuine. The genuine and the ungenuine look alike when their faith is young. Young faith is easily injured, just like the inadvertent weed-pulling. Although it may be difficult to live among the questionable, it would be disheartening to lose faith.

 

The good wheat is to be left until harvest time (judgment day) when the weeds are pulled, bound, and burned (punishment and pain) and the grain is preserved in the barn. Each grows but eventually there will be a time of separation.