No. I don’t believe in a Pre-trib Rapture. I believe in a single return of Christ. And I think the discourse describes this.
And please don’t put words in my mouth; I have never said they are “exactly the same”. I said they are almost exactly the same, and anyone reading the two passages side by side can see how close they are.
You may believe I am “not heeding” scripture and “rejecting” it by seeing the similarities, but by your logic, we must say that any differences across the gospels show that Christ was speaking of/about different events, or even blatant contradictions, even where he is clearly not. No scholar does that…they take the slight differences in what is clearly an account of the same discourse or parable and put the differences down to the recounting by different people and their understanding/hearing. To argue differently, as I said, would to be to open the door for all those who call into question the veracity of the gospels witness.
Now…you might disagree with me in my ultimate understanding of the Discourse. But I am not ‘rejecting’ or ‘not heeding’ scripture. I am handling it as carefully as I can.
Interesting topic, but if I may add some detail, I think it will help to understand who the “weeds” are and who the “wheat” is, and when the “harvest” is said to take place....
First of all we can see from the parable that satan is the sower of the “weeds”. It is believed to refer to a toxic plant called “Bearded Darnell” which in the Middle East has always been a blight for wheat farmers. It is actually called “wheat’s evil twin” because of the indistinguishable difference between wheat and this weed in the early growing stages. This is why Jesus said not to uproot the weeds in case you uproot the wheat with them. By the time the plants are identifiable, their root systems are so entwined that you cannot remove the weed without harming the wheat.
Farmers would sometimes deliberately oversow an enemy’s crop with this weed to ruin it. This is what the devil did. Jesus planted the wheat, and satan planted the weeds in the same field. At first they were not obvious....
This makes the parable very interesting because what the devil sowed “while men were sleeping” was a counterfeit look-alike “Christianity”. Hard to tell in the beginning, but as time went on the wheat were almost choked out by the corrupting power of the weeds.
“While men were sleeping” could possibly mean when the apostles died, as Paul said that they were acting as a restraint against an apostasy that was foretold and already beginning to take hold towards the end of the first century. (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12)
Those who led “the church” after the first century, like the Pharisees before them, began to introduce traditions and practices that Christ never taught, and led the people away from the truth by forbidding them to read God’s word, so no one could check with the scriptures to see if what they were being taught was true. (Acts 17:10-11) They got away with this for centuries racking up a litany of religious error upon error. No one had the power to stop them, until a priest named Martin Luther nailed his thesis to the church door protesting about their many deviations.
The resulting Protestant Reformation broke the power of the Roman church but it did not unite the Christians...it actually broke them up in to ever more bickering factions.
So wheat and weeds have continued to grow together in the world.....but it has not been a happy union.
Only at the time of the harvest, which is the time of Christ’s return, will the “wheat” be separated from the “weeds” completely. They will basically have nothing in common though both will be professing Jesus as their Lord.
Jesus will send out his angels to collect the weeds, and they will be disposed of before the harvest of the wheat.
Jesus referred to this time of judgment in Matthew 7:21-23...
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ (ESV)
So just identifying as a “Christian” is not enough.....you have to be active in “doing the will of the Father”. Those who try to offer their excuses to Jesus are told in no uncertain terms...”I NEVER KNEW YOU”...and he called them “WORKERS OF LAWLESSNESS”......imagine being on the receiving end of that rejection!! What laws could these “Christians” be breaking?
This is a very interesting parable indeed.....and there is so much more to it than meets the eye.
It was given to a Jewish audience who understood full well the import of the illustration....but do we?
Food for thought.....