About the Text
(24) Who is the "man who sowed good
seed"? Jesus. See verse 37.
(24) Who is the "good seed"? Christian who genuinely believe
and follow Jesus Christ, whom verse 38 also calls the "sons of the kingdom."
(25) Who is the "enemy"? Satan. Verse 38 calls him the
"devil."
(26) Who are the "weeds"? All those who are not true followers
of Jesus, including those who may be in the church. Although this parable can certainly
apply to the way both believers and non-believers live together in the world, God's intent
is to apply this to the church, where both true and false Christians exist. Matthew is
frequently concerned for the church, the people of God. That is why, in his gospel, he
speaks more about false disciples who claim to be lovers of God, than he does about the
outright pagan rejection of God.
(27) Who are the "servants"? Christians who serve the Lord.
Although verses 36-43 does not specifically state so, the context and the manner in which
the question was asked point to the "servants" representing Jesus' disciples.
(28) Why did these servants want to "go and pull [the weeds] up"?
To maintain the purity of God's people, the church. Since the context and application of
this parable is the church, this statement applies to our desire to cut out the "bad
apples" from the group.
In Jesus' day, it was common for the Jewish sects (namely, the Pharisees and Essenes) to try and separate the "godly" from the "ungodly," to keep God's people pure. This zealous desire is still common in the church today, as pastor seek to boot out those who seem to be only half-hearted Christians, and as families seek to boot out "undesirables" from the church.
The problem of giving false Christians "the ax"
is in the next verse.
(29) What did Jesus mean by "rooting up the wheat with them"?
The problem of booting out the ungodly is that we may be booting out true believers too.
When the Roman Emperor Constantine threatened unbelievers with death by the sword, in order to purify the church in the 300's A.D., he mostly likely killed weak, yet true, Christians as well. when the Roman Catholic inquisition in the 1500's sought to purify the church by burning Protestants at the stake, the church burned genuine Christians. in short, purifying the church by eliminating whom we think are the "ungodly" does more harm than good.
Why then does 1 Cor. 5 tell us to expel the immoral from the church? Sometimes we are to expel the ungodly from the church, but only for the purpose of lovingly restoring the erring man, a kind of "tough-love" approach, not for trying to keep our church pure. See 1 Cor. 5:5.
The best way to "weed out" the church is through solid Biblical teaching. As indicated in the previous parable, false Christians will gradually fall away, while true Christians will be glued to the teaching of God's Word and grow from it.
Insights
During times of great ungodliness in the church:
We, because of our limited vision, cannot know for sure who is a true Christian and who is not.
Although Christ desires discipline in the church, the actual purging of false Christians is the work of Christ, not men.
Christ will completely purge false Christians from the church when He returns.
The Bottom Line
Teach, not purge. We must certainly expose sin, but we must also be careful not to inflict harm upon Christians, both weak and strong.
Remember that Christ, out of patience and love for us
sinners, sacrificed His life for us through death on a cross so that we may have a new
life. If Christ so loved us sinners, we too must love all who come into the church, even
those who may seem to be "false brothers." If we must expel the immoral, it must
as a last resort, and only out of love for himl'her, and not out of love for ourselves.