“Later that same day Jesus left the house and sat beside the lake.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭13‬:‭1‬ ‭NLT‬‬

If you trace the text back to chapter 12, we find out which day Matthew is talking about. It’s the Sabbath.

As a refresher:

That morning, on the way to synagogue, Jesus and the disciples were eating the free granola plucked from a wheat field. And the Pharisees raise a fuss and Jesus defends His actions.

He gets to synagogue where He heals the man with a withered hand.

After the meeting Jesus is followed by a multitude and He spends a considerable amount of time healing diseases and finally casting a demon out of a blind and mute man. This sparked the accusation from the Pharisees that His powers came from the prince of devils and Jesus again defends Himself against their assertions.

While He’s facing off with the Pharisees His mother and siblings have come to see Him (and Luke tells us they wish to take Him home by force because they think He’s lost His mind).

Chapter 13 is continuing the account of that Sabbath day.

Jesus goes out of the crowded house – where, after all that debate, the atmosphere was probably extremely tense. And He walks down to the shore.

Being near a stream, lake shore, or ocean beach is generally very relaxing. But Jesus didn’t get to enjoy any solitude. “Great multitudes” followed Him like a toddler following mommy to the bathroom.

Jesus got into a fishing boat taught the crowd sitting on the shore.

PARABLE OF THE SEED & SOILS

This is often called “the Parable of the Sower.” But it’s not about the sower. It’s about how the seed fared in 4 different types of soil. And Jesus explains what the parable means.

The “seed” is “the word of the Kingdom.” It’s the announcement that the Kingdom of God is pushing its way back into the world. At the moment Jesus is teaching to the people on the shore, it doesn’t yet involve “the Gospel” because Jesus has not been crucified or risen yet. But the process of reclaiming the earth from the forces of evil has begun.

There are four basic responses to this announcement:

• I don’t get it. What’s this about?
• Yay! That sounds fun! I’d love to participate!. But if it’s not fun I’m out.
• Uh… sure…sounds kinda important. Just put it on one of the stacks… somewhere. I’ll try to remember. Is it going to make me any money?
• I get it. This is amazing news. I’m all in no matter what.

There is such a thing as “soil amendment.” Skilled agriculturalists can fix poor soil. Even if a person doesn’t have the best soil, I think the Lord can improve it- if the soil is compliant. But this parable shows why the Gospel is not received equally by all.

PARABLE OF THE WHEAT & WEEDS

In this parable we have a sower and seed again, but this time there’s a plot twist. This time an enemy sneaks in at night and sows weed seed.

It takes some time for the dastardly deed to become apparent. And when it does, the servants of the sower ask, “Do you want us to go pull them up?” But the weeds are growing so close to the wheat that if all of them were ripped out of the earth even the good wheat would be uprooted and die.

No, they will grow in the same field until the harvest, at which point the harvesters will throw out the weeds.

Jesus unpacks the meaning of this parable too.

I’ll pass on the thought-provoking question my professor asked when we studied this passage:

When did the enemy start sowing?

Jesus said that “the tares are the children of the wicked one, (v38).” In John 8:44 Jesus said to the Pharisees “you are of your father the Devil…” identifying the Pharisees as tares. John also said that “Cain was of the evil one and murdered his brother, (1 Jn. 3:12).” If Cain was “of the evil one” then the sowing of the weedy anti-gospel had to have begun at the beginning.

There are two kingdoms.

And two announcements or “words” about those kingdoms.

One kingdom word says that Yahweh, the Maker of Heaven and earth, is the One Who determines and defines Good and Evil.

The other kingdom word says, Yahweh isn’t the only one who can know good and evil. We can be like Him and know (determine) good and evil for ourselves. We can have our own truth.

The Word of God sowed first. Jesus is the Word. He began the world with good seed in Eden. Immediately the enemy sowed his seed of confusion; his “children of the wicked one” like Cain who, (based on “his truth”), murdered his righteous brother Abel.

And so the two plants, the real wheat and the “invasive plants” have lived side-by-side in the vast field of the world.

The servants in the parable ask every atheist’s favorite question. Why doesn’t God just put a stop to evil? Why doesn’t He just send a crew of angel farmhands to go rip out every last weed?

Unbelievers (and honestly, many believers) already have a problem with the judgment of God. Here are 3 typical examples:

• “Why did God command Joshua to wipe out entire groups of people? That’s genocide! The God of the Bible is a cruel tyrant!”
• “If God the Father put the sin of the world on His Son and allowed Him to be put to death, then He’s a cosmic child-abuser.”
• “I don’t understand how you could serve a God who lets people go to Hell.”

