Tag Archives: Indwelling Spirit

Rethinking the Interpretation

08 Monday May 2023

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Hello!  Welcome to another week and another post on Renaissance Woman!

This week I am continuing in my study on the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares found in Matthew Chapter 13 verses 24-30 and the explanation of said parable found in verses 36-43 of the same Chapter.  The explanation of the parable as given by Jesus is this (beginning in verse 37): “He answered and said to them: ‘He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.  The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one.  The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels.  Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.  The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire.  There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear!’”

This explanation is interpreted by most Christian denominations as a description of some far off end of time when Jesus returns to earth.  Then the believers will be separated from the unbelievers with the believers going to heaven and the unbelievers go into everlasting torment.  I can see where this interpretation comes from, especially for those of us who grew up reading the King James Version where the passage about the harvest is translated into English as “the harvest is the end of the world” instead of translating it as “the harvest is the end of the age” as a great many more modern translations have it.  I covered “the end of the age” in last week’s post so will only reiterate Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension was a definitive end of an age.  With the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, the age of the New Covenant began.  I don’t see there is any reason to push off into some vague future the explanation and promises given by Jesus regarding this parable.

There is also no need to think of the “angels” mentioned in Jesus’ explanation as celestial beings.  The Greek word is aggelos (G32) and means simply “messenger”.  Any person who comes to someone bearing a message from another is an angel.  Bike messengers could be called “bike angels” and it wouldn’t be misusing the word.  That is not to say the “angels” who appear throughout scripture are not sometimes celestial beings but I am saying we should take care and not assume what a passage of scripture is saying.  The pictures formed in our minds will take root and produce fruit.  They will affect how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we behave toward others.  Therefore, we must take great care as we seek to interpret and understand passages.

For example; the Book of Revelation contains an angel that is not a celestial being.  This angel has guided John through all of his visions and John writes; “Now I, John saw and heard these things.  And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things.  Then he said to me, ‘See that you do not do that.  For I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book.  Worship God’” (Rev. 22:8-9).  “That’s all well and good,” you might be thinking, “but that’s Revelation and we’re talking about Matthew”.  And you would be correct.  However, it is important that we compare any interpretation of scripture with other passages of scripture.  If there is a conflict or a contradiction, then we must rethink our interpretation.

I find this parable and its explanation are compared to other scriptures when those interpreting it are insisting the wheat and tares are two different types of people and that “burned in the fire” means everlasting torment in hell.  What I do not find is this parable and explanation being compared to other scriptures in a positive Christ-alive-in-us now affirming way.  What if we look at this parable and its explanation in comparison with the words of Jesus in John 4:35-38?

The passage in John says, “Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’?  Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!  And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.  For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’  I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”

Matthew’s gospel records Jesus saying “The harvest truly is plentiful but the laborers are few.  Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (Mat. 9:37-38).  These words were spoken by Jesus to His disciples just before He sent them to the house of Israel and told them to preach “the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

The message I hear proclaimed as the gospel today is “repent, believe Jesus died for your sins, and you will get to go to heaven when you die.”  There is some truth to this but then there was some truth to the Lie told by the Serpent in the Garden of Eden and accepting that lie brought death to all of mankind.  I encourage everyone to look for yourself and try to find any passage anywhere that says “go to heaven when you die.”  John 3:5 does say, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”  There is nothing here about needing to die before entering the kingdom.  I have heard some say that being born again means your place in heaven is reserved for after death but that contradicts other passages of scripture.

Matthew 5:3 says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Luke 17:20b-21 records Jesus saying, “The Kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed the Kingdom of God is within you.”  The Apostle Paul describes the Kingdom of God as “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17).  (There is the question which asks whether the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God are the same thing: I’ve shared two articles below.  I encourage you to ask that question and seek the answer for yourself) The Bible is clear.  The message was “the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” and with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, it IS ours NOW!  I encourage everyone to ask the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of your understanding and then read the New Testament paying close attention to everything it says is ours In Christ now.  Today.     

