Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Tares

The purpose of this site is to provide answers to difficult problems that mature Christians have. The first one deals with the question of why we see so much evil in the lives of people who profess to be Christians, and who claim to have been saved for years.
It includes the problems of dirty church politics, Christian backstabbing, and people who seize control of good churches. I hope it is helpful to you.

1) There MUST be tares.

In Matthew 13:24-30, Jesus told this parable:
24 ¶ Another parable He put forth to them, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field;
25 "but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.
26 "But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.
27 "So 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?'
28 "He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, 'Do you want us then to go and gather them up?'
29 "But he said, 'No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.
30 'Let 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."'"

Tares were common in Palestine back then, even as they are now. They are a form of grass called "darnel." Darnel looks and acts like wheat. It thrives or fails in the same soil conditions, weather, and rainfall as wheat.
Even an expert cannot tell them apart, until they produce fruit. Darnel produces a poisonous grain. When accidentally threshed and mixed with wheat, the combined flour produces a bread that produces headaches and nausea.

After sowing the tares, SATAN LEAVES! He does not train them; we do. We, the people of God, train the tares in Scripture, church government, Christian service, etc. The tares look and act like wheat. They thrive and grow like wheat. They become deacons, teachers, committee leaders, and even pastors like wheat. They study the Bible, turn from sin, and even win souls like wheat.

A common misinterpretation of this parable is that we should not root out the tares, because we can't tell the difference between them and wheat. But if you read the story carefully, you'll see that the servants COULD tell the difference, but only after the fruit had been produced.

The problem was that the roots of the tares were so intertwined with the roots of the wheat that if you started accusing faithful church members of being tares, you would destroy genuine Christians who had been misled by them.

Another common misinterpretation is that the Owner is only talking to angels. But the word "servants" is often used in parables for soul-winners, and that's who the Owner is talking to. The Owner explains to the servants that at the harvest, He will have the "reapers" separate the two. He tells His servants not to uproot the tares, because that will do more harm than good.

We have to realize that we will have lost people in our churches who will sometimes rise to positions of leadership. Sometimes genuine Christians will be hurt by them. Remember that God didn't fail. He is Good, and His Word is good. It is Satan, waging war against God and His saints, who is to blame for what went wrong.

Satan doesn't train them; we do.
They look and behave like wheat.
They produce poisonous fruit.
Their roots are intertwined with the wheat.
You CAN tell the difference.
You can't uproot them.