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PRUDENCE NOT ANGER

Read­ing Time: 3 minutes

Con­tents

Introduction  

The Gos­pel accord­ing to Mat­thew chapter thir­teen (13), con­tains series of par­ables gen­er­ally grouped as “king­dom par­ables” because of the way they are intro­duced: “the king­dom of heav­en is like….” 

The par­able of the Sower was read last Sunday. The par­ables of the tares (also called the Par­able of the WeedsPar­able of the Wheat and Tares, Par­able of the Wheat and Weeds, or the Par­able of the Weeds in the Grain), the mus­tard seed and the yeast belong to this Sunday. The rest of the par­ables will be read next Sunday. Because this Sunday Gos­pel is long, the short­er ver­sion might be read in some Churches. But I advise you read the longer ver­sion (vv.24–43) or even read the whole of Mat­thew chapter thir­teen. These par­ables are the very heart of the teach­ings of Jesus.

Let them grow together

So the ser­vants asked their mas­ter, do you want us to go and gath­er the weed? But he replied, no; for in gath­er­ing the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both grow togeth­er until the har­vest. At har­vest time I will tell the reap­ers, first col­lect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned, but then gath­er the wheat into my barn” (Matt 13:28–30). When the ser­vants noticed weeds in their master’s farm, they went to him and asked him “Mas­ter, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did the weeds come from? The mas­ter told them that the enemy was respons­ible for the weeds. They would have gone to remove those weeds, but the mas­ter stopped them, for fear they might as well remove the good seeds. Both the good seeds and the weeds should remain and grow togeth­er till the day of har­vest, when they will be sep­ar­ated. The Greek term for weed ziz­an­ion is a weed resem­bling wheat but pro­duces pois­on­ous seed, hence, ziz­an­um, dar­nel, tare. It is a weedy rye (Secale cer­eale) grass with pois­on­ous black seeds which resembles wheat in its early stage but is eas­ily dis­tin­guished from it at matur­ity. It is a mem­ber of the wheat class (Triticeae) and is closely related to bar­ley (genus Hordeum) and wheat (Trit­ic­um). This is the reas­on the mas­ter did not allow the ser­vants to uproot them, since their roots are inter­twined with that of wheat.

Conclusion

God sowed only good seeds in the world, in your life, in your fam­ily, in the churches, in every organ­iz­a­tion and among friends. How is it that the same men and women whom God cre­ated in his own image and like­ness have decided to des­troy God’s handi­work by plant­ing weeds? How many weeds have you planted in anoth­er person’s life? How many people have encour­aged dir­ectly and indir­ectly to plant weed in the life of oth­ers? How many weeds have you seen in the life oth­ers without inform­ing them just as the ser­vants informed their mas­ter (Matt 13:27)? Every Chris­ti­an must ask God to grant him or her the gift and spir­it of dis­cern­ment to be able to know all the ponēros people (evil doers) sur­round­ing him/her. You have them every­where: in your fam­ily, in your dom­i­cile, in your town, in your place of work, in the mar­ket, among your friends, in vari­ous gath­er­ings, and espe­cially in your Church and in your vari­ous groups in the Churches, where you find many of them dis­guised as “broth­ers” and “sis­ters.” For Jesus, Peter would have been an obstacle to doing God’s will. What about you, who or what is your own obstacle? Who is the Dev­il of your life? Can you identi­fy him, her or it? Remem­ber, one can also be the Dev­il (enemy) of his/her own life and pro­gress. Oth­ers must not always be respons­ible for your fail­ures, set­backs, mis­for­tunes and stagnancy. 

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOKTHE WORD OF LIFE:
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the 16th Sunday of the year (A) is found in
The Word of Life, vol. I, pages 378–385. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo
or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com
or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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