 I recently came across a book titled The Rapture Exposed by Barbara R. Rossing.  In her first chapter, Ms. Rossing writes, “To be sure, God’s presence in our world is often difficult to see.  We live in an in-between time-the time between the “already” of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and the “not yet” of his second Coming” (Rossing, Page 12).  The New Testament is also clear that all that Jesus did for us by His life, death, and resurrection has resulted in a glorious inheritance of which the Holy Spirit is the down payment (Ephesians 1:14).  But what a down payment He is!

What are the limits to this down payment?  Are we bound by the interpretation we have been subjected to of both this Parable and Jesus’ explanation?  This interpretation tells you the wheat and tares growing in the same field is just the state of things until Jesus returns, there is no harvest until then, the reapers are the angels-meaning celestial beings-and all we can do is wait for the day when we (hopefully) will be gathered into the barn and everyone who is a tare will be burned in hell for all eternity.  What if the New Testament is telling us the truth and we can grow up into Him who is the head?  What if we truly are being transformed by the renewing of our minds and are, now, being transformed into His image from glory to glory?  

I plan to continue to look at this parable and its explanation next week.  I hope this post has encouraged to you question everything you have been taught about this parable and its explanation.  I pray for all of you and for myself that we would not be cheated of our reward by those who delight in false humility and worship of angels and who intrude into those things which they have not seen, being vainly puffed up by their fleshly minds (Colossians 2:18).  Let us all ask the Holy Spirit to open our eyes that we would explore the unsearchable riches of Christ and that we would see we have boldness and access with confidence to the Father through our faith in Jesus.  May we each one be strengthened in our inner man (or woman!) that we may be able to comprehend what is the width and length and depth and height of everything that is ours in Christ Jesus.  Let us each one know the love of Christ which passes knowledge and may we each one be filled (now!) with the fullness of God.  (See Ephesians 3:8-19).

Those who have ears to hear, let them hear!

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

The Comparative Study Bible, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

Rossing, Barbara R., The Rapture Exposed, Basic Books, Perseus Books Group, New York, New York, 2004, Page 12

Strong, James, LL,D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Continued Reading

Are the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven the same?

The Difference Between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven (steppesoffaith.com)

Are the Kingdom of God and Kingdom of Heaven the same? | NeverThirsty

Who was John Darby?

John Nelson Darby | Christian History | Christianity Today

Rapture Doctrine invented by John Darby in 1830 AD (bible.ca)

Times of Harvest

01 Monday May 2023

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Image by Gerald Friedrich from Pixabay

Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I continue to look at the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares.

This parable is found in Matthew 13:24-30.  This same chapter of Matthew records Jesus giving an explanation of the parable in verses 37-43.  I asked several questions in last week’s post and the one I am focusing on this week is what did Jesus mean when He said the harvest is at the end of the age?  There are two main interpretations of this parable in Christian circles and both say the “end of the age” as recorded in verse 39 is referencing a future date when Jesus returns and His angels reap.  I disagree.  For one thing, I don’t agree the wheat and the tares are referring to two different types of people because there is no possibility of conversion between wheat and tare: one cannot become the other.  Knowing this, it makes no sense that the call made by both Jesus and John the Baptist is “Metanoia!” which means “Think differently!” or “Change your mind!”.  I agree with the interpretation of this parable by Dora Van Assen shared by J. Preston Eby in his The Firstfruits, The Harvest, and the Vintage article which I have linked below.

Ms. Van Assen points out that the wheat and the tares did not convert one another and then says she “saw this was not a parable on soul-saving, nor was it an exhortation to scare the heathen or sinning Christians in the church into a conversion, but it was a parable dealing with the inner thought life of the believer himself.”  She goes on to say that the context of the parable shows that Jesus was uttering things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world (Mat. 13:35) and then says she believes this parable is a picture of what happened in the Garden of Eden.  God created mankind and said they were very good but then the enemy enters the garden and sows seeds of the Lie in the minds of our ancestors.  The owner of the field does not allow the bad seed to be yanked out of the ground but rather lets both grow together in the same field, lest the good seed be damaged and the fruit of it lost.  Thus was and has been the state of the carnal mind throughout the generations. Ms. Van Assen says, “The harvest reveals what sort of seed was planted in our earth, and how they have matured in areas of our lives.  Only the mature know the difference!  And only by harvest conditions can the Lord bring the separation.” 

