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nel mixed with the wheat will ruin the crop and the easiest best time to remove the darnel would be immediately after it sprouted leaves and so removing the darnel at that time would have been the best bet to protect his crop but removing the darnel also would have damaged a significant portion of the good crop now if this farmer is making a value judgment about the pros and cons of removing the darnel then removing it would absolutely be his best bet and removing it at the earliest possible time would minimize the damage done to the rest of his crops this is why rival farmers used to do this because it would cause his rival a loss of crops and a loss of income as many good plants would be destroyed in the process of removing the darnel but this parable is not a real farmer with a real problem this parable is something that jesus has thrown alongside to allow us to make comparisons that lead us to a truth and what jesus is really telling us here is that god in his great love and patience is going to allow the children of the evil one to continue to live among the children of the kingdom in order to ensure that every single one of his beloved children has every available opportunity to turn to him and live does this mingling of the children of the evil one and the children of the kingdom have the potential to create real world problems for people especially for the children of the kingdom absolutely and it often does and when this happens there can be no question that these real world problems can seem to be deeply unfair and to those who have not yet received the word these real world problems could appear to be a sign to them that god doesn t care or that he doesn t exist at all but when we stop to think about this we come to the difficult conclusion that those who are calling this unfair are thinking only about themselves they are not thinking about those who are desperately in need of hearing the word and as hard as it may be to accept this christians are called to think about others before they think about themselves the question that the christian needs to be asking themselves in these circumstances is am i willing to be inconvenienced to be disadvantaged or even to be hurt in order that another person may have the time that they need to become a child of the kingdom is temporary suffering a reasonable price to pay for the saving of the eternal soul of another human being it is a tough question isn t it and it s the exact question that jesus had to answer for himself in the garden of gethsemane the exact question that caused jesus to sweat great drops of blood it is a very very difficult question indeed but the believer always needs to remember that god s highest priority is reconciliation and the believer also needs to remember that if god instantly judged sin there would be nobody left because we are all sinners saved only by the grace love and patience of god it s just that we happened to be saved a little earlier than some others and so jesus asks his children to persevere to hang in there and to continue to love others and to continue to share the gospel because as the old saying goes the people of the evil one are not the enemy they are victims of the enemy and god is seeking to reconcile as many of those people of the evil one to himself as he possibly can and god is calling on us to be the ones who bring to them the words of salvation the words of life what is it that jesus said love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you chelsey harmon says the reality of how farming works both then and now is a cue to us to pay attention to the surprise in this parable the surprise that the farmer doesn t remove the threat to the wheat until the harvest challenges us to trust the farmer who is seemingly going about his trade in the wrong way this parable isn t a lesson on how we approach evil in the world it s about being able to comprehend the bigger picture of the reality that the kingdom is already here but evil is still present and will be present until the final judgement 2 the key for the believer is to trust do we trust that god knows what he is doing do we do we trust that god has a plan and do we trust that god will not only make all things right but that god is going to make all things awesome beyond our capacity to understand i can t say this loudly enough god will reward the faithful we must have trust that as paul wrote to the church in corinth no eye has seen no ear has heard and no mind has conceived the things that god has prepared for those who love him and as for those who choose not to love him well all of that darnel is going to be gathered bundled and thrown into the fire that blazing furnace is not a joke however it is that we choose to understand that blazing furnace and this is really just another instance of the finite trying to understand the infinite whether we accept the existence of eternal flames or whether we accept this as allegorical or whether we accept this as something that is just totally beyond our comprehension the one thing of which we are certain is the fact that there is going to come a time when the people of the evil one will be eternally separated from god separated from god s love separated from god s care separated from god s righteousness and if that isn t hell then i don t know what is the truth is when i stop to think about this separation from god isn t something that i would wish on my worst enemy and so in spite of the potential for difficulties the call to us is to trust god to believe that he knows what he is doing and most important to believe that his plan is good even when we can t see that ourselves his call to us is to as we are going bring the gospel to the ends of the earth we must carry the good news even to the people of the evil one we must love others even those who are difficult to love even those who reject our love because this is exactly what jesus did and so we emulate jesus in a way that through our love and even though our love for the people of the evil one those to whom we witness may discover for themselves this incredible love that god has for them judgement is a hard thing to talk about it s even a hard thing to think about the fact that there are those who will suffer an eternity separated from god is too horrible a thought to even consider and this is why we make the hard choice to love the unlovable for those of us who are repulsed at the very idea of final judgement i would like to close with something that i have said many times in my lifetime to many different people who have asked me questions about the judgement when the day comes that god reconciles the world to himself we will all stand in open mouthed astonishment at the depth of god s mercy and at the rightness of his judgments and until that day comes my friends we are going to have to put our faith in him and trust him 1 saunders stanley p preaching the gospel of matthew pg 129 2 chelsey harmon cepreaching org commentary on matthew 13 24 30 36 43 tags bible christianity faith god jesus posted in uncategorized leave a comment good soil july 13 2026 july 12 2026 matthew 13 1 9 18 23 the really cool thing about parables is the fact that you can look at them in different ways and very often learn different things based on how you look at that parable in the greek the word παραβολή para bow láy is a compound word consisting of the words παρα which means alongside and βολή which means to