Wheat or weed

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

WHEAT OR WEED

Matt 13:24-30

24 Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. 27 "The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?' 28 "'An enemy did this,' he replied. "The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?' 29 "'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.'" 

NIV

It might be easy to see the good seeds and the weeds as believers and non-believers, but that would not be what this parable is about. First we need to consider this is a parable about the kingdom of heaven. Non-believers, and as long as they remain non-believers, are not and never will be part of the kingdom of heaven. This is a parable about believers. Now it is true there were in the time of Jesus the Pharisees who for all practical purposes were the weeds among the good seed sown in the field of the disciples. Both were believers in God, but surely not in the same sense. The disciples were accepting Jesus as the Christ and the Pharisees were all about trying to kill him. If we were to render any parallel to the church today, we might see this parable at work in somewhat a different sense. There are Christians who for all practical purposes are the weeds. These are the hypocrites, the deceivers who pretend to be believers. There also are the deceived who live among the Christian church. These weeds sown discord or some other form of false teaching. However it would not do the church as a whole to bring them to the forefront, or expel them from the church. This would harm Christianity as a whole. It would not honor God, not his principles. Such Christians, who for the sake of either self-aggrandizement or the lure of wealth, or perhaps both, have caused enough harm already. Yet for the church to expose them publicly only brings dishonor to the church. We have seen this in our day with some of the televangelists. It is bad enough the world even sees their hypocrisy, but for the church to disown them would only harm the church even more. On a much smaller scale we might also have individuals who are members of small congregations who would fit in the category of weeds. These are the false believers, a sort of oxymoron. But this is what Jesus is talking about. They seem to be believers, but they have been deceived by the ways of the world, the devil into believing the can live in both, one as a believer, and two as a worldly person.  Trying to partner with other believers, while also partnering with the world. We cannot be yoked to both, it either has to be one or the other. Yet we cannot call them out, expel them as it were either. There is always hope the word of God will overtake the weeds and choke it out, bringing them into the full truth of the Gospel. But the truth of the matter is there are going to be people who are living among the church who will not enter into his rest. When the harvest time comes, they will be gathered and thrown into the lake of burning sulfur. This should serve us as a warning to make sure we are not a weed, but in fact a good seed. This warning brings us right to the very core of our lives. What do we truly desire the most? Do we truly seek first his kingdom? Do we put Jesus first in our lives? Do we actually live accordingly?  Do we just give God lip service, but in reality live to please our own desires? Do we say we trust God, but live as if we do not, and thus look to our own abilities? Do we bring this type of Christianity into the church influencing others with this kind of thinking? Then we would be the weeds. But we cannot allow that to be a part of our lives. We need to remain faithful to the whole truth of the Gospel. This should serve as a warning for self-examination, making sure we remain a good seed. This would mean, as the parable states, we do not judge who might be the weeds. We allow them to live among us. We grow together, although they are growing not as we do and God will be the one who harvests the crop. He decides which is wheat and which is weed.