Mr. Eby is quoting Ms. Van Assen’s interpretation within the context of Revelation 14:15-16 and says, “When the Son of man as the crowned Reaper sends His sickle into the earth, all things will have come to full maturity.  The age has witnessed the sowing and growth and development of the Son of man, and also the sowing of the adversary, and there has been no conclusive divine dealing on earth to make manifest the judgment of God as to what has resulted.  But the harvest is the end of the age!”

What Mr. Eby is saying here makes perfect sense because who can deny there doesn’t appear to have been any sort of definitive harvest.  History records great and terrible evils done since Jesus’ birth, death, resurrection, and ascension so it follows that the “end of the age” in Matthew 13:39 is referring to some future date.  However, I have found there is enough evidence that the “end of the age” in this passage is referring to the age that ended with Jesus’ death, resurrection, ascension, and the giving of the Holy Spirit.  There are two passages in the book of Hebrews that come to mind. The first is Hebrews 1:1-2 which states, “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds.”

The Greek word translated as “worlds” in this passage is aion (G165) and means “an age.”  This is a complicated word in the way it has been translated throughout the Bible and is one of the reasons why I suggest everyone who wants to understand what the Bible is really saying get an Interlinear Bible.  The word appears in Jesus’ interpretation of the wheat and tares parable in Matthew 13.  I am going to quote verses 38-40 from the King James Version and include the Greek words for every English occurrence of the word “world”.

“The field is the world (kosmos); the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world (aion); and the reapers are the angels.  As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world (aion).”  Reading this in the King James, I can understand why the major interpretations of this parable say this is speaking about a future date when the world is brought to an end because it is obvious the world has not ended.  Other Bible translations have tried to do a better job: the NKJV, Amplified, New American Standard and New International versions all have “age” as a translation for aion but I haven’t seen that these more accurate translations have had much effect on how this parable has been interpreted.

The truth is something much deeper.  My second scripture from the book of Hebrews is 9:26 which states, “…but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”  The Scriptures are clear.  The coming of Jesus in human flesh, His life here on earth, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, and the pouring out of His Spirit at Pentecost all heralded the end and consummation of the ages.  There is no reason to think either the parable of the wheat and the tares or the explanation given is describing a state that is continuing on until some future date.

All four gospels record Jesus mentioning the harvest as being ready, ripe, plentiful, and immediate.  Matthew 9:35-38 records Jesus saying to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few.  Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”  John 4:35 says, “Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!” Luke 10:2 says, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”  Mark 4:29 speaks of the ripe harvest within the context of a different parable but says, “…the harvest has come.”

The Book of Acts records times of great harvest.  One the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on those gathered together, “Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them” (Acts 2:41).  Acts 4:4 record the number of those who believed coming to be about five thousand.

I believe the scripture record is clear: Jesus was manifested in the consummation of the ages.  There was a great harvest recorded in the book of Acts and I don’t deny there is something greater coming.  “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19).  I do expect something incredible at the end of this age and I don’t quibble with it being referred to as a harvest.  What I do quibble with is the idea that there is only one harvest and it has yet to happen.

If the “harvest at the end of the age” mentioned in Matthew 13:39 is indeed some far off future date then there is no hope for the Christian life except stagnation.  If the wheat and tares representative of thoughts sown in the fields of our hearts and minds, then they both are growing together and there is nothing to be done about it until that far off future date.  I don’t see this is the message of the New Testament.  We are to be “transformed through the renewing of our minds” (Romans 12:2).  We are to grow up into the Head, that is Christ (Ephesians 4:15).  We are transformed from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18).  Jesus told his disciples His Father was honored and glorified when they produced much fruit (John 15:8).  He also said the branch that abides in Him would bear much fruit and that every branch that bore fruit would be pruned that it would bear more fruit (See John 15:1-2).       

 In 1 Corinthians 10:11, Paul describes us as the people “on whom the end of the ages (aion) has come”.  Jesus was manifested at the consummation of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself but not only to put away sin: He came so that we would have life and that more abundantly (John 10:10).  One of the names of Jesus given in Isaiah 9:6 is “everlasting Father”.  That would be better translated “Father of the Ages” and, again, Hebrews 1:2 states Jesus is the one through whom God made the aions.  Ephesians 1:9-11 states the mystery of the will of God is that in the fullness of time all things are to be consummated in Christ and that we have obtained an inheritance in Him.

