We all know how frustrating it is to deal with weeds. Per­haps you’ve planted a vegetable or flower garden, only to find rather quickly that the weeds were more numerous than the plants you were expecting to see sprout from the ground. Perhaps you looked out over the weeds and won­dered whether the painstaking and backbreaking labor would be worth it.

The problem that presents itself in the parable of the tares, however, is more serious yet. As they sprout and grow, tares look practically identical to wheat. It is nearly impos­sible to identify them correctly; the difference only becomes obvious at harvest time.

The Scenery⤒🔗

Matthew is the only gospel writer who includes the parable of the tares. It is the second among a series of seven parables that deal with the mystery of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 13:11). This parable and the parable of the sower are the only parables for which Christ gives an explicit explanation (vv. 36-43).

This parable begins by introducing us to a sower and his seed, as did the parable of the sower. But Christ speaks now of good seed, as opposed to a good soil (Matt. 13:24; see Matt. 13:8). The farmer sows good wheat seed on his field, but then, at night, an enemy of the farmer oversows it with bad seed. Jesus used the word “tares” to describe this bad seed. An expert in botany explained that the tare is not a weed, but actually an inferior, and unusable, member of the same family of grasses that includes wheat. As it grows, it is virtually indistinguishable from wheat. Only its leaf size is different, and only by a few millimeters. You can only clearly tell the difference when you get towards the harvest, and the useless (some even say, poisonous) kernel appears.

According to the parable, there is a point when the ser­vants of the master do recognize what has happened (v. 27). They suggest to their master that they try to separate out the wheat from the tares. He responds: “Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest” (vv. 29-30). It’s clear from the householder’s answer that only in the final stage will the difference between the wheat and the tares be such that the reapers can separate the two accurately and effectively. Until then, the two must grow together.

The Substance←⤒🔗

It is important to notice how the parable opens: “The king­dom of heaven is likened...” (Matt. 13:24). Some people have been confused by the fact that Christ later explains that the field is “the world,” and assume that He is teach­ing that there are both good and bad people in the world at large. Though that is true, Christ is here focused on the kingdom in the world, in other words, on the visible church. The way God through Christ brings His reign of grace into this world (the field) could be compared to sowing.

Notice that in this parable the seed is not the Word of God (as it was in the parable of the sower), but the people whom God has regenerated through His Spirit by means of His Word (1 Pet. 1:23; James 1:18). Christ tells us that the “good seed are the children of the kingdom” (v. 38). They have the good heart (Luke 8:15), which God alone can give through the miracle of the rebirth. This comparison was also used in Hosea, where God says of His people, “I will sow her unto me in the earth” (Hos. 2:23). This is the first aspect of the kingdom in the world, namely, the true children of the kingdom.

There is also a second aspect: the bad seed, or as Christ explains, “the children of the wicked one” (v. 38). Now Christ is speaking about more than just the mystery of the kingdom. He is explaining what Scripture elsewhere calls “the mystery of iniquity” (2 Thess. 2:7). Contrary to what many imagine, the kingdom of God does not come in one sweeping devel­opment, where things simply get better and better. Instead, there is “an enemy” (v. 28). Satan is the wicked imitator of the Lord; he tries to parallel what the Lord does, but through evil means and to evil ends. He comes under the cover of night. That means it is impossible to know and see exactly what he has done. The results often can only be seen much later.

Christ’s parable, then, is taking the whole history of the world and compressing it into one agricultural cycle of sowing and reaping. All those in the visible church from all times and places are in this field. There is wheat as well as tares; unregenerate and regenerate; Jacobs as well as Esau’s; elect and reprobate; true believers as well as hypocrites.

At first, it is as if there is no apparent difference between all these plants on the field of the visible church. The good and bad seed grow up together. People come into your church and everything seems well, but the devil has brought them in under the cover of night. Others grow up in the church and everything seems to be going well with them. However the devil brought them in under the cover of night as well, and in the end there is among them only bad fruit.

Throughout the history of the kingdom, there has always been the tendency to want to put in the sickle of judgment before the allotted time. How often church leaders or other Christians, like the servants in the parable, have been too hasty in judgment and in their desire to purge the church.

