Wheat and Tares – Devotional for Saturday, February 12, 2011

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.”’”

This is a parable about the church. It is my wife who pointed out to me that the most difficult weeds are those which closely resemble the good plants. Even in a well weeded garden, they tend to survive the longest. Often they are completely mature and larger than the intended plants before they are noticed and removed.

In the church there are those who closely resemble the Christians, but they have been planted by the enemy and they cause tremendous chaos and damage. The attract the attention of the world and work against the church’s mission to be salt and light. They don’t always know they are being used, but they are.

On Sunday night our series, Being the Church, continues with a discussion of the weeds among us. How should we deal with them? Identify them? Eliminate them? Most importantly how can we make sure we are not one of them?

Join us. We’ve been having fun but missing you.

Be blessed.

Nick