In Christ.  All things were created through Him and for Him, He is before all things and in Him all things consist (Colossians 1:16-17).  We believers know that we abide in Him and He in us because of the Holy Spirit (1 John 4:13).  This is the truth now.  We experience time in a linear fashion and so it is easy to look at our daily lives and think we must continue on as we are until some far off future date.  We don’t.  We are in Christ.  Our lives bear fruit now.  The harvest was not some one-time thing in the first days of the early church nor is it something reserved for some far off future.  Every age, past present and future, has its consummation in Christ.

There is still so much to be gleaned from this parable and so I plan to continue studying it next week.  Until then, may the eyes of our understanding continued to be enlightened that we see we are in Christ and it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us.  He is the one who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, and will also supply and multiply the seed we have sown and will increase the fruits of our righteousness (2 Corinthians 9:10).

Amen

References

Kindgdom Bible Studies Revelation Series (kingdombiblestudies.org)

The Comparative Study Bible, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

Green, Jay P. Sr., The Interlinear Bible, Volume 4, Authors For Christ, Inc., Lafayette, Indiana, 1976, 1985

Strong, James, LL,D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Fruit of the Mind

24 Monday Apr 2023

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman!

This week I am continuing to look at the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares found in Matthew Chapter 13 verses 24-30.  There are two interpretations of this parable I find taught in Christian circles.  Both interpretations say the tares and the wheat represent two types of people-believers and unbelievers-and that it is impossible to tell which is which until the harvest is ready and the angels come to reap.  Then the believers will “be gathered into the barn” meaning go to heaven and the unbelievers will “gathered together to be burned” meaning everlasting torment in hell.  The only difference in these two interpretations are some say the wheat and the tares sit together in church and others say no, the wheat and the tares grow together in the world.

There is a third interpretation which I’ve shared in my previous two posts.  I do encourage going back and reading them before continuing on in order to better understand what I am going to say in this post.  I found the third interpretation in J. Preston Eby’s From the Candlestick to the Throne study series # 173 The Firstfruits, the Harvest, and the Vintage.  In a nutshell, this third interpretation suggests the parable is referring to the inner thought life of the believer. 

The woman quoted by Mr. Eby is named Dora Van Assen and her interpretation doesn’t start with the parable of the wheat and the tares.  She begins with the wheat and the chaff from Matthew 3:12 and the entire quote is worth reading.  I’ve linked the article below.  Regarding the wheat and the tares and the interpretation Jesus Himself gives in Matthew 13:36-43, Ms. Van Assen writes:

“The Holy Spirit deals with men in their minds and thoughts, and Satan can only attack man in his mind, giving false ideas and imaginations.  These thought-pictures are often called ‘brain children.’ And these determine what manner of man a man is!  These thought-pictures can be either good or bad, spiritual or carnal.  Paul exhorts us to ‘cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ’ (II Cor. 10:5).

“Bringing this parable down to us personally, we find that our own mind is the field in which are planted both good and evil.  The children or offspring of the kingdom, and the children or offspring of the wicked one, are a mixture of both good and evil, flesh and spirit, growing up together within us until the harvest, which is the time of separation.  The tares are somewhat different than the chaff in that that the chaff is part of the wheat; however the tares are not part of the wheat but a foreign implantation made to appear as wheat.  The harvest reveals what sort of seed was planted in our earth, and how they have matured in areas of our lives.  Only the mature know the difference!  And only by harvest conditions can the Lord bring the separation!”

 I am inclined to accept this third interpretation for a variety of reasons.  The first is because of the words of Jesus Himself.  Matthew’s gospel relates Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness and, after He had triumphed, how he began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Jonathan Mitchell’s New Testament has this verse as: “From that time on, Jesus began to be repeatedly making loud public proclamations (performing as a herald), and to be continually saying, “You folks be progressively changing your thinking (change your frame of mind, mode of thought, perceptions, understanding and state of consciousness, and then turn your focus to [Yahweh]) because the sovereign reign, dominion and activity of exercising the sovereignty of the heavens (or; kingdom from the skies and the atmospheres) has drawn hear and now continues being at hand is close enough to touch (=has arrived and is now accessible).”

