Weeds & Wheat - The Parable of the Wheat and Tares

Matthew 13:24-30

Jesus once again drew the crowd close with a story. In an age before the written word was common, a well-told story was a treasure, and Jesus was the Master storyteller. He spoke with a quiet authority that captured every heart, and with each parable, He pulled back the curtain to offer a glimpse into the Kingdom of Heaven. He would regale them with the parable of the wheat and tares.

He told them of a farmer who went out to his fields, sowing only the finest, purest wheat seed. But under the cover of darkness, an enemy crept in and scattered a different kind of seed among the wheat—a poisonous weed, a tare, that looked almost identical to the young wheat stalks. Its wicked work done, the enemy vanished into the night.

As the weeks passed, the seeds sprouted and grew toward the sun. It was then that the farmer’s workers saw the deception. They came to their master, troubled, saying, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Then where did these weeds come from?’

The wise farmer knew at once. ‘An enemy has done this,’ he said.

His workers asked for their orders, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

‘No,’ the farmer commanded, his voice filled with patient wisdom. ‘If you pull up the weeds now, you risk uprooting the wheat along with them. Let them both grow together until the harvest. Then, at the proper time, I will tell the harvesters to go first and collect the weeds, bind them in bundles to be burned, and then gather my precious wheat safely into my barn.’

In this simple story, Jesus painted a powerful picture for anyone with ears to hear. He was revealing that God’s Kingdom, for a time, contains both the faithful and the false—the wheat and the weeds living side-by-side. It can be nearly impossible for us to tell them apart.

He was teaching that it is not our role to be the final judge, not our place to try and separate the two, for in our haste, we could do more harm than good to the true and righteous. Instead, we are to trust the Farmer. There will be a final harvest, a great and final judgment. On that day, God Himself will give the order to separate the wheat from the tares. All that is righteous and true will be gathered as a treasure into His eternal keeping, while that which is false will face the fire of consequence.

But wait… there’s more. Read about "Rising to the Occasion."