1. At the heart of the discourse, Matthew placed Jesus’ private and detailed explanations of the parable of weeds. The central theme here is ‘patient perseverance’. Most probably this happened in Peter’s house in Capernaum.
2. Those who wished to follow Jesus should not merely satisfy themselves from what they read and hear from the Scripture. The levels of understanding differ from person to person. They should go in for deeper study to understand God’s word.
3. This is the only one of Matthew’s three sowing parables where Jesus identified who the sower is. Here the sower is the son of man, God’s seeds represent the sons of the kingdom, and field represents the world. The Son of Man is no less that the king himself who plants and grows kingdom citizens in his world at his discretion.
4. The gathering and burning of the weeds represent the gathering of all men and women out of his kingdom for judgment. It may be seem that the sinner escapes the consequences of it in this world but it cannot be carried on in the next.
5. Jesus often uses the term ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ to refer to the coming judgment. Weeping indicates sorrow or remorse and gnashing of teeth shows extreme anxiety or pain. Those who say they do not care what happens to them after they die, don’t realize what they are saying.
As Christians all of us have the obligation to preach the word of God. When we preach the word of God we should be careful not to give our own interpretation and water down the message of Christ. We should try to understand the context in which the text was written and then give it to people matching to today’s context. This needs a deeper study on scripture, personal time with the Lord and most of all the inspiration of the Holy Sprit. If one of the elements is missing we might fail to give God’s word convincingly to the people.
Courtesy
Holman’s New Testament Commentary
The Pulpit Commentary
William Barclay’s Commentary
No comments:
Post a Comment