Harvest, Weeds and Apocalyptic Elements

I posted on this text the other day in our study of the Parables of Jesus; it’s Jesus’ explanation of the Parable of the Weeds. As I write most posts on this site, I do my best to keep it more or less non-academic in presentation. There are several very fine blogs and web sites that explain the Scriptures in an academic fashion for an academic audience. Here, however, I try to explain the Scriptures for people who just want to understand and walk with Jesus. There are certainly times when a little extra background is helpful to our understanding, and this is one of them.

Parables, by their very nature, often fall into a category that we can label as being “Apocalyptic”. Such passages contain bits of information that we call “Apocalyptic elements”. Parables are not literal events, but they are stories that Jesus (of someone else) told to teach a lesson or to reveal a truth indirectly. They are stories that reveal something that they don’t literally say. The key here is that parables reveal something; they arethus apocalyptic in nature.

This word, apocalyptic, can be quite confusing for people in our time, because in common usage, it has come to mean something quite different than its meaning in a Biblical context. In common usage, it usually refers to the end of something, usually catastrophic, even the end of the world. In a Biblical context, it is an adaptation of a Greek word which is apokalypsis. Mounce defines it this way:

ἀποκάλυψις (apokalypsis)

Strong: G602

GK: G637

a disclosure, revelation, Rom. 2:5; manifestation, appearance, Rom. 8:19; 1 Cor. 1:7; 2 Thess. 1:7; 1 Pet. 1:7, 13; 4:13; met. spiritual enlightenment, Lk. 2:32 ¹

In the Parable of the Weeds Jesus used a few apocalyptic elements that He explained in the text above, and when we recognize the larger implications, we can learn some important things about the Kingdom, the larger community of believers, the Church.

With all of this said, I would offer an “editorial opinion”:

I hear and read a great deal of criticism of the church today, and I also offer some of my own periodically. These weeds have created chaos to a certain degree, filling the church with hierarchies, forms, rules, ceremonies, rituals, and many other abuses, arguments, discord and divisions that tear people away from Christ. Yet I grow weary of those who blame the Kingdom (Church) for the subversion of the weeds planted by Satan. Can’t they see that they are playing Satan’s game?

Look carefully: The harvest, the ones who “will shine in the Kingdom of their Father” are not the ones who allow themselves to be choked off and separated from the Kingdom, they are ones who persevere, who resist the devil to the end.

We might ask ourselves where the constant critics are in this picture…

You see, dear reader, these old parables, in spite of their ancient agricultural metaphors, hit just as close to home today as they did when Jesus taught them, especially if we recognize the significance of the apocalyptic elements they contain.