So often we want to rid ourselves of those whom we con­sider blight on the kingdom of God. Two of Jesus’ own dis­ciples, James and John, on one occasion, asked Christ: “Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?” (Luke 9:54). If the householder of the parable had let his servants do what they wanted, they might indeed have gotten rid of some of the tares. But likely they would have missed plenty as well. More importantly, they would have pulled up some of the wheat with the tares. The householder’s primary concern here is that none of the wheat be lost. After all, the tares do not hurt the wheat; they only obscure it – and only for a time. God will ensure that not a single stalk of wheat will be mistaken as a tare in the end, no matter how mixed up the two are in the field.

The Savior←⤒🔗

Christ is present in the parable in three ways. First, Christ is the source of His people. He sows His people in the field of this world that they might live forever to the glory and praise of God. Nothing of His work will be lost, for in the end the righteous shall “shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (v. 43). It’s important to notice how this par­able puts the work of Christ first. Before the enemy can do anything, Christ sows His people. And Satan cannot undo what Christ has done. He cannot consume the seed of Christ; he only can confuse the people of God (for a time) by trying to copy what the Lord does and working deceit.

Second, Christ is the exposer of Satan’s devices. He helps His people understand “the mystery of iniquity.” Notice that in the parable the servants do not know where the tares could have come from. The householder needs to explain that the enemy has sown them (v. 28). Sometimes we wonder why so many bad things happen in the church: corruption, abuse, strife, dissension, and so on. As a result, we even wonder whether the visible church is indeed God’s work. Shouldn’t we expect the church to be all neat and tidy if it is truly the Lord’s work? Instead, Christ here reveals that it’s precisely because the church is God’s work that the devil comes alongside and sows his evil seed as well.

Third, Christ is the patient protector of His people. The comfort of the parable is that Christ does not need to depend on His servants to root out the problem of the tares. Instead, He has come to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). He did so principally on the cross, and He will do so in a final way at the end of time in a way in which none of His own work will be ruined.

How patient Christ shows Himself to be! He allows the wicked and the righteous to coexist until the full harvest is ready. He so loves His own work that He endures the work of Satan up to a point that will most magnificently display His own glory. Paul describes the Lord’s patience this way: “What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction”? (Rom. 9:22) What patience and care on the part of the Savior!

Lessons←⤒🔗

The parable teaches us three basic lessons.

We need heavenly insight. Just as the servants needed the perspective of their master on the situation in the field, so we need the Lord’s perspective. We need it especially as it pertains to the presence of evil in our lives, in the church, and in the world, as well as what His purposes are in the midst of this world.

We need heavenly patience. The servants in this parable needed the same patience as their Master. Just because there is wickedness on every side and things seem to be getting worse rather than better doesn’t mean that God’s purposes will fail. We need patience in order to do what God com­mands, and wait to inherit the full promise when He wants us to have it (see Heb. 10:36). Christians are people whose hearts are directed to patiently wait for the full fulfillment of God purposes (see 2 Thess. 3:5).

We need heavenly hope. This is the flip side of the coin of our need for patience. Believers can take encouragement from the vast difference between the final destination of the wheat and the final destination of the tares. For many weeks, the tares grew in harmony with the wheat, with their roots even intertwined, perhaps. Yet, the day came when they were perfectly separated, and every stalk of good wheat ended up safely in the Master’s barn. May our hope be for the day when all the mixture will be over and done with, and then only to shine brightly in the kingdom of God (v. 42).

Questions←⤒🔗

1. There are some similarities as well as differences between this parable and the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:1-8). If, when you read the parable of the tares, you are afraid you do not belong to God’s people, how might the parable of the sower help you?
    
2. “Let them both grow together” (v. 30). Could this be said to contradict, what Christ teaches elsewhere in Matthew about church discipline (Matt. 18:18-19)? How then can we properly apply verse 30 of our parable to the church?
    
3. Find other passages that also show how patiently Christ endures the mixture of His church. Can this teach us to have more patience with the imperfections and inadequacies that we see in the church around us?
    
4. What practical lessons does this parable teach about how Satan works? What other things does Scripture tells us about Satan’s schemes or devices?