The Greek word for “at hand” in this passage is engiken (ἤγγικεν)and “is the 3rd person single form of the verb eggus which means “near, close (of a place or a condition), nigh or at hand (of a time), nearly (of numbers), akin to (of relationships).”  Its tense is perfect (which indicates a present-tense report of an action that has been completed but has effects in the now; like: ‘he has done’), its voice is active (which indicates that the subject performs the action instead of receives it) and its mood is indicative (which describes a situation that actually is-as opposed to a situation that might be, is wished for, or is commanded to be).” (abirampublications.com).

How we think of the Kingdom of Heaven is important.  Do we think of it as it is revealed to us in the tense of the Greek, as something close enough to touch, complete and available to us now?  Or do we think of it as something reserved for some future date?  This is an important factor in understanding both the parable of the wheat and the tares and Jesus’ interpretation of it.  Matthew 13:39 says “the harvest is the end of the age.”  The two main interpretations of this parable say that “end of the age” is a future date and most likely references the Second Coming.

That interpretation discounts the First Coming.  With the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, an age drew to a close.  With the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, a new age was inaugurated: that of the New Covenant ministered to us and in us by the Indwelling Holy Spirit.  What if that was the “end of the age” Jesus meant? What could it mean for us as believers?  For one thing, we can pray “Thy Kingdom Come” with the assurance that, since the Kingdom is near, completed, having effects in the now, our prayer is answered now.  We can expect His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven now.    

“The Kingdom of heaven is like…” wheat and tares sown in the same field.  It is important to remember the tares never become wheat and the wheat never become tares.  Conversion one to the other is not possible.  The call of both John the Baptist and Jesus was “Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”  Repent is not perhaps the best translation of the Greek word which is metanoia and it means “think differently”.  Think Differently! For the Kingdom of Heaven is available to you now!  It is clear to me the expectation is that we humans can change our minds and think differently.  I cannot accept that Jesus called for humankind to “think differently” without the expectation we were capable of doing so.  I do not believe Jesus ever considered any person a tare, incapable of changing his or her mind, and fit only for the fire.

So then, if the wheat and tares are not symbolic of two groups of people but are rather symbolic of thoughts coming to fruition in the field of our hearts and minds, doesn’t that suggest a duality of mind?  Is there no hope for us but to think both carnally and spiritually until Jesus returns?  I would say yes, if the “end of the age” did mean some date in the future.  If it did not, if Jesus was referring to when He accomplished His work and inaugurated in a New Age, then it ought to be possible to have the fields of our hearts and minds sown only with good seed.

Does the Bible support this possibility?  That is something I will continue to look at next week.

Until then, I leave you with 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”  Something well worth thinking about.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Kindgdom Bible Studies Revelation Series (kingdombiblestudies.org)

Matthew 13 – Barclay’s Daily Study Bible – Bible Commentaries – StudyLight.org

εγγυς | Abarim Publications Theological Dictionary (New Testament Greek) (abarim-publications.com)

Green, Jay P. Sr., The Interlinear Bible, Volume 4, Authors For Christ, Inc., Lafayette, Indiana, 1976, 1985

Mitchell, Jonathan, The New Testament, Harper Brown Publishing, 2019

Strong, James, LL,D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Together in the Field

17 Monday Apr 2023

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am continuing to look at the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares.

I do apologize to anyone who has come across this post as your first on Renaissance Woman.  I do try to make each post stand on its own while at the same time building on everything that has come before.  This post does not stand on its own.  I would recommend reading last week’s post, The Seed Sown, before this one or there are going to be references that will make little sense. 

There are two main schools of interpretation when it comes to this parable.  The first says the wheat and the tares are two different kinds of people within the church.  They sit side by side in the pews and are indistinguishable one from the other until Jesus returns and His angels send the tares to the fire and gather the wheat into the barn.  The second disagrees with the first only in the location of the wheat and the tares.  The field is not the church, they say, but the world.  The wheat and tares represent believers and unbelievers which occupy the same world until Jesus returns and His angels send the tares to the fire and gather the wheat into the barn.

