I've often heard it said that wheat cannot become tares and V V...
but the point of the parable is that they are difficult to recognize at the beginning but easily recognizable by the end of their growth.
They are easy to recognise by the fact that they are not the same or even similar to one another any more. At the “harvest”, the differences are easily discernible......they are easily recognised by those differences, not their similarities. Jesus said that “few” are on the ‘cramped and narrow road to life’....(Matthew 7:14-14) This is why.
IOW, I understand this to mean that as we grow in our faith, we must be easily recognizable at harvest time (our death).
Haven't read the rest yet, but would you agree?
The “harvest” in the parable is not our death....it is the end of the present world system when Christ returns to cleanse the earth of all wickedness, and to introduce the blessings of his Kingdom to redeemed mankind. (Revelation 21:2-4)
"WHILE MEN WERE SLEEPING" I think Jesus meant that the Christians were not alert and let some heresy slip in.
I don't believe it means the death of the Apostles because heresies were already entering the church (the earthly institution) because we know for sure that John was very worried about the gnostics and this is who he was referring to in John when he wrote THEY LEFT US BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT OF US.
1 John 2:19
If you read 2 Thessalonians 2:7 you will see that the apostles were holding back the apostasy that Jesus foretold. The “weeds” were “pretend Christians” whose teachings and conduct betrayed a departure from what the Master taught. This apostasy resulted in major heresies that are taught to this day as truth. History is repeating, as it always does because we do not learn the lessons of the past. (Matthew 15:7-9) Introduced “traditions of men” are heresies which are taught as the truth.
Agreed.
Except I wouldn't say from the 2nd century onward.
The church began to fall apart when it became embroiled with affairs of the state.
I believe this started with the Council of Nicea in 325AD when Constantinople removed the illegality of practicing Christianity and then his successor made it the religion of the state in 380AD.
The preceding centuries allowed a slow and gradual acceptance of the doctrines that finally made it into official church doctrine in the 4th century. It didn’t happen overnight.
Full acceptance of false teachings resulted in a church so drunk with its own power, that it turned itself into something Jesus would never have recognised....to this day, not much has changed. All of the core doctrines of the “mother” church, adopted from pagan sources, are still taught even by Protestantism. The churches of Christendom have never been taught the truth....
God does not therefore see “denominations”...he sees only genuine Christians and false ones, clearly identified and separated by what they accept as truth. If you have been taught to love the lies, you will never see the truth.
I'm afraid you've lost me and I even wonder if you're a mainline Christian...
I left mainstream Christianity decades ago, completely disillusioned by its absolute hypocrisy.
The origins of its teachings are plain and easily researched, yet it justifies all manner of beliefs and behavior that God’s word condemns.
There is a long list....
I do believe the Early Church Fathers have the correct teachings.
The early “church fathers” were responsible for the gradual acceptance of the apostasy that Jesus said would result in a counterfeit “Christianity” that would disown Christ by its teachings, doing all manner of things contrary to everything that Jesus taught.
Come the judgment, Jesus will reject those outright as those he “never knew”....”NEVER” means “not ever”....(Matthew 7:21-23)
We had better get our facts straight if we desire salvation......after all, what we are “saved” from is God’s anger over what humans, under the influence of the sower of the “weeds”, have done to his worship and failing utterly in their role as custodians of his word.