*The Parable of the Weeds Explained
Bible Memory Verse
“The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.” Matthew 13:41
Matthew 13:24-30
“Jesus told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seeds 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 flied? 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.’”
*The Parable of the Weeds Explained
Matthew 13:36-43
“Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.’
(37 He answered, ‘The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. (38 The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the souls of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, (39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
(40 As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. (41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. (42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear.”
Questions:
1. Who sowed the good seed in the field?
2. What does the field represent? What does Jesus compare the field to?
3. Why were weeds growing in the man’s field? Who is the enemy?
4. When is the harvest?
5. Who are the harvesters?
6. Who are the weeds?
7. What will happen to the weeds?
8. Who is the wheat? What will happen to them?
“The farmer is Jesus himself. The farm hands are the servants of God. The enemy is Satan, and the harvest is the end of the age.
Satan hates the love, and joy, and peace, and freedom that God keeps planting in human hearts. As soon as things go well in a country, or a city, a family, or a church congregation we hear him say "Those people seem to be getting on well together. It’s time to sow some weeds." Just watch what happens when a happy family tries to divide a large inheritance. Satan makes sure all hell is let loose. And as soon as a church congregation begins growing and praising the Lord, it just takes a few weeds to turn love and joy and peace into a battle zone.
The first reaction of the servants of God is to root out the bad guys who are causing trouble. Seven hundred years ago they asked for permission to begin the Inquisition. The Pope should have read this parable and let things be, but a few weeds and a huge amount of good plants were purged from our churches. Three centuries ago Protestants were obsessed with witches, and hundreds of innocent women were terrorized and killed. These days we don’t kill those who bother us, but there are other ways to keep weeds from our churches. In Ireland the Protestants and Roman Catholics are still excluded from each others’ community.
Jesus said "the field is the world" and we can see the same rooting out mentality at work in just about every other country of the world.. In Ruanda the Hutus massacred a million Tutsis. In what was once Tito’s Yugoslavia the Serbs and Muslims, Croatians, and Kosovos are all intent on saving their country by driving out the bad guys. "If only we could get all the Jews out of our country, all would be well." And the feeling is mutual. In Canada some zealots think eradication would be the solution for the French, aboriginal Indians on reserves, Feminists, and Gays. "Just get rid of the bad apples, and the rest of us would be perfect."
So we wonder why the Lord of the Harvest is so slow to root out the weeds?
In our parable the farmer is the Son of God. He is sowing on a vast scale in every country of the world. He allows evil to flourish with the good, but only till he decides it is time for a harvest. After his crucifixion and resurrection he left the Pharisee and Sadducee establishment of Jerusalem to continue for forty years till the temple and city were destroyed in AD 70. Why didn’t he come sooner? In this century why did he allow Hitler and the concentration camps to continue till the end of the holocaust? Russians were kept in terror of being sent to the Gulags of Siberia for seventy years. Then suddenly in 1989 the Lord tore up the iron curtain and Communist governments toppled all over eastern Europe.
Wherever evil has taken over, there will eventually be a harvest that removes it.
But there is another reason for delay. The Lord of the harvest takes great delight in changing weeds to flowers. Mary Magdalene must have been as bad a weed as they get, but Jesus loved her, and she became a saint. Saul of Tarsus was a virulent weed who persecuted and killed off all the good wheat he could find. Then suddenly he was converted on the Damascus road and became the great apostle. Even during the delay before judgment came down on Jerusalem, many of the people who had demanded the Messiah’s crucifixion had a change of heart (Acts 2:41, 47, 5:14, 6:7).
That is good news. We don’t have to fuss about identifying the bad guys, and trying to root them out. And every day when we feel we are not good enough to flower in the Lord’s garden, we can trust him to make us beautiful in our own way.” Robert Brow Taken from Internet
“This is not just a heaven/hell exhortation to repentance, but an explanation of God’s patience with the world’s unbelief. The parable of the tares is also meant to explain the cause of hypocrisy within the Christian church. For mere social reasons, some who are actually nonbelievers put on a religious front. But their actions and attitudes often indicate that they are not real Christians.
