SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/9/2022 12:07 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
“The Parable of the Wheat and Tares”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
13:24-30
Message of the verses: “24 He presented
another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who
sowed good seed in his field. 25
"But while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed
tares also among the wheat, and went away. 26 “But when the wheat sprang up and
bore grain, then the tares became evident also. 27 “And the slaves of the
landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field?
How then does it have tares?’ 28 “And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’
And the slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ 29
“But he said, ‘No; lest while you are gathering up the tares, you may root up
the wheat with them. 30 ‘Allow
both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest
I will say to the reapers, "First gather up the tares and bind them in
bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.’”
Similar to the other parable we looked at this one
too uses the figure of a farmer sowing seed in his field, however here the emphasis
is not on what happens to the good seed which was what we saw in the other
parable, but rather what happens to the bad seed that his enemy came and sowed
alongside the good seed.
As
we look at this good seed we can see that it fell on fertile ground, and then
took root, and grow into healthy and productive grain which is seen here as
wheat. The man who sowed the good seed
is the landowner as seen in verse 27, as he is the one planting it in his
field. I think that it was probably the
slaves who planted the field here as the land owner had them do it.
John
MacArthur writes “Tares is from zizanion,
a verity of darnel weed that closely resembles wheat and is almost impossible
to distinguish from it until the wheat ripens and bears grain. Because of this resemblance, sowing tares…among
the wheat was sometimes done in ancient times out of spite or revenge by an
enemy who wanted to destroy or at least greatly reduce the value of someone’s
crop. It was a common enough crime for
the Romans to have had a specific law against it.” As I think about this quote I think about
what goes on with the internet with spyware and other forms like it.
As
we look at this parable we see that it was probably many weeks later when the
wheat sprang up and begin to bear grain that the tares became evident
also. When the slaves saw so many tares
among the wheat they came and told the landowner and asked him how this could
have happened. I suppose that just like
planting seed today that there could be seen some weeds mixed in, kind of like
my lawn as it seems to take less effort for the weeds to grow than the grass,
and if not taken care of then they will take over the lawn. Now as we move on we see that the landowner
explains that an enemy had done this.
The
slaves knew that this would be a problem so they said to their master in the
form of a question “Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ 29 “But he
said, ‘No; lest while you are gathering up the tares, you may root up the wheat
with them.” These were honorable slaves
as they were rightly concerned, fearing the tares would weaken and even
possibly completely ruin the wheat harvest.
However we can see that the farmer was experienced in this type of
situation , and he knew that if the slaves pulled out the darnel then they
might take some of the wheat with it. In
the end the wheat would produce a lot of grain and so it was best to just let
it alone.
30
‘Allow both to grow
together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to
the reapers, "First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn
them up. Only at the time of the harvest
could the good and bad plants be distinguished with certainty. It was surely the case that the reapers had
more experience than the slaves and were qualified to weed out the tares and
burn them. Once that was completed they
would proceed with the harvest and then gather the wheat into the barn of the
landowner where it would then be stored for further use.
4/9/2022
12:36 PM
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