Hold off on the weed picking
Wednesday June 29th, Matthew 13: The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away……."The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'" 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. The kingdom of heaven is like…….. Even here we are faced with the desire to be in control and pull up those things we want to call weeds. The kingdom of heaven is like a place where all those who someone wants to classify as weeds and all those who someone wants to classify as good plants get to grow up together. In the end, it is not us, but God who is in charge. The same God who brings you salvation by grace. That’s tough for some people to take.
posted by Dan at 1:56 PM
2 Comments:
This passage does indicate that there is a "them" and an "us" and that some were of God's making and some were made by the enemy of God. The passage seems to fuel the predestination argument, and begs the question, can the weeds be saved? Paul tells us in Romans 3:23, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Perhaps Jesus was trying to tell us that the two different seeds can be found in every person's soul, and they will grow up together. Maybe what Jesus meant was it is up to us to cultivate the wheat in us, while relying on God to forgive our weeds.
You got it. We often want to use this passage to justify our judging others. Jesus wants us to love others and to leave the judging up to God. What we know of God through Jesus, is that God's judging has more to do with forgiving and changing lives than punishment. There is a predestination element here, God is predestined to love us.
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