Nevertheless, God is patient in judgment. Just as the man in the parable does not want his servants to accidentally root up the wheat, Jesus does not want his followers to conduct judgmental witch hunts for "hypocrites" in the church.
This still does not prevent the expulsion of church members who live in open rebellion against God’s law, such as the man in 1 Corinthians 5 who committed adult incest.
Another interpretation is that the parable explains the history and plan of the world. The world is the field in which the seed was sown. That is, the world is God’s creation that He made good. The evil one came and planted bad seed—that is, he led humans into sin. The present state of the world is that there exists good seed—those who ultimately stop rebelling against God and accept His grace—and bad seed—those who refuse to accept and instead persist in rebellion. The reason God did not just destroy everybody who was in rebellion of Him (the bad seed) is that some people exist who have not yet accepted His grace, but someday will. These people would be uprooted if harvested too early. Instead, He is bringing the world to a point (the harvest) in which everybody will have made their final decision and can then be sorted fairly—the good to be gathered together and the evil to be destroyed.” Taken from Internet
“…there would be a mixture of good and bad in the Kingdom on earth, in the Church on earth, true and false prophets, which would continue till the separation between them in the judgment day… it shows also that in our life as Christians we will have good and bad things, good deeds and sins… we are still sinners, up to our death!.” Taken from Internet
“What is this Kingdom of God? This Kingdom is never defined in the Gospels, rather they present it as "a riddle": 1- It is something "so big" that the whole world can enter into it… each one of us has to enter into it (Jn.3:3,5, Matt.18:3). 2- But it is "so small" that he enters into each one of us, it is within us (Luk.17:21, Matt.6:10).
The answer is "Jesus Christ": It is so big, that it is the "Mystical Body of Christ", his Church… and it is something so small, that it is the same Jesus in our hearts. Jesus Himself is the King and the Kingdom: Jesus not only came to show us the Way, but He Himself is "the Way", I am the way and the truth and the life (Jn.14:6)… and He Himself is "the Truth" and "the Life"…
The "Kingdom" and the "Church" are considered the same thing in Mat.16:17-18… and this is why the apostles never mentioned the Kingdom after the Gospels, because when they mentioned the Church, or simply Jesus Christ, they were preaching the Kingdom, their task (Matt.10:7, Lk.9:2).” Taken from Internet
“Immediately after relating the Parable of the Sower, Matthew (and only Matthew) has Jesus proceed with the Parable of the Weeds…Apart from one, the other stands incomplete. The Parable of the Sower contains a single seed and multiple soils. The Parable of the Weeds contains multiple seeds and a single soil. The Parable of the Sower describes one good soil with the bad. The Parable of the Weeds describes one good seed with the bad.
The sower of the good seed is the son of man, which is Jesus. This corresponds with the implicit identification of the sower in the Parable of the Sower, although Jesus, in interpreting that parable, does not identify the sower. Jesus has, through his Word, so identified himself with his disciples that today, as his disciples continue to sow the good seed in the world, it is the Son of Man who sows.
2. The Good Seed
In the Parable of the Sower, the sower sows the Word (Mark 4:14, Luke 8:11) The Word is the seed, as with the Parable of the Sower, and is identified with the sons of the kingdom because the Word, when sowed in the world, produces the sons of the kingdom. The seed produces the sons of the kingdom, so the Son of Man continues throughout history to sow the seed of the Word through the Holy Spirit and the sons of the kingdom.
The Greek for seed here is sperma, which is the source of our English sperm. This differs from sporos, which is the Greek used by Luke to define the seed in the Parable of the Sower (Luke 8:11). However, both Greek terms spring from speiro, to sow, and it is doubtful whether this difference is significant. Sperm evolved from the Greek, and it’s meaning has not changed. In the Septuagent it is the semen virile (Lev. 15-16-18) and so is our English word. Jesus made repeated use of this analogy throughout the gospels.
3. The Bad Seed
The inclusion of two kinds of seed here forces us to focus our attention on the seed. This is the primary focus of this parable, and we will miss the force of it if we do not examine this carefully so as to provide the correct identification for the bad seed, that Jesus identifies as follows: “the weeds” (zizanion) are the sons of the evil one.