I can look at both interpretations and see where they are coming from.  If the wheat and tares are indistinguishable one from the other then it would make sense that Jesus is describing the church.  After all, can’t the argument be made that the difference between believers and unbelievers is obvious?  And yet, Jesus Himself interprets this parable in Matthew 13:36-43 and clearly says “the field is the world” and “the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom but the tares are the sons of the wicked one” so that ought to prove the second interpretation is the correct one.

I have come across a third interpretation put forward by a woman named Dora Van Assen which suggests the parable is a description of what happened in the Garden of Eden.  God created all things, including Adam, and saw it was all very good.  As God fellowshipped with Adam in the garden, He was planting His good thoughts and spiritual understanding in Adam’s mind.  But then, the Serpent came slithering and whispering into the garden and planted evil thoughts and understanding.  Both types of thoughts occupied the same field i.e. the mind of Adam.

This interpretation is very different from anything I have ever heard preached within the confines of Churchdom and it does not appear to be supported by Jesus’ interpretation.  But then, did Jesus truly make this interpretation or was it inserted into the manuscripts at a later date?  I found this assertion made when I looked up the parable in the Abingdon Commentary.  The copy I have was published in 1929 and states that “all scholars reject the genuineness of the explanation in vv. 36-43…”  I mentioned last week my skepticism antennae quivered at “all scholars” because I cannot think of one subject where all scholars are in agreement. 

I went searching for this assertion of “all scholars rejecting” the interpretation given in those passages and could not find a reference.  That doesn’t mean that there are not scholars rejecting said passages just that it has been difficult for me to find them over the last week.  I am thus left with a single resource stating the interpretation given for this parable in verses 36-43 is not genuine and, since our Bible warns against accepting the testimony of a single witness, I am shelving this.  I’ll keep my eyes and ears open and may circle back to it but, for now, will proceed in the acceptance of Jesus’ interpretation.

If Dora Van Assen’s interpretation relied on Matthew 13:36-43 not being genuine, I would dismiss it out of hand.  It does not.  Her interpretation is shared in an article by J. Preston Eby (linked below) and neither make mention of these passages not being genuine.  Both, in fact, treat them as being absolutely genuine.

Dora Van Assen writes, “Some may object to this interpretation of the tares, because Jesus in His explanation of the parable used the words, the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one’ (Mat. 13:38). That does sound as if they are two different kinds of people.  And indeed they are!  If we will just stop for a moment and think this through, we must admit that God is an invisible spirit, and Satan is likewise invisible spirit.  Neither of these produce flesh and blood children of their own!  The new creation is formed in a people who are ‘renewed in the spirit of their mind.’ So the term ‘children’ must be taken as a metaphor.  The Holy Spirit deals with men in their minds and thoughts, and Satan can only attack man in his mind, giving false ideas and imaginations.  These thought-pictures are often called ‘brain children.’ And these determine what manner of man a man is!”

I am (so far) inclined to accept Dora Van Assen’s interpretation.  She points out that the tares never become wheat and the wheat never become tares.  If the wheat and the tares do indeed represent two different kinds of people, there is no hope for the tares.  They are similar in appearance to wheat but cannot ever convert into wheat.  If the interpretations stating the wheat and the tares are the converted and the unconverted or believers and unbelievers, then does it not follow that evangelism is the greatest exercise in futility?  You can share the gospel with another person until you are blue in the face but, if they are indeed a tare, all your sharing is for nothing because they cannot and therefore will not ever respond. 

If though, Dora Van Assen’s interpretation is correct and the wheat and tares are symbolic of thoughts occupying the same field of a person’s heart and mind, then the good seed is there and you can share the gospel in the hope that your words are water falling on that good seed.  I find her interpretation to be far more hopeful than any other I have come across.  But then, it wouldn’t matter how much I liked and preferred it if she was the only source of such an interpretation.

