Another favorite parable of mine is the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. The version from the Gospel of Matthew:
Matthew 13.24-30To be sure, later in the chapter Jesus goes on to discuss the eschatological judgment at the end of the parable. And as I've repeatedly said, I have no problem with God's judgment. It is critical that such judgment exists to have any coherent notion of God's love and justice.
Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew.
The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’
‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed.
‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked.
‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.’”
But as with the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, and Jesus's teaching as a whole, I don't think the parable here is about Judgment Day. What Jesus is doing is using judgment--the pathos of God--to illuminate this day, right here and right now. The focus in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats isn't about the ultimate fate of the goats. It is, rather, about what God wants the Kingdom to look like today, in my life and yours. The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats is about calling us to the works of mercy.
So what is the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds calling us to? What is the parable trying to say about our behavior today?
I think the answer is found in the question of the workers: "Should we pull out the weeds?"
Should we pull out the weeds?
This question goes to the heart of one of the greatest temptations amongst religious people wanting to serve God: the impulse to sort the good people from the bad people, the saints from the sinners, the church from the world, the saved from the damned.
Churches are full to the brim of this sort of thing. Righteous crusades to weed out the sinners.
But what does the farmer say? The farmer says, Don't get into the weeding business. If you do you'll pull up the good with the bad. Weeds are no good, but weeding? Weeding is worse. So just let the good and the bad live alongside each other. Trust that God will sort it all out in the end. Sorting saints from sinners isn't your job. So let it be.
Wouldn't it be amazing if Christians and churches heeded the farmer's advice?
And let's be clear. The farmer has lost his mind. What farmer doesn't weed? What the workers are suggesting is the right thing to do. From a farming perspective the farmer is an idiot.
Against all logic the farmer says, Leave it alone. Let the weeds and the wheat grow together. On this farm we aren't going to weed.
But isn't this a recipe for disaster? Doesn't God need our help in sorting out the good guys from the bad guys? Doesn't God need Spiritual Minutemen to monitor the borders of the Kingdom?
Apparently not. Our job, it seems, is simply to live alongside each other, wheat and the weeds.
And truth be told, I think a part of the logic here is that we're horrible, often tragically so, in making these distinctions. Who are the real good guys? Who are the real bad guys? Are churches getting this distinction right?
My take: I think the churches get this wrong more often than they get this right. Churches, way more than they'd care to admit, get into the weeding business only to discover that they can't tell the wheat from the weeds.
More, I'd go on to make this provocative claim: To get into the weeding business is what marks you as a weed. Weeding is what makes you one of the bad guys. Exhibit A: The religious authorities of Jesus's day and their exclusion of "tax collectors and sinners."
Robert Capon in his book Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus has an interesting observation about this parable. Specifically, he notes that the root of the Greek word--aphete--translated as "let" in the command of the farmer ("let both grow together") has two related meanings in the bible. One meaning is the meaning found in the translation above (NLT), the notion of "to permit" or "to allow." But the more common meaning of aphete in the bible is "to suffer" and "to forgive." This is the word Jesus utters from the cross: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
This really amps the meaning of the parable. Rather than weeding the farmer is asking the workers to forgive the weeds, to suffer their existence.
We might say the parable is presenting us with two visions of Kingdom life.
On the one side are the weeding Christians, those wanting to identify, sort out and burn the weeds.
And on the other side are those Christians who live alongside the weeds manifesting forgiveness and patience.
And we do know this: the weeding Christians will have all the best arguments on their side. Weeding, we know, is good farming practice. It's the sensible and right thing to do.
But the logic of forgiving the weeds and allowing them to grow alongside? That's no logic at all.
It's only the foolishness of the cross.
My favorite is the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
ReplyDeleteA church that bases its identity on an emphasis of who's in and who's out, who's good and who's bad, who's a saint and who's a sinner, and who's deserving and who's undeserving of love, grace, and mercy is one that I would be avoiding like the plague!
The sorting game is an unfortunate human habit, if you ask my unprofessional opinion. Is this from God and indicative of His will for the church? I question that. Is it that each individual can be categorized as either a "wheat" or a "weed," or that everyone has a few weeds amid the "good" seeds and plants?