“You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8:44
It is a temptation to identify those to whom Jesus addressed these words with the Pharisees, scribes and rulers of the Jews. But that is not the identification applied to these sons of the evil one by the evangelist, who carefully states that these were Jews who had believed in Jesus (John 8:31). Yet, as in the parable, these are sons of the evil one, the devil, and therefore must be included in Jesus’ identification of the bad seed in the parable. Our most specific definition of the sons of the evil one, the products of the bad seed, consists of Jews who had believed in Jesus.
But are these Jewish believers the only ones who qualify as the sons of the evil ones in this parable? Are they the sole produce of the bad seed?
No, they are not. First, this is parable encompasses the full scope of history. It describes a process that is ongoing until the harvest, which is the close of the age. Other sons of the evil one are continually being produced to add to this category.
Second, Jesus’ interpretation assigns a meaning to each major element in this parable, making it an allegory. The harvest comes after the sowing, in reality and in the parable; therefore sequence is an important marker. The bad seed gets sown after the good seed! The clear implication is that this category of sons of the evil one must include those who say they believe who are the produce of bad seed that is sown after the good seed. If we set the sowing of the good seed, that is, its beginning, with the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom in the world by Jesus, then the bad seed must be sown after the sowing of the good seed. Remember — this parable deals only with those who have believed in Jesus. Where are we to look for persons who have believed in Jesus?–in churches and similar named assemblies that are sowing their bad seed throughout the world this very minute. Jesus has given us another marker by which to identify them: “Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
But, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.
Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?
He who is of God hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” John 8:43-48
Now here is a strange seeming contradiction! The evangelist has told us plainly that these persons were those “who had believed in him” John 8:31b, but Jesus now states plainly saying,… “you do not believe me” (what He says). They are said to believe in him, but what they are not believing is what he tells them (v. 45 above).
There is a simple reconciliation for this. Believing in him must mean only believing something about him, whereas actually believing him means to believe his words — what he says! Even though they believe in him, Jesus clearly specifies that they “canot bear to hear my word.” And then he explains (v.47 above) “He who is of God hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is thatyou are not of God.” Not being of God, they are sons of the evil one. The final determinant is the ability to hear and believe what Jesus says — and not just something about Jesus. I conclude that the sons f the evil one, in this parable, are the churchmen who only believe somethingabout Jesus. It also follows that the sowing of the bad seed is the gospel as preached by the churchmen that only produces more sons of the evil one. I, who was once in their midst and attempting to preach their gospel against all the forces of the Holy Spirit moving my soul otherewise, count myself as among the most blessed of men to have been liberated from that bondage into the glorious freedom of the True Word.
There is another confirmation of this identification of the bad seed. The Greek for the bad seed (weeds) is zizanion. Thayer informs us that this is a plant that looks much like wheat, but is a "kind of darnell, bastard wheat, resembling wheat except that the grains are black." These weeds are not just any weeds, but are specifically designed to look like the wheat to a superficial eye! This again identifies them with the churchmen, who display themselves to the world as disciples of Jesus but who, on close examination, are black! The Greek for the good seed is sitos, wheat.” By Edgar Jones Taken from Internet
“…our childhood is very much like fertile ground. Many times there are those who plant good seed in our lives while we are children…However, since that ground is fertile, the enemy, often unbeknown to us, comes in and plants seeds of untruth in our hearts…Those lies become firmly rooted in our lives and they grow up and mature with us. The problem is that for many of us those lies become so ingrained we view them as truth. That is why the Scripture refers to the enemy—Satan—as the ‘father of lies.’…Probably something happened in your childhood, whether it was a molestation or some other stressful event, that Satan could use, and he planted within your little child’s heart the lie that said, God is not trustworthy. As that seed germinated and grew during your growing-p years, the enemy continued to reinforce the lie…All of these lies were planted by the enemy to affect our fruitfulness for God. They need to be exposed, rooted out and replaced with the truth of God’s Word.” Door of Hope by Jan Frank pp. 142-143