I thought the point was that the weeds (tares) were to be left where they were in order to be sorted out at harvest time.
Yes...if you read the parable carefully and the explanation that the disciples asked for, you see who the players are and where it all takes place.
Matt 13:24-30...
“He presented another illustration to them, saying: “The Kingdom of the heavens may be likened to a man who sowed fine seed in his field. 25 While men were sleeping, his enemy came and oversowed weeds in among the wheat and left. 26 When the stalk sprouted and produced fruit, then the weeds also appeared. 27 So the slaves of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow fine seed in your field? How, then, does it have weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy did this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go out and collect them?’ 29 He said, ‘No, for fear that while collecting the weeds, you uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and in the harvest season, I will tell the reapers: First collect the weeds and bind them in bundles to burn them up; then gather the wheat into my storehouse.” . . . .
Vs 36-43...
“Then after dismissing the crowds, he went into the house. His disciples came to him and said: “Explain to us the illustration of the weeds in the field.” 37 In response he said: “The sower of the fine seed is the Son of man; 38 the field is the world. As for the fine seed, these are the sons of the Kingdom, but the weeds are the sons of the wicked one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40 Therefore, just as the weeds are collected and burned with fire, so it will be in end of the age. 41 The Son of man will send his angels, and they will collect out from his Kingdom all things that cause stumbling and people who practice lawlessness, 42 and they will pitch them into the fiery furnace. There is where their weeping and the gnashing of their teeth will be. 43 At that time the righteous ones will shine as brightly as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Let the one who has ears listen.”
So we have the “sower” of the “wheat” who is Jesus. And the “wheat” are identified as those who became his disciples.
“While men were sleeping” (either a spiritual drowsiness, or the death of the apostles who were acting as a restraining influence on the coming apostasy.... as either explains how Christianity came to be oversown with weeds in the first place) an “enemy” identified as “the devil” sowed these “weeds” (counterfeit wheat) in “the world”.
The “harvest time” is “the end of the age” or the removal of all that is wicked from this earth when Jesus comes as judge....and the “reapers are angels”.
How are we complying with that order when we remove them ourselves? We are losing wheat in the process.
We are not “removing them ourselves”....we are removing ourselves from being among them in “the world”, where these “weeds” have been flourishing for centuries. If the “wheat” separate themselves from the “weeds”, it is history repeating as Jesus said it would. Just as the Christians separated themselves from apostate sectarian Judaism, so Christ’s true disciples would separate themselves from its modern day counterpart...apostate Christendom. The separation is exactly what Jesus spoke about in delivering John’s Revelation.
“Babylon the great” is identified as a harlot, ‘in bed’ with those who are God’s enemies....it is of the devil’s making as a counterfeit religious system, ‘sleeping’ with the world’s political leaders in the hope of having their favour. (James 4:4) Confidently sitting atop “the wild beast” that she has been riding for centuries, having “a kingdom over the kingdoms of the world” whom the devil claimed were all his. (Rev 17:15-18; Luke 4:5-7)
Read about the fate of “Babylon the great” in the 18th chapter of Revelation.
We are told to “get out of her” if we do not want the same punishment that is about to be meted out to her.
Matthew 13:28-30 NIV
“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds,
you may uproot the wheat with them.
30 Let both grow together until the harvest.
At that time I will tell the harvesters:
First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned;
then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”
Yes...both have grown “in the world” “together”....but at this juncture...(the time of Christ’s return) a clear separation has occurred just as it did in the first century.....the Christians eventually, completely separated from the established Jewish faith, which Jesus exposed as a hypocritical sham. (Matt 23:13-15)
The Pharisees and Sadducees were enemies of one another, but united in their condemnation of Jesus and his apostles, preaching a different way to God....Jesus was “the way, the truth and the life”.
Instead of coming out of apostate Judaism, the majority chose to stay there under the old covenant...and they are still there, and still suffering God’s abandonment all these centuries later, never having moved forward. (Matt 23:37-39) Still waiting for a Messiah who has come and gone because they rejected him.
There is a certain pride in the Jewish people that will not allow them to accept the title of “Christians”.
So even those who claim to accept Jesus as their Savior, do so under their own terms...there is still a lingering problem with gentiles. They will call themselves “Jews for Jesus” or “Messianic Jews” still clinging to their national pride as if being “Jewish” in the old way is still necessary. Paul spoke of a new kind of “Jew” who was one “on the inside with a circumcision of the heart”. (Rom 2:28-29) God showed Peter that what was once unclean in his eyes, was now accepted, as his purpose in connection with Israel was fulfilled in the person of Jesus the Christ.
Examining the Scriptures carefully and without Christendom’s blinders, yields a very uncomfortable truth for the majority....but one that is fully embraced by those who believe it, and who come into a united spiritual family who know what true peace is, in a global brotherhood that are in full agreement with one another in love.....not part of the confused world, but preaching God’s solution among the lost.
