Bible Study series: Matthew 13:24-30. We must leave judgment of the world in God’s hands. Let’s not presume to judge worldly people before God’s time.
A warm welcome to this Bible study! I write to learn, so let’s learn together. I also translate to learn. The translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click on this link:
In the next link to the original chapter, I comment more and offer the Greek text. At the bottom you will find a “Summary and Conclusion” section geared toward discipleship. Check it out!
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Matthew 13:24-30
24 He presented to them another parable, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 While the laborers were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and left. 26 When the grass sprouted and produced grain, then the weeds also appeared. 27 The servants of the head of household approached and said to him, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed your field? Where then do the weeds come from?’ 28 He said to them, ‘The enemy did this!’ The servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and pull them out’? 29 But he said, ‘No, in case you uproot both the wheat and the weeds while you gather the weeds. 30 Leave both to grow together until the harvest, and at harvesttime I’ll say to the harvesters, “First gather the weeds and tie them into bundles to burn them. But gather the wheat into my barn.”’ (Matt. 13:24-30)
Comments:
Jesus interprets this parable in vv. 36-43. Let’s wait till then to go into more detail. For now, here are some briefer comments.
24-30:
“parable”: see v. 3 for more comments.
“kingdom of heaven”: see vv. 11-17 for more explanation.
“laborers”: it literally reads “men,” but the context allows for “laborers.” They could include women since they too went out to harvest. Everyone had to work during peak sowing and growing season.
“weeds”: the darnel plant that looks a lot like wheat during their sprouting, but having poisonous seeds (Olmstead, p. 326). “It would be difficult for the workers to root out so many tares without damaging the wheat at this stage. … They had grown enough that their roots were already intertwined with those of the wheat; uprooting thus might endanger the wheat (13:29). After the wheat and darnel were grown, they were easily distinguished and reapers could gather the darnel, which did have one use: given the scarcity of fuel, it would be burned. … Wheat was normally gathered and bound in sheaves, then transported, probably on donkeys, to the village (or, in this case, the large estate own) threshing floor … then stored” (Keener, p. 387).
“servants”: The word servants here is doulos (singular and pronounced doo-loss; the plural is douloi and pronounced doo-loi) and could be translated as slaves, but I chose servants because in Jewish culture a Hebrew man who sold himself into servitude to his fellow Jew was like an indentured servant whose term of service had a limit; he was freed in the seventh year. But then the indentured servant could stay with his family, if he liked his owner (Exod. 21:2-6; Lev. 25:38-46; Deut. 15:12-18). So there was a lot of liberty even in servitude, in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).
Slavery and Freedom in the Bible
It is a sure thing, however, that Matthew’s Greek-speaking audience, knowledgeable about Greek culture, would have heard “slaves” in the word douloi. So if you wish to interpret it like that, then that’s your decision. But culturally at that time, slavery had nothing to do with colonial or modern slavery.
In this context, it means both the end times and the first definition and (b). God will send out his harvesters and separate them out (vv. 41-42).
Blomberg says that we should not be over-zealous and purge the world of evil:
Just as the wheat and weeds were often superficially similar in appearance and if sown too close to each other were too intermingled in their root systems to be pulled up separately, so too God’s people are sometimes outwardly hard to distinguish from his enemies. They can be too interconnected with them in society for anyone to try to purify the world from evil without hurting those who are good. Nevertheless, in Jesus’ society many Zealots, and at times even his disciples (cf. Luke 9:54), were often eager for precisely this to happen. Jesus warns them they must wait for the final judgment. (comment on 13:24-30)
I add: too many over-zealous Christians want to remove people from the kingdom, too.
GrowApp for Matt. 13:24-30
1. How has the enemy sown bad seed (false gospel and doctrine) into your life? How did you overcome it?
RELATED
9. Authoritative Testimony in Matthew’s Gospel
1. Church Fathers and Matthew’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
To see the bibliography, please click on this link and scroll down to the bottom.
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