Matthew 13:24 - 30

The Parable of the Tares

24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field;

25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.

26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.

27 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?’

28 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?’

29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.

30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of 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.” ’ ”

As we said for the last parable, parables are given for different purposes. This parable shows what will happen on the judgment day. But in order to explain the judgment day, Jesus has to explain what is going on before the judgment day.

But we have to understand the parable does not represent the activities happening in the church.

This parable is given as the parable of the sower was, first Jesus relates the parable and then later in the chapter the parable will be explained.

What we see is a farmer plants his crop in the field. He sows good seed in his field, who would sow bad seed in his field intentionally?

At night an enemy of the farmer planted some useless plants which are very similar to wheat, it looks like wheat but it has black grains. The good and the bad plants look very much alike.

There is enough of a difference in the two types of plants that the man's servants could recognize the plants which did not belong in the field.

The servants knew what had been planted in the field and was puzzled by the unplanned appearance of the tares. They asked their master for an explanation.

The owner of the field explained that an enemy had sabotaged his field by planting the weed in among the good crop.

To the servants the logical remedy would be to pull the unwanted plants up by the roots to cleanse the field and destroy the weed.

The owner realized if they used that tactic they would lose some of the good crop. The good crop and the tares looked so much alike while they were growing it would be easy for some of the good to be mistaken as tares and accidentally destroyed.

The owner instructed the servants to let the crop grow and mature, then harvest the wheat and the tares. The different mature grains, the black grain being the tares could then be separated and redeem the wheat and destroy the tares.