Wheat and Weeds
A reader asked about the purpose of the parable of the tares. I think we should keep several texts in mind when thinking about this. There are Matthew 15:13, Luke 2:34, Deuteronomy 18:15-18 with Acts 3:22-23, Matthew 3:9-10,12. I would suggest that Matthew 8:11-12 also helps us here, specifically in mentioning the casting out of the Jewish sons of the kingdom who reject the kingdom authority of the Christ—authority that has just been acknowledged by the Gentile centurion.
I think the tares are Jewish non-believers, that is, those that reject Jesus Christ. I think the sons of the kingdom are Jewish believers and that the end of the age has reference to the public manifestation of God’s judgement on Jewish people in AD 70 who rejected the New Covenant as it was given in Jesus Christ.
I think Acts 21:17-26 is a clear illustration of how the apostles understood their Master’s teaching in a place such as Matthew 13:28-29.
The parable would certainly function to keep over-eager Messianic Jews from openly working to create two Jewish nations (so to speak).
While it would certainly be true that there was a new temple, new covenant, new High Priest and new sacrificial system from the exaltation of Christ onward, to do violence to the Jewish heritage and the truths that abide would have been tragic. It would have been needlessly violent and offensive. Thousands of Jews that gladly received Jesus as the promised Messiah remained Jews and loved their heritage (Acts 21:17-26). To destroy all that was honourable in and around the Judaic system because masses of Jews had and were rejecting the Messiah would have hurt Messianic Jews also. Paul was reputed as an enemy of the Jews and James urges him to put that lie to rest and Paul was eager to do it even though he recognized impenitent Jews for what they were.
Nothing in the parable suggests that the tares were hard to recognise!
In fact, the parable makes no sense if the tares are difficult to spot.
It’s precisely because the servants recognised them that they wanted to uproot them.
The owner is not afraid that they might uproot wheat by mistake. No, he fears that in uprooting the tares, which they easily recognize, that they might also uproot wheat.
It was a question of timing and not a question of recognition. The parables of the wheat and the weeds makes use of the truth that both the weeds and the wheat shared the same soil and that their roots wrapped round one another. Over-eagerness and insensitivity are the dangers warned against in this parable.
The field is not the church—we’re told it is the world.
I think we miss the point when we try to reconcile this parable with "church discipline".
The parable forbids uprooting and some texts under some circumstances insist on uprooting as a matter of church discipline. I would suggest that two different agendas are in view.
The forbidding in Matthew 13:28-29 and the opposite instruction in 1 Corinthians 5:13 point to two different situations and agendas.
The weeds are recognized as and declared to be "sons of the evil one" and yet the servants are instructed to "let them grow together" until the judgment by God. If we move this to the church fellowship domain then we would have known and declared sons of the evil one in the church fellowship and a command that forbids us to disfellowship them.
It doesn’t help to say it isn’t always possible to tell "weeds" from "wheat" in the church, which may be true but it is irrelevant, because it ignores what the parable expressly says. In the parable there is no difficulty in telling the difference between weeds and wheat. In fact, the difference is clearly seen and announced. That’s what makes the forbidding remarkable because the servants not only recognized the weeds for what they were and were more than prepared to uproot them.
It’s better, I think, to understand it otherwise. I think Matthew includes his Master’s parable for the Christians for whom he is writing. I think his readers are mainly Jewish and there might easily have been questions about how they were to relate to fellow-Jews and the temple. This is not at all difficult to imagine; but it doesn’t make much difference if we can figure out exactly what Matthew wanted to achieve by recording the parable. I think that when Christ originally told the story that he was making the point that not all Jews were Jews and that not all Israelites were Israel [See Romans 9:6 and John 8:37, 39 and Revelation 2:9 and 3:9]. Luke 2:34 says Jesus was set for the rise and fall of many in Israel. I think God’s judgment on Jerusalem in AD70 was a public declaration that everything was under new management and that "Israel" must have faith in the Messiah or be cut off from God's people (see Acts 3:22-23).
At a practical level maybe the parable can help us recognize that we can’t fix everything!
There are some things that only the direct action of God can take care of and there are some issues that outrun our little stash of wisdom. When they grabbed their hoes, ready to head to the field, I imagine Jesus saying, "Whoa, there’s more here than meets the eye. This job’s too big for you." We’re not always able to tell which job is which. But I’m sure it won’t hurt us to admit our limitations and be slow to act when the situation is profound and acting has profound consequences. Humility and prayer won’t hurt, will they?
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
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