She is not.  I found her same thoughts echoed in the Commentary on this parable found in Barclay’s Daily Study Bible where I read: “It may well be said that in its lessons this is one of the most practical parables Jesus ever told.  It teaches us that there is always a hostile power in the world, seeking and waiting to destroy the good seed.  Our experience is that both kinds of influence act on our lives, the influence which helps the seed of the word to flourish and to grow, and the influence which seeks to destroy the good seed before it can produce fruit at all.  The lesson is that we must be forever on our guard.”

Earlier in this post, I asked if the argument couldn’t be made that the difference between believers and unbelievers was obvious.  I want to include one more quote from the Barclay’s Daily Study Bible: “it (the parable) teaches us how hard it is to distinguish between those who are in the Kingdom and those who are not.  A man may appear to be good and may in fact be bad; and a man may appear to be bad and may yet be good.  We are much too quick to classify people and label them good or bad without knowing all the facts.”  This is something valuable to keep in mind.

I will continue looking at this parable next week but do want to add this as my closing thought: I find interpreting the parable of the wheat and the tares as thoughts resulting from spiritual influences has a direct correlation to the passage in Ephesians describing the armor of God.  We believers are to take the helmet of salvation.  A helmet’s purpose is to protect one’s head and I see a clear picture of the necessity to guard our minds from attack.  But then, that is a subject worth many more weeks’ focus and so I will sign off with this prayer:

May the peace that surpasses all understanding, the peace that belongs entirely to Jesus which He has freely given to us, guard each of our hearts and minds every moment of every day.

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Matthew 13 – Barclay’s Daily Study Bible – Bible Commentaries – StudyLight.org

KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES: THE FIRSTFRUITS, THE HARVEST, AND THE VINTAGE by J. Preston Eby (godfire.net)

Tares (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

What Does Tares Mean? Bible Definition and References (biblestudytools.com)

Tares – WebBible Encyclopedia – ChristianAnswers.Net

Eiselen, Frederick Carl, The Abingdon Bible Commentary, Abingdon Press, Nashville •New York, 1929, Page 977

The Seed Sown

10 Monday Apr 2023

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am taking a look at the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares found in Matthew 13:24-30:

“Another parable He put forth to them, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went on his way.  But when the grain had spouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.  So the servants of the owner came and said to him, “Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field?  How then does it have tares?”  He said to them, “An enemy has done this.”  The servants said to him, “Do you want us then to go and gather them up?”  But he said, “No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.  Let both grow together until the harvest and at the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ‘ “

There are two major interpretations of this parable but, before I get to them, a brief lesson on tares.  The consensus is that this passage of scripture is referring to the darnel or Lolium temulentum.  It is a weed that grows among grain, especially wheat.  The grains resemble those of wheat and, since they are difficult to separate by sifting, are often sown with wheat and grow with it in the same field.  Since the darnel is poisonous, no one deliberately sows tares in a field but tares are difficult to distinguish from wheat as the two look similar until they come to full fruition.  Then it becomes easy to separate wheat from tares, to discard what isn’t fit for consumption, and to preserve the desired harvest. 

The sower in this parable made no such mistake.  The parable states he sowed “good seed”.  The poisonous seed was sown by an enemy but presence of the tares wasn’t discovered until the grain had sprouted and produced a crop.  I read that tares will often share the same root system as wheat and they are impossible to remove from a field without damaging the wheat.  It is best to let them both continue to grow together until the time of harvest so none of the wheat is lost. 

What does this parable mean?  There is an explanation given later on in the same chapter of Matthew.  In verse 36, Jesus’s disciples come to him and ask him to explain the parable of the tares of the field and he answers, “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.  The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one.  The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels.  Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.”

Now onto the two interpretations of this parable.  The first says this parable speaks of believers and unbelievers within the church, sitting side by side in the seats with each other, indistinguishable from each other until Jesus returns and His angels separate the tares from the wheat.  The second interpretation disagrees with the first and says no, the field is clearly the world as stated by Jesus Himself in Matthew 13:38, therefore; this parable is speaking of the righteous and unrighteous living together in the world until the end of the age when Jesus returns and His angels separate the tares from the wheat.

