Another Parable of Jesus
Allan Hornbuckle
Last Sunday we talked about one of the most well known parables of Jesus, the Parable of the Sower. Directly after that we have a few more that seem to have been taught in the same setting. Matthew 18:24-30, “He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”
In this parable the farming illustration is the same to the parable of the sower, but the point is different. There is good seed in a field as well as weeds. The contrast between that which is useful and will bear fruit and that which is useless and bears nothing of value is the dichotomy. The Bible often uses the comparison of two extreme things to make a clear picture. The idea of being alive and dead, greatest or least of all in the kingdom, focusing on the spiritual or physical of life are just few examples. In this parable the thought is that one is either from good seed which will bear the intended crop, or you are useless and planted by “the enemy” or Satan. The main thrust at the ending is that there is a day coming where Jesus will be dividing the two and the useless will be destroyed. The message is simple, but the illustration makes it memorable and applicable.
The great things about these kinds of parables is the clarity in which they teach a point about spiritual life, while still being grounded in a story with which we can relate. If we are in the right mindset, daily life may present situations to us that we can view as more modern parables from which to learn. My favorite which I have heard recently was someone trying to better explain Luke 6:37 and the wine skins. We do not store wine in the hides of animals anymore, so there is some explanation that must take place to make the point. The person I was referring to made a point about the various types of digital storage cards used for digital cameras. The man states that he had a case for an older format and tried to use the same protective case for a smaller, newer digital storage card. The problem was it did not fit quite right and rattled around within the larger, older case and damaged the card. So in a similar way, the new wine would not have fit within the older wine skins since the process of fermentation would have stretched the skin to the correct size. If one were to put new wine in an old wine skin, the new wine would ferment again within that vessel and it would eventually burst. I immediately understood the passage in a clearer way, because I can relate to digital camera card much easier than carrying wine in an animal skin. If we pay attention, all kinds of mundane things can help us understand the teachings of Jesus as well.