Parable of the Tares

Jesus tells the Parable of the Tares in the Gospel of Matthew and in the noncanonical Gospel of Thomas. It refers to the coming of the Son of Man, when angels will separate the evil ones ("tares" or weeds) from the worthy (the wheat), and the evil ones will be destroyed.

The parable fits Matthew's theme of division and judgment. [See also in the judgment of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31–46)] As the parable addresses concerns of the early Christian community (the fate of false Christians), some historians regard it as originating not with Jesus but with the early Christian community.

The parable is also known as the Parable of the Weeds, Parable of the Wheat and Tares, or the Parable of the Weeds in the Grain.

The Greek word translated "tares" is ζιζάνια (zizania), plural of ζιζάνιον (zizanion). This word is thought to mean darnel. [Liddell H G and Scott R, "A Greek-English Lexicon", Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1843–1996, under "ζιζάνια". The plural form (Zizania) has in modern times been adopted as the botanical name for wild rice.]

The parable

A few verses later, an explanation is given:

Another version appears in the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas (Patterson-Meyer Translation):

Interpretation

The meaning is quite complex: This is not just a heaven/hell exhortation to repentance, but an explanation of God's patience with the world's unbelief. The parable of the tares is also meant to explain the cause of hypocrisy within the Christian church. For mere social reasons, some who are actually nonbelievers put on a religious front. But their actions and attitudes often indicate that they are not real Christians.

Nevertheless, God is patient in judgment. Just as the man in the parable does not want his servants to accidentally root up the wheat, Jesus does not want his followers to conduct judgmental witch hunts for "hypocrites" in the church.

This theoretically prevents the expulsion of church members who live in open rebellion of orthodox interpretations of God's law.

Another interpretation is that the parable explains the history and plan of the world. The world is the field in which the seed was sown. That is, the world is God's creation that He made good. The evil one came and planted bad seed — that is, he led humans into sin. The present state of the world is that there exists good seed — those who ultimately stop rebelling against God and accept His grace — and bad seed — those who refuse to accept and instead persist in rebellion. The reason God did not just destroy everybody who was in rebellion of Him (the bad seed) is that some people exist who have not yet accepted His grace, but someday will. These people would be uprooted if harvested too early. Instead, He is bringing the world to a point (the harvest) in which everybody will have made their final decision and can then be sorted fairly.

Christians who oppose the Death Penalty use this parable to say Jesus did not favor executing anyone, for you deny them the chance to accept his grace and condemn them to an early hell. Christians who advocate the Death Penalty cite [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_%28King_James%29/Matthew#10:29 Matt. 10:29] ("...one sparrow shall not fall on the ground without your Father"), and [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_%28King_James%29/Ephesians#1:11 Eph. 1:11] ("...God worketh all things after the counsel of his own will"), in order to deny that an "early hell" is possible.

Some who believe in a post-tribulation rapture (second coming of Christ) feel that this text supports their belief. “The tares are removed first and burned, then the remaining wheat are taken last,” supposing this refers to the rapture occuring after the lost are already in hell.But in v. 39, Jesus says, “the harvest is the end of the world;” speaking of the final judgment (Rev. 20:12-15) which occurs 1,000 years later at the great white throne judgment.

Attribution

Some attribute the parable and its explication not to the historical Jesus himself but to the early Christian community. This conclusion is based on several factors: that the concern of separating "true" from "false" Christians originated in the early Christian community, the parable does not feature Jesus' characteristic exaggeration and irony, and that it does not challenge social divisions. [Funk, Robert W., Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar. "The five gospels." HarperSanFrancisco. 1993. pages 194, 196.] Additionally, scholars that regard Jesus as not having preached the end times consider the parable to be outside Jesus' message.

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