The Distinguished Seed

By Apostle Felix

24  Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:
25  But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. 

Matthew 13: 24, 25

Jesus was born and lived in an agrarian culture so most of His teaching aids such as parables had to do with farming. If Jesus had lived in our generation, then most of His examples in parables were going to do with technology, such as AI. Our society is not agrarian like it was in Jesus’s time. So then the parables need interpretation in order to understand the original intent of the parable. Oftentimes, we miss the original meaning of the parables because we read and understand them through today’s lens.

In the parable of the weeds, Jesus likened the kingdom of God to a farmer who sowed good seed in his field. So the kingdom of God is very much involved in sowing good seeds. God does not sow bad seeds, because apostle James said, ‘Every good gift and perfect gift is from the Lord.

17  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
James 1: 17

Whatever God does is good, and no way evil can be from Him. However, every time God does good in your life, the enemy is also determined to sow a contrary seed in your life. His intentions are to contradict what the Lord is doing in your life. Satan wants to paint God black and to make Him look like a bad Father. We often hear believers saying God is punishing him for what he did, when one is going through challenges. God does not inflict His children with pain in order to discipline them.

In the agrarian time, it was common for one’s farm to be sabotaged by another farmer. The sabotage involved the sowing of harmful weeds called darnel that had similar characteristics like wheat. The weed looked just like the wheat. The two plants looked identical in the early stage of growth. But as they mature, the difference will be noticeable and the difference become apparent in fruit. The darnel weed’s fruit is poisonous and can kill when eaten in large quantity. The problem the weed caused was to entangle its roots with the good plants. Weeding them out would mean destroying the good plants as well.

When the farmer sowed good seeds in his field, the enemy came along and sowed weeds in the same field while men slept. Jesus explained the parable in this manner: The farmer is the Son of man, referring to Himself, the field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom of God and the weeds are the children of the wicked one. The enemy is the devil, the harvest is the end of the world and the reapers are angels. The kingdom of God sows righteous children, while the kingdom of darkness sows wicked children. The problem to understand the parable lies in the cohabitation of good and bad. The parable is about the good seed and the weeds planted in the world, not in the church. The church’s responsibility is not to uproot the weeds from the world, but simply to continue bearing the fruit of righteousness and reaching the world with the gospel of Christ. The imposters will always be there in the field, which is the world. The seeds of the wicked are around us all the time. We find them in our families, work places and our neighborhoods but we don’t have to discard them. Live with them but don’t become like them. Be the light and the salt. In the parable, the farmer, who is Jesus stopped the workers from rooting out the weeds lest they root out the wheat too.