Worldly cares are fitly compared to thorns, for they came in with sin, and are a fruit of the curse; they are good in their place to stop a gap, but a man must be well armed that has much to do with them; they are entangling, vexing, scratching, and their end is to be burned, Hebrews Worldly cares are great hinderances to our profiting by the word of God.
The deceitfulness of riches does the mischief; they cannot be said to deceive us unless we put our trust in them, then they choke the good seed. What distinguished the good ground was fruitfulness. By this true Christians are distinguished from hypocrites.
Christ does not say that this good ground has no stones in it, or no thorns; but none that could hinder its fruitfulness.
All are not alike; we should aim at the highest, to bring forth most fruit. The sense of hearing cannot be better employed than in hearing God's word; and let us look to ourselves that we may know what sort of hearers we are. Read Matthew ,. So prone is fallen man to sin, that if the enemy sow the tares, he may go his way, they will spring up, and do hurt; whereas, when good seed is sown, it must be tended, watered, and fenced.
The servants complained to their master; Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? No doubt he did; whatever is amiss in the church, we are sure it is not from Christ. Though gross transgressors, and such as openly oppose the gospel, ought to be separated from the society of the faithful, yet no human skill can make an exact separation.
Those who oppose must not be cut off, but instructed, and that with meekness. And though good and bad are together in this world, yet at the great day they shall be parted; then the righteous and the wicked shall be plainly known; here sometimes it is hard to distinguish between them. Let us, knowing the terrors of the Lord, not do iniquity. At death, believers shall shine forth to themselves; at the great day they shall shine forth before all the world.
They shall shine by reflection, with light borrowed from the Fountain of light. Their sanctification will be made perfect, and their justification published.
May we be found of that happy number. Read Matthew The scope of the parable of the seed sown, is to show that the beginnings of the gospel would be small, but its latter end would greatly increase; in this way the work of grace in the heart, the kingdom of God within us, would be carried on. In the soul where grace truly is, it will grow really; though perhaps at first not to be discerned, it will at last come to great strength and usefulness.
This is he who received seed by the wayside : As the birds devoured the seed on the wayside Matthew , so some receive the word with hardened hearts and the wicked one quickly snatches away the sown word. The word has no effect because it never penetrates and is quickly taken away.
The wayside soil represents those who never really hear the word with understanding. The Word of God must be understood before it can truly bear fruit. On stony places : As seed falling on the thin soil on top of the stony places quickly springs up and then quickly withers and dies Matthew , so some respond to the word with immediate enthusiasm yet soon wither away.
This soil represents those who receive the word enthusiastically, but their life is short-lived, because they are not willing to endure tribulation or persecution… because of the word. Many sudden conversions have been among the best that have ever happened. Among the thorns : As seed falling among thorns grew, the stalks of grain were soon choked out Matthew , so some respond to the word and grow for a while, but are choked and stopped in their spiritual growth by competition from unspiritual things.
This soil represents fertile ground for the word; but their soil is too fertile, because it also grows all sorts of other things that choke out the Word of God; namely, it is the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches that choke the word. Good ground : As seed falling on good ground brings a good crop of grain Matthew , so some respond rightly to the word and bear fruit.
This soil represents those who receive the word, and it bears fruit in their soil — in differing proportions some hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty , though each has a generous harvest. Therefore, hear the parable of the sower : We benefit from seeing bits of ourselves in all four soils.
We notice that the difference in each category was with the soil itself. The same seed was cast by the same sower. You could not blame the differences in results on the sower or on the seed, but only on the soil.
Peradventure you will be judging the preacher, but a greater than the preacher will be judging you, for the Word itself shall judge you. The parable was also an encouragement to the disciples. Even though it might seem that few respond, God is in control and the harvest will certainly come.
This was especially meaningful in light of the rising opposition to Jesus. Good corn may grow in very small fields. How can I prepare my heart and mind to be the right kind of soil? But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. How then does it have tares? His enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat : This parable describes the work of an enemy who tried to destroy the work of the man who sowed good seed in his field.
But the wise farmer would not allow the enemy to succeed. Instead, the farmer decided to sort it out at harvest time. We note that this parable clearly describes corruption among the people of God. Just as in the previous parable, the wheat represents the people of God. Some corrupting influence is brought, and an influence that may look genuine even as tares may resemble real wheat.
Lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them : In the interest of preserving and protecting the wheat, the wise farmer did not separate the tares from the wheat until the time of harvest.
The wise farmer recognized that the ultimate answer to tares among the wheat would only come at the final harvest. Knowing the explanation of this parable as explained in Matthew , we understand why Jesus said it right after explaining the parable of the sower, especially with the seed that grew up among the thorns. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed…when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree : Some, or even most, regard this as a description of the growth and eventual dominance of the church, the kingdom community.
Yet in light of both the parable itself and the context of the parables both before and after, this should be regarded as another description of corruption in the kingdom community, just as the previous parable of the wheat and the tares described Matthew When it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches : Again many, or even most, regard this as a beautiful picture of the church growing so large that it provides refuge for all of the world.
But this mustard seed plant grew unnaturally large, and it harbored birds , which, in the previous parables were emissaries of Satan Matthew , The tree -like growth from this mustard seed describes something unnatural.
Who would expect so tiny a seed to produce such a large herb, a monster in the garden? This parable accurately describes what the kingdom community became in the decades and centuries after the Christianization of the Roman Empire. In those centuries the church grew abnormally large in influence and dominion, and was a nest for much corruption. Sanhedrin , a; cf.
Revelation The kingdom of heaven is like leaven : Jesus used a surprising picture here. Many, if not most, regard this as a beautiful picture of the kingdom of God working its way through the whole world. Yet leaven is consistently used as a picture of sin and corruption especially in the Passover narrative of Exodus , Again, both the content and the context point towards this being a description of corruption in the kingdom community.
Leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened : This was an unusually large amount of meal. It was much more than any normal woman would prepare, and again suggests the idea of massive or unnatural size. Hid in it : The idea of hiding leaven in three measures of meal would have offended any observant Jew. Rather, in the context of increasing opposition to His work, Jesus announced that His kingdom community would also be threatened by corruption and impurity.
All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without a parable He did not speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying:. Without a parable He did not speak to them : This does not mean that Jesus never, in His entire teaching and preaching ministry, spoke in anything other than a parable.
I will open My mouth in parables : Another reason Jesus taught about the kingdom community in parables is because the church itself was part of the things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world , and would not be revealed in fullness until later. Kept secret from the foundation of the world : Later, Paul expresses this same idea about the church in Ephesians Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house.
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.
Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field : In His explanation, Jesus made it clear what the different figures in the parable represent. In this we see that the parable of the tares changes the figures slightly from the parable of the soils Matthew ; In the parable of the soils, the seed represented the Word of God; here it represents true believers.
The point of the parables is completely different; the parable of the soils shows how men receive and respond to the Word of God, and the parable of the tares of the field shows how God will divide His true people from false believers at the end of this age.
The field is the world : Significantly, this parable illustrates not necessarily that there will be false believers among true believers in the church though that is also true to some extent ; otherwise Jesus would have explained that the field is the church.
Yet He carefully said that the field is the world. The view was largely assumed by the early church fathers, and the tendency to interpret the parable that way was reinforced by the Constantinian settlement. Augustine made the interpretation official struggling against the Donatists…Most Reformers followed the same line. Yet the point is clear, both in the world and in the kingdom community. Yet they do, and are worthy of respect because of that role. If we are honest with ourselves, we can probably find evidence of several kinds of soil in our lives and in our congregations on any given day.
If there is any hope for the unproductive soil, it is that the sower keeps sowing generously, extravagantly, even in the least promising places. We trust that he will not give up on us either, but will keep working on whatever is hardened, rocky, or thorny within and among us. We trust in his promise to be with us to the end of the age. Too often we play it safe, sowing the word only where we are confident it will be well received, and only where those who receive it are likely to become contributing members of our congregations.
In the name of stewardship, we hold tightly to our resources, wanting to make sure that nothing is wasted. We stifle creativity and energy for mission, resisting new ideas for fear they might not work — as though mistakes or failure were to be avoided at all costs.
He gives us freedom to take risks for the sake of the gospel. He endorses extravagant generosity in sowing the word, even in perilous places.
Though we may wonder about the wisdom or efficiency of his methods, Jesus promises that the end result will be a bumper crop. July 10, Jul 10, View Bible Text Commentary on Matthew ,
0コメント