“Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ “ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.”
Everyone who has ever planted a garden knows that when you put good seeds in the ground, not everything that sprouts will be revealed as the plants you were expecting. Some small sprouts that come up will eventually put forth leaves or fruit that reveals them as weeds. How the weeds got into the soil seems a mystery. We can scientifically conclude that they were either blown in by the wind or mixed into the soil from the outset, but the point is the same: The sower of the weeds is unseen to the observer, just as the sower of the good seeds is unseen to the plants themselves. To the objective onlooker, both are as invisible as the thoughts of the person sitting next to them.
Most everyone at some point experiences either the hatred of an evil person or a set of circumstances that appear very directed against them. These occasions raise questions in our minds on the quandary of evil – questions that a great number of books attempt to answer. Why do bad things happen to good people? Where did evil come from? How does someone become a bad person? Jesus’ parable of the weeds tells us that the answer to those questions is not so much how and where and why, but rather, “Who?”
The language Jesus uses for ‘enemy’ in this parable means an adult person or persons who hate another and wishes them injury. The parable pointedly teaches that the kingdom of heaven has an enemy. That enemy is unseen by the sons of the kingdom just as their creator is unseen. But both are very real and both have obviously been at work. As AW Tozer wrote, “There are two spirits in the earth, the Spirit of God and the spirit of Satan, and these are at eternal enmity.” So Jesus later explains, “The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil.”
The Scripture tells us that God’s enemy appeared in the garden of Eden and corrupted God’s perfect creation by planting seeds of doubt in the minds of both Eve and Adam. So the enemy has likewise been at work in every field of God, including the field of our own lives and community. Those God made in His image have a daily – almost thought by thought – decision to make. We can feed on and believe what the enemy tells us about ourselves and our world and eventually be revealed as sons of the evil one, or we can feed on and believe what God tells us about ourselves and our world and eventually be revealed as sons of the Kingdom. After all, thoughts lead to actions just as actions lead to habits and habits to character. The question is not “Where did evil come from?,” but, “Will I sow godly thoughts or unclean ones?,” because eventually, those thoughts will lead to behavior that everyone can see and character that God will judge.
Every day we are confronted with choices — to do right or to do wrong, to be honest or dishonest, to be loving or to be indifferent, to forgive or to go on holding a grudge, to speak of Christ or to be silent, to go do my assignment or to put it off, to go to follow God’s leading to the mission field or to stay home. And every day there are obstacles to making the right choice: fear, pride, addiction to comfort — and these come in all shapes and sizes.
John Piper
APPLICATION: Intentionality
Ultimately it is a question of whether we want to draw near to God or stay away from Him. As James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”