There is a third interpretation of this parable which was new to me when I first read it so I feel safe in assuming none of you have heard it either.  It is found in J. Preston Eby’s Candlestick to the Throne study series # 173 entitled The Firstfruits, The Harvest, and the Vintage.  In this study, Mr. Eby quotes a woman named Dora Van Assen who wrote not only on the tares and the wheat but the wheat and the chaff.  I couldn’t remember exactly what was said so I got the teaching out and refreshed my memory.

One of the first lines that caught my eye was, “The wheat and the tares did not convert one another!  Wheat was wheat, the tares were tares, both growing up together just like the wheat and the chaff, until the time of harvest.”  This caught my attention because, in an article on Tares, which I found on the Jewish Virtual Library site and is also linked below, I had read the same thing.  Despite the similarities in the grains and immature stalks, wheat does not ever become a tare and a tare does not ever become wheat.  I read on.

“…I saw this was not a parable on soul-saving, nor was it an exhortation to scare the heathen or sinning Christians in the church into a conversion, but it was a parable dealing with the inner thought life of the believer himself.  In the context around the parable we find that Jesus was uttering, ‘things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world’ (Mat. 13:35).  In other words, by this parable, He was explaining in parabolic form something which had taken place from the beginning! I believe He was referring to what had happened in the Garden of Eden when sin entered into the plan of God.  There we find God fellowshipping with Adam in the cool of the day.  Certainly God was not standing there in bodily form any more than He comes in bodily form when we commune with Him and hear His voice.  By the Spirit God was planting His good thoughts and spiritual understanding in the mind of Adam.  But, while Adam was not aware of it, the adversary also came into the garden and whispered and planted evil thoughts and carnal understanding, causing a duality within, which led him to fall into a carnal mind.  This dual mind of both good and evil was a split personality within man, each capable of bringing forth a harvest of a certain kind of man (Romans 8:6).  The battlefield is in the mind!”

I found this interpretation absolutely fascinating and, the more I looked at the other parables, it isn’t as farfetched as it might at first seem.  There’s another Parable of Sowing at the beginning of Matthew Chapter 13 where the seed fell by the wayside and were devoured by birds, some fell on stony places and had no root so withered away, some fell among thorns and were choked, and some fell on good ground.  I don’t know of any interpretation that doesn’t acknowledge the “ground” mentioned here is a picture of the human heart.  I can thus consider the idea that the “field” mentioned in the Parable of the Wheat and Tares is the human mind (and heart-the Hebrew people did not separate the two “as a man thinks in his heart” [Proverbs 23:7]).

But, doesn’t Matthew 13:38 clearly say the field is the world and both the good and bad seeds are children?  Yes, it does but I just read something interesting about this passage.  The Abingdon Bible Commentary states, “All scholars reject the genuineness of the explanation in vv. 36-43 on the ground of its stilted style, and because the interpretations of successive details are mechanical; moreover, the presence of popular and conventional apocalyptic expressions, and the title Son of man, used of the earthly life of Jesus in v. 37 and then of his Messianic glory in v. 41 stamp it as secondary in character” (Abingdon, p. 977).

The moment I read “all scholars” I was skeptical.  There wasn’t one scholar publishing around 1929 who attested to the validity of this passage?  ALL scholars reject their genuineness?  Even so, I couldn’t help rereading the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares thinking, “what if the explanation isn’t correct?”  As I did so, I realized Dora Van Assen’s interpretation made sense.  Still, I cannot accept any interpretation that relies on other parts of scripture being declared invalid.  Does Dora Van Assen’s interpretation of this parable rely in discarding Matthew 13 verses 36-43?  It does not!  Which I will demonstrate in next week’s post.

Until next week, I pray for each of us-including myself-that the Holy Spirit continues to open the eyes of our hearts and grant us the gift of discernment as we face each new day.

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Tares (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

What Does Tares Mean? Bible Definition and References (biblestudytools.com)

Tares – WebBible Encyclopedia – ChristianAnswers.Net

KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES: THE FIRSTFRUITS, THE HARVEST, AND THE VINTAGE by J. Preston Eby (godfire.net)

Eiselen, Frederick Carl, The Abingdon Bible Commentary, Abingdon Press, Nashville •New York, 1929

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville Tennessee, 1990