He put another parable
before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who
sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his
enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the
plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the
servants of the master of the house came and said to him, 'Master, did
you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds? He
said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' So the servants said to him,
'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' But he said, 'No, lest in
gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both
grow up together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the
reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned,
but gather the wheat into my barn.' " -Jesus in Matthew 13:24-30
First let me explain what is meant by removing weeds. It is not necessarily removing heretics and evildoers. It is, however, removing heresy and evil from the Christian Church. If the sinner repents of his sin, that is the ideal outcome. If, after much rebuke and many attempts to correct, the sinner does not repent, weeding out the sin means weeding out the sinner. None of us are angels, and the great day of judgment is not here yet, so the judgment that the Church makes can only result in excommunication. I don't know how necessary that last point is, but I will just say that God did not grant us authority to condemn men to death. We can, however, banish evildoers from the Church. The primary focus is to banish lies and sins from the Church. Either that is done by banishing sin from the sinner, or by banishing the sinner from the Church.
Where to begin? There is this teaching from Jesus, that one cannot remove the speck from his neighbor's eye without first removing the plank from his own. Since this note is mostly about removing falsehoods, we must begin by knowing the truth. We must first remove the falsehoods from ourselves before removing falsehoods elsewhere. Since we should not rely on the supposed authority of a pope or pastor, and we cannot rely on the actual authority of a living apostle, we must rely on the authority of the Bible, and lean on understanding given by the Holy Spirit. This is the only way to know the truth in our present day. And when we know the truth, we will be in a position to remove weeds (heresies) from the Church.
What's the purpose? Paul gives us a description of the last days, and in this description he speaks of many false doctrines. Now I believe that we are not so near the last days as many people think. Instead, I believe we are heading into a tremendous growth and revitalization of Christianity. But if we do not instill a strong zeal for truth and hatred of lies, I fear that this wonderful growth of Christianity will sink into a pit of false doctrine. It seems wise to start now, and to put off the inevitable false doctrine of the last days for as long as possible. Furthermore, if Christians allow false teachers to claim Christ without being denounced - if Christians do not publicly denounce false teachers - the nonbelievers will receive a false representation of our good religion. They will judge Christianity by what the false teachers say. So Christians must be outspoken, and make it plain that false teachers do not represent Christ or Christianity.
The message of this note is not exactly the same as the passage quoted, which I'm sure you realize. The passage is about waiting until the proper time to make the final judgment, and not making the judgment too early. But you might notice, it was while the workers were sleeping that Satan planted the weeds. Are we sleeping? If we are awake and aware, we will not allow Satan to plant the seeds of falsehood in the Church. That's the reason I quoted the passage. And wherever the seeds are planted, while God commands us not to make the final judgment (condemn to death), we can do something. We can forcefully remove the lies and sin, either by removing them from the person, or by removing the person from the Church.
First let me explain what is meant by removing weeds. It is not necessarily removing heretics and evildoers. It is, however, removing heresy and evil from the Christian Church. If the sinner repents of his sin, that is the ideal outcome. If, after much rebuke and many attempts to correct, the sinner does not repent, weeding out the sin means weeding out the sinner. None of us are angels, and the great day of judgment is not here yet, so the judgment that the Church makes can only result in excommunication. I don't know how necessary that last point is, but I will just say that God did not grant us authority to condemn men to death. We can, however, banish evildoers from the Church. The primary focus is to banish lies and sins from the Church. Either that is done by banishing sin from the sinner, or by banishing the sinner from the Church.
Where to begin? There is this teaching from Jesus, that one cannot remove the speck from his neighbor's eye without first removing the plank from his own. Since this note is mostly about removing falsehoods, we must begin by knowing the truth. We must first remove the falsehoods from ourselves before removing falsehoods elsewhere. Since we should not rely on the supposed authority of a pope or pastor, and we cannot rely on the actual authority of a living apostle, we must rely on the authority of the Bible, and lean on understanding given by the Holy Spirit. This is the only way to know the truth in our present day. And when we know the truth, we will be in a position to remove weeds (heresies) from the Church.
What's the purpose? Paul gives us a description of the last days, and in this description he speaks of many false doctrines. Now I believe that we are not so near the last days as many people think. Instead, I believe we are heading into a tremendous growth and revitalization of Christianity. But if we do not instill a strong zeal for truth and hatred of lies, I fear that this wonderful growth of Christianity will sink into a pit of false doctrine. It seems wise to start now, and to put off the inevitable false doctrine of the last days for as long as possible. Furthermore, if Christians allow false teachers to claim Christ without being denounced - if Christians do not publicly denounce false teachers - the nonbelievers will receive a false representation of our good religion. They will judge Christianity by what the false teachers say. So Christians must be outspoken, and make it plain that false teachers do not represent Christ or Christianity.
The message of this note is not exactly the same as the passage quoted, which I'm sure you realize. The passage is about waiting until the proper time to make the final judgment, and not making the judgment too early. But you might notice, it was while the workers were sleeping that Satan planted the weeds. Are we sleeping? If we are awake and aware, we will not allow Satan to plant the seeds of falsehood in the Church. That's the reason I quoted the passage. And wherever the seeds are planted, while God commands us not to make the final judgment (condemn to death), we can do something. We can forcefully remove the lies and sin, either by removing them from the person, or by removing the person from the Church.
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