If people have a problem now, imagine if God sent a bunch of angels (or any other means) and ripped out every unbeliever on earth and threw them into Hell.

“The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.”
‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭3‬:‭9‬ ‭NLT‬‬

“Dear brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return. Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains in the fall and in the spring. They eagerly look for the valuable harvest to ripen.”
‭‭James‬ ‭5‬:‭7‬ ‭NLT‬‬

The crop isn’t quite ripe yet. The LORD knows what He is doing.

When He comes to judge the earth and separate the wheat from the tares, I think the scriptures show us that the tares will be fully mature and fixed in their rebellion. Not even the civilization-ending plagues and catastrophes described in the Revelation will cause them to repent. The faithful will be refined and will continue to trust the Lord and walk with Him no matter how crazy it gets. It will be unmistakably clear to everyone which people are wheat and which are tares.

According to the parable, the wheat and tares will be gathered at the same time. Now that’s a take we typically do not consider. We generally think of the righteous being removed and whatever is left behind is torched. This parable (and other texts) indicate the bad are removed and then the righteous can finally really shine in the liberated kingdom.

Heaven’s perspective of time is different than earth, so I make no suggestions on how long this might take to unfold or when it would happen. Perhaps “the same time” in Heaven is years apart on earth. I have no idea.

Personally, I think the Parable of the Wheat & Weeds and Jesus’ explanation of it may be describing these two, back-to-back harvests:

“Then I saw a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was someone like the Son of Man. He had a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Then another angel came from the Temple and shouted to the one sitting on the cloud, “Swing the sickle, for the time of harvest has come; the crop on earth is ripe.” So the one sitting on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the whole earth was harvested.

After that, another angel came from the Temple in heaven, and he also had a sharp sickle. Then another angel, who had power to destroy with fire, came from the altar. He shouted to the angel with the sharp sickle, “Swing your sickle now to gather the clusters of grapes from the vines of the earth, for they are ripe for judgment.” So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and loaded the grapes into the great winepress of God’s wrath. The grapes were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress in a stream about 180 miles long and as high as a horse’s bridle.”
‭‭Revelation‬ ‭14‬:‭14‬-‭20‬ ‭NLT‬‬

The Parable of the Fishing Net has this same idea. ALL of the fish get “harvested” together. The good ones are kept and the bad ones are thrown away.

KINGDOM PARABLES

The mustard seed and the yeast (leaven) parables are all about a tiny thing growing until it has a huge effect. A mustard seed and a bit of yeast are insignificant at first but they do not remain so. What Jesus has brought to the earth is tiny at the moment; only impacting a few thousand people in one tiny speck on the globe. But it will grow until it has permeated the whole earth.

The parables about the treasure in the field and the pearl of great value show how the kingdom is more valuable than all of one’s earthly possessions. If we understood the value of the Kingdom of God, we would happily sell everything we owned to have it, and consider it a bargain.

Imagine being one of those Antiques Road Show experts and you’re at a Sotheby’s Auction. A rare piece is brought out. They know it’s valuable but they don’t know what you know. It’s the only one of its kind. It can’t really be valued, not even in millions. It’s priceless. You’d have to mortgage your home, sell your car and cash out your retirement, but you could scrape together just enough to get it. And if you do, your net worth rockets from less than a million to billion with a B.

JESUS GOES TO NAZARETH

I wonder how it was when Jesus went home to visit His family. This is the most complete list of Jesus family in the Gospels. There are at least 6 of them:

• James, who wrote the book of James
• Joseph (junior), possibly also called Joses (Mark 15:40)
• Simon
• Judas (Jude) who wrote the little book of Jude
• Sisters (plural, so at least 2), one of whom may have been Salome (Mark 15:40, 16:1)

There are 3 basic theories on how they were related to Jesus. And I added a 4th.

1. Step-Siblings: Joseph was an older widower and these were his children from a previous marriage.
2. Biological Siblings: Mary and Joseph had 6 or more children after Jesus was born.
3. Cousins: Jerome had a view that these were actually cousins as he held to the belief of Mary’s perpetual virginity. If Joseph passed away before He and Mary had other children and his brother “performed the duty of a brother” and took Mary as a wife in a Levarite Marriage and this brother had children from a previous marriage they would be Jesus’ cousins but also His brothers and sisters.
4. Yours, Mine & Ours: some combination of 1 and 2, or 1, 2, and 3.

At any rate, the people of Nazareth just couldn’t see Jesus as even a mighty prophet, let alone the Messiah. He was just the carpenter’s son.

Which just goes to show why we shouldn’t allow the neighbors to determine who we are in the Kingdom of God or what the Lord has called us to do.