This chapter records the events of a crisis day in the ministry of Jesus Christ. He knew that the growing opposition of the religious leaders would lead to His crucifixion. This fact He had to explain to His disciples. But their logical question would be, “What will happen to the kingdom about which we have been preaching?” That question is answered in this series of parables. So, He first explained the truth concerning the kingdom, and then later explained to them the facts about the Cross.

Our Lord’s use of parables puzzled the disciples. He had used some parables in His teaching already, but on that day He gave a series of seven interrelated parables, then added an eighth. The word parable means “to cast alongside.” It is a story, or comparison, that is put alongside something else to help make the lesson clear. Why did Jesus teach in parables? Two reasons were given: because of the sluggishness of the people (Matt. 13:10-17) and because it was prophesied in Psalm 78:2 (Matt. 13:34-35).

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.

But these are not ordinary parables; Jesus called them “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 13:11). In the New Testament, a “mystery” is a spiritual truth understood only by divine revelation. It is a “sacred secret” known only to those “on the inside” who learn from the Lord and obey Him.

Read Matthew 13:24-30.  The pictures in this parable would be clear and familiar to a Palestinian audience. Tares were one of the curses against which a farmer had to labor.  They were a weed called bearded darnel.  In their early stages the tares so closely resembled the wheat that it was impossible to distinguish the one from the other.  When both had headed out it was easy to distinguish them; but by that time their roots were so intertwined that the tares could not be weeded out without tearing the wheat out with them.

Thomson in The Land and the Book tells how he saw the tares in the Wady Hamam:  “The grain is just in the proper stage of development to illustrate the parable.  In those parts where the grain has headed out, the tares (bearded darnel) have done the same, and there a child cannot mistake them for wheat or barley; but when both are less developed, the closest scrutiny will often fail to detect them.  I cannot do it at all with any confidence.  Even the farmers, who in this country generally weed their fields, do not attempt to separate the one from the other.  They would not only mistake good grain for them, but very commonly the roots of the two are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate them without plucking up both.  Both, therefore, must be left to grow together until the time of harvest.”

The wheat and tares could not be safely separated when both were growing, but in the end they had to be separated, because the grain of the bearded darnel is slightly poisonous.  It causes dizziness and sickness and is narcotic in its effects, and even a small amount has a bitter and unpleasant taste.  In the end it was usually separated by hand.  So then the darnel in its early stages was indistinguishable from the wheat, but in the end it had to be laboriously separated from it, or the consequences were serious.

The picture of a man deliberately sowing darnel in someone else’s field is by no means only imagination.  That was actually sometimes done.  To this day in India one of the direst threats which a man can make to his enemy is “I will sow bad seed in your field.”  And in codified Roman law this crime is forbidden and its punishment laid down.

(i)  It teaches us that there is always a hostile power in the world, seeking and waiting to destroy the good seed.  Our experience is that both kinds of influence act upon our lives, the influence which helps the seed of the word to flourish and to grow, and the influence which seeks to destroy the good seed before it can produce fruit at all.  The lesson is that we must be forever on our guard.

(ii)  It teaches us how hard it is to distinguish between those who are in the Kingdom and those who are not.  A man may appear to be good and may in fact be bad; and a man may appear to be bad and may yet be good.  Only God knows the heart. We are much too quick to classify people and label them good or bad without knowing all the facts

Jesus is telling us that His community will always be a mixed community; the church will always have its sinners and hypocrites. Only at the harvest will the final separation take place. The church will always be a mixture of the “good and the bad” and it is God who will be responsible for making the final separation.

 (iii)  It teaches us not to be so quick with our judgments.  If the reapers had had their way, they would have tried to tear out the darnel and they would have torn out the wheat as well.  Judgment had to wait until the harvest came.  A man in the end will be judged, not by any single act or stage in his life, but by his whole life.  A man may make a great mistake, and then redeem himself and, by the grace of God, atone for it by making the rest of life a lovely thing.  A man may live an honorable life and then in the end wreck it all by a sudden collapse into sin.  No one who sees only part of a thing can judge the whole; and no one who knows only part of a man’s life can judge the whole man.