The Parable of the Tares of the Field

All seven parables of Matthew 13 are connected by a common theme describing the rudiments of the kingdom of heaven. This establishes the context of the second parable recorded in Matthew 13:24-30 with its interpretation in vss. 36-43. Although it was coined by the disciples as the parable of the tares of the field, a review of the parable’s types reveals that Jesus’s primary purpose was focused more so on the welfare of the wheat than on the judgment of the tares.

Christ addresses the wheat and the tares in terms of the entire class of each and not as individuals, similar to Scriptural references to the classes of the “just” and the “unjust.” The “Son of man” (vs. 37) sowed the “word of the kingdom” (vs. 19) in the Parable of the Sower that became embodied in a class of true disciples described in this following parable as sprouting from “good seed” into a good wheat crop (“the children of the kingdom,” vs. 38). While the watchmen “slept” (vs. 25; 1 Thessalonians 5:6), the “enemy” (“devil,” vs. 39) sowed tares (“sons of the wicked,” false disciples, vs. 38) among the wheat in the same field (Galatians 2:4; 2 Peter 2:1-3; Jude 1:4).

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Author: Ian Crude

Keywords: Judgment, Judgement, Tares, Wheat and tares, Tares and wheat, Wheat field, Darnel, Excommunication, Good seed, Bad seed

Bible reference(s): Matthew 13:24-30, Matthew 13:36-43

Source: “The Parable of the Tares of the Field,” The Christadelphian Advocate, June 2013, pp. 161-164.

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