I have always wondered what this parable meant. It never seemed to make sense to me. Jesus identified each of the symbols used, but doesn’t explain why. I came upon the story again today:
He told another story. “God’s kingdom is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. That night, while his hired men were asleep, his enemy sowed thistles all through the wheat and slipped away before dawn. When the first green shoots appeared and the grain began to form, the thistles showed up, too. “The farmhands came to the farmer and said, “Master, that was clean seed you planted, wasn’t it? Where did these thistles come from?’ “He answered, “Some enemy did this.’ “The farmhands asked, “Should we weed out the thistles?’ “He said, “No, if you weed the thistles, you’ll pull up the wheat, too. Let them grow together until harvest time. Then I’ll instruct the harvesters to pull up the thistles and tie them in bundles for the fire, then gather the wheat and put it in the barn.’”
I understand each of the symbols Jesus uses to tell this story: The farmer is Jesus, the field is the world; but I just never understood why the farmer would allow the thistle to continue to grow along with the wheat. The good and the bad grow together, not to be separated. So many times we try to separate ourselves from what we think is “bad”. If we tried to separate ourselves from everything that is bad, we would have to stay in our homes, sit on our couch (no tv) and do nothing, and even then our thoughts would run riot.
This makes me think of M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film: “The Village”, where the people , in an attempt to get away from all the obscenities of the modern world, completely remove themselves from society. If we as followers of Christ run away from all that is bad we will kill our opportunities to bring about change. If we decide to remove the thistles we ourselves will be removed. Christ calls us to live in community with the “thistles”, not to remove them and act like we did God a service.
I don’t know, this is all fresh and new…thoughts just popping out of my head. Feel free to share any ideas/thoughts that will help us all grasp the heart of Christ a bit more.
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Thistles thistles thistles, hey man did I miss something in the reading. Are you doing the bookmark, I think I did not get into the word on friday nor saturday. What scripture was it again, I think you are right on about not kicking it or not being out in the world as much as Jesus want’s us to be. I think Jesus want’s us to be in the world and hang with people that live a worldly life. Jesus says in Thes 1 5:5-8 “You are all people who belong to the light and to the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So we should not be like other peolpe who are sleeping, but we should be alert and have selfcontrol. Those who sleep, sleep at night. Those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But we belong to the day so we should control ourselves. We should wear faith and love to protect us, and the hope of salvation should be our helmet”. There are millions of people who are sleeping and I believe we are called to wake up some peeps. mark
Posted by mark
The “wheat and thistles” verse quoted above is from Matthew 13:24-30. Dive in…
Posted by Ryan