My Walk Through the Book of Matthew by Annette Godtland

The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (Matthew 13:24-30)

24Another parable He put forth to them, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27So the servants of the owner came and said to him, "Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?' 28He said to them, "An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, "Do you want us then to go and gather them up?' 29But he said, "No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn."

A footnote in my Bible says tares were very common in Palestine and closely resemble wheat. They are not really distinguishable from wheat until the grain appears at harvest time. It would not be good to try to remove the tares before harvest time because it would be hard to tell them apart from the wheat. You wouldn't want to accidentally pull up the wheat by mistake, or disturb the roots of the surrounding wheat when pulling up the tares.

Sometimes I wonder why God allows evil to happen around us. Some people have demonstrated over and over that they are going to do evil things. We try to send them to prison, but why does God even let them live? Doesn't He even care about the bad things that happen in our lives because of these people who do evil things?

God planted good seed. The devil planted bad seed. But God said to let them both grow together until the harvest. Why wait till harvest? Because the wheat and tares are not really distinguishable until the grain appears at harvest time, because the good and the bad look almost the same until they produce fruit. Am I the wheat or the tare? God is leaving it up to the fruit which I bare to determine which I am.

The one beside me, which I may think to be a tare, may actually be wheat which has not yet born the good fruit for which it has the potential. Or if God removed the evil from around us, some of the potential for good that God wanted us to do may also be removed. God is letting both grow together. The seed of good and the seed of evil was distributed for everyone. Everyone has potential for either. Everyone, no matter what their past may have been, still has the capability of producing good fruit. At harvest time, God will look at the fruit that has been produced.

Sure, by letting both grow together bad things may happen around us, but that is as nothing compared to what would happen to us if we never bore good fruit. Yes, God cares about what happens to us, so much so that He will not get in the way of us possibly producing good fruit.