throw so to tell a parable is to throw something alongside in other words to use one thing to describe another when jesus uses parables what he is really doing is inviting the listener to think deeper tom long explained that jesus preached in these confusing parables in order to make people deeper thinkers about what the gospel is all about jesus did not want to have people grab the gospel too quickly because such a quick grab almost always resulted in bad faith or shallow faith that did not last long 1 sort of like the seed on the rocky soil that we will learn more about in a minute and so the object of the parables is to throw something alongside so that we can make a comparison that illuminates a truth in today s reading we have a parable about a farmer planting seed and about the results that the farmer receives based on where the seed fell the parable was spoken to a crowd at a lakeside but fortunately we have the benefit of a subsequent conversation that jesus had with the disciples where he explained the whole parable and so let s take a look at today s story it s the beginning of the planting season and a farmer is out scattering seed some of the seeds fall on the path where birds snatch it up some of the seeds fall on places where there was a thin layer of dirt over rock and the plants couldn t take root some of the seeds fall among the thorny bushes and were choked so they couldn t grow and some of the seeds fall on good soil where they take root and thrive and reading on just a little bit further we can hear jesus himself explain this parable satan steals the word from people who hear it but don t receive it just like the birds steal the seed from the path one who initially receives the word but doesn t live it has faith with no roots and at the first sign of adversity their faith withers just like the rootless plants on the rock those for whom the message of faith becomes lost in the day to day struggles of life will have what little faith they have choked just like the plants that fell among the thorn bushes but those who receive and live the word become fruitful just like the seeds that fell on the good soil and they return a hundred or sixty or thirty times what was sown and so yes there are different ways that different people respond to the word and different ways that people respond to the parables for those who are curious for those who have been blessed with a desire to know and to understand the word the parables will be an avenue to even greater understanding but for those who have no interest or for those who can t be bothered the parables taken simply at face value will make no sense at all warren wiersbe says jesus did not teach in parables to confuse or condemn the people rather he sought to excite their interest and arouse their curiosity these parables would give light to those with trusting searching hearts but they would bring darkness to the unconcerned and unrepentant 2 and so any parable s meaning will be in large part determined by the amount of thought put into finding out how that which is thrown alongside relates to the heart of the message and if that was the end of today s story this would be the shortest sermon ever but hold on a moment because we aren t quite done seeing what else may have been revealed by that which was thrown alongside this parable as we read jesus explanation it probably leaves us asking the question what kind of soil am i and our assumption is that each kind of soil is a different kind of person but what if each of these types of soil are a part of who we are what happens if one day we joyfully hear and receive the word but the next day we have a crisis and our faith is shaken wouldn t that mean that one day we were the good soil but the next we were the rocky soil what happens if we hear a passage that is difficult or if we find that we are being called to do something that we would really prefer not to do is our faith going to carry us through this or are we going to sweep that verse under the rug and wouldn t our sweeping that verse under the rug mean that today our soil was the hard dirt of the path and what if a new job or a new relationship or a new baby monopolized our time drawing us away from the church away from the community of believers and away from our study of the word wouldn t that be like the thorn bushes choking the seedlings to assume that we are only one kind of dirt will pretty much always mean that we think of ourselves as always being the good soil and more often than not we are i mean we re all in church right but there may be times in each of our lives when our ability to receive the word or to live the word may be compromised and so it is a very good thing for us to be able to recognize what kind of soil we may be on that particular day or in that particular instance so that we can always return to the word and always return to the faithful service to which we are called and indeed in which we delight this is why jesus said whoever has ears let them hear jesus doesn t give us any further instruction on this parable beyond this but what he is doing is he is calling us not just to hear his words but to immerse ourselves in the story in order to discern his meaning and then to take what we learn and to apply it in our lives so that we may more consistently become that good soil that bears fruit saunders says how then do we know if we have understood jesus parable rightly fruit is the answer when we see the evidence of god s healing mercy gathering and restoration and we hear the announcements of good news we know that god has drawn near in power the fruit of obedience grows when we conform our lives to the reality of god s presence 3 the fruit of the seeds that jesus is sowing here is discipleship jesus is calling all upon whom the seed falls to become a part of his mission to become a part of his call to share the gospel to the ends of the earth to become a part of his plan to go and make disciples and ultimately for us to become one with jesus and with the father through the holy spirit but i m still not done because there is one more thing that has been thrown alongside and i am wondering if anyone has seen it i actually learned a bit about agriculture this week and learned some fascinating things about modern agricultural technology did you know that farmers use lasers to level their fields because a level field means more consistent irrigation did you know that farmers have planting machines that are controlled by computers that distribute seed in the absolute optimum density and configuration not one seed is wasted each individual seed that is planted is given the best possible circumstances to produce maximum growth because seed is expensive and wasting seed is inefficient and reduces profits even in the first century farmers would be judicious with their seeds they knew from experience exactly how much area one handful of seed would cover and they wouldn t waste their money with overseeding a first century farmer wouldn t scatter seed on the path or drop it among the thorn bushes that would just be a foolish waste of money and yet here in our story today we have a farmer who is scattering seed willy nilly just throwing it everywhere one of my commentaries gave a hilarious example of a modern day farmer starting up his computer controlled seeding machine while he was still parked in the driveway scattering seed on the blacktop he pulls out onto the road with seed still flying everywhere on the ...