Matthew 13 provides eight parables (that is, stories) dealing with the kingdom of heaven. Though often overcomplicated, the kingdom of heaven served as Jesus’ main analogy for God’s rule and reign in a person’s life. With the clarity of a prophet of old, Jesus knew that while the God of Israel was sovereign over all the earth, individuals must allow him to be sovereign in their lives. Matthew 13 demonstrates Jesus’ greatest attempt to make the worth of this kingship comprehensible.

In Matthew 13:24, a parable designed by Jesus encourages his faithful followers to embrace God’s delayed timetable for judgment and rewards. In the story, Jesus tells of a man who sowed a field with good wheat seed. Yet while he was sleeping a mischievous enemy sowed weeds (tares, or darnel) among his field and the seeds all sprouted up together. As the plants grew and became distinguished, the perplexed servants mused over how this circumstance arose.

The owner of the field, however, was not so perplexed. He instantly identified the malevolent hand of an adversary, but did not act. “Allow both to grow together until the harvest. At the time of the harvest I will tell the reapers, ‘First gather up the weeds and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

As in the Parable of the Soils (Matthew 13:3-23), our current parable comes with Jesus’ interpretive answer key! Though too long for a short article, the full explanation is found in Matthew 13:36-43. Notable and illustrative from my perspective is the patient attitude of the master of the field. Though his servants suggest an immediate roguing of the field, he waits.

Why would he wait? If, as Jesus indicates, the wheat represents sons of God’s kingdom and the weeds are those sons of wickedness, then we are not dealing here with a merciful delay—no matter how much time you delay, weeds cannot become wheat! In fact, diseased darnel could potentially damage the healthy wheat. And yet he waits.

The parable certainly speaks to God’s delayed judgment, but I believe it speaks more profoundly to God’s system of rewards! Clearly the landowner does not want to endanger a single stalk of wheat (Matthew 13:29) which causes him to decline the suggestion to rogue the field. Do not pull up the weeds now, he says, “lest in gathering the weeds, you root up the wheat along with them.”

Jesus’ parable creates a scenario where the wheat struggles and fights the weeds for the nutrients of the soil and fights diseases so commonly passed by the darnel. Wheat surviving at harvest time will have certainly earned a just reward! At that time, the landowner takes away the darnel weeds to a place of destruction, and “then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (verse 43).

Have you ever seen the sun brightly shining down on a brilliant field of ripened, golden wheat? My wife’s parents are Colorado wheat farmers, so I have! This splendid glory awaits those righteous few brave and determined enough to hold fast in the Kingdom of God.

Kyle A. Kettering graduated from Xenia Christian High School in 1998, Cedarville University in 2004, and Nyack’s Alliance Theological Seminary in 2017 with a degree in ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He serves as a teaching elder at Church of the Messiah in Xenia.