I once read someone's interpretation of Matt 18:15-17 that completely contradicted everything that I had ever been told in church. Jesus says that if a person in the church won't listen, be properly penitent for their "sin(s)", and straighten up, the church is to treat that wayward individual like "a pagan or a corrupt tax collector."
How did Jesus treat pagans and corrupt tax collectors? ;-)
The sermon that my pastor preached a few weeks ago centered on the 23rd Psalm. He talked about a YouTube video of a blind horse that was "shepherded" to the water trough on a daily basis by a herd of sheep. The sheep, apparently, surround the horse and gently "move" it into position in front of the trough, and then the sheep disperse while the horse drinks. Just like that, people do best with constant care. In a spiritual sense, certainly a faith in the everlasting care of the Good Shepherd is comforting. In a more down-to-earth sense, we care for each other and especially help those who are in trouble. Have I mentioned how much I love the way my pastor leads?
It may be that some weeding is useful. I grew up on an old-fashioned farm with an old-fashioned farmer (my dad). He did not use herbicides, designed to scorch the earth and kill everyting that might be perceived to be a weed. Nor did he employ crews to "walk" the beans --- pulling up or chopping down everything that wasn't a soybean. No pesticides either, except one year out of 60 when there was a grasshopper plague. Instead, we walked and weeded his fields selectively --- removing weeds that he knew from experience would grow so tall by harvest they would plug the combine and universally recognized threats (Canada thistles, for example). This required time and patience, a keen eye and good deal of thoughtful discernment.
ReplyDeleteThis post is very timely, given the recent "dust-up" in which Al Mohler criticized Andy Stanley--and megachurches in general--for not doing enough to weed out sin in the congregation. The rationale for this angst is (understandably) that unchecked sin will spread and take over the congregation (e.g., "a little leaven leavens the whole loaf"). Accordingly, as Frank Myers suggested earlier, there is need for balance and discernment. Notably, however, the loudest outrage (as in the Mohler-Stanley affair) seems to surround the issue of homosexuality, an issue for which person-to-person contamination is probably the *least* likely.
ReplyDeleteJust a beautifully spiritualized story and application to us, the professing chuch in 2012. And, of course, I agree with you that none of us are qualified to be weeders. However, the immediate hearers of the parable were a people under judgement (see but don't see; hear but don't hear). Do we really want to step into their shoes so that we can apply this parable to ourselves???
ReplyDeleteIn Matthew 13, Jesus is actually talking to ONLY Israelites of the first century, not anybody in 2012 AD. So, before one can possibly understand how that might (or might not?) apply to us, she has to make sense of what Jesus is saying to His actual audience. For He certainly had meaning that applied to them first, no? And, they most certainly were not the Body of Christ.
He is talking about the 'word of the kingdom.' What kingdom? What is the only kingdom that He was concerned with before the cross? What is the only kingdom that is going to start out with only 'wheat?' etc.
Thanks for this, it plays into something I am wrestling with for my first sermon. I love how God seems to be speaking to me through my RSS reader!
ReplyDeleteWith the parable, I wonder if Jesus isn't also alluding to the Sabbath/Jubilee. Wasn't there to be no farming during that year, so the weeds and the grain would literally have grown together? The Kingdom of God is like always living into the Sabbath.
Peace
David
Given how you read the gospels I see your point. But again, I don't agree with dispensationalism.
ReplyDeleteReaders wanting to get a sense of how David reads the bible (e.g., why Jesus's teachings don't apply to Christians) might want to do some internet research on dispensationalism. It's a fascinating, if quirky, theological theory. A place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalism
Father, forgive me for I have sinned.
ReplyDeleteYou share with us daily how 'you read the gospels;' so, your comment is certainly not a surprise. I guess there is only one reading of the Bible that is allowed here, in this 'experimental' environment?
ReplyDeleteOTOH, what does your or my 'reading of the bible' have to do with any of the actual statements/questions in my comment? This reminds me of a shell game; just get the mark's eyes off the pea. Bring up dispensationalism, that quirky theory, and the actual comment can simply be dismissed. Those were sincere questions that have nothing to do with dispensationalism.
And, thanks for the link. I'll have to go see what dispensationalism is all about.
Happy to help. I'm an educator.
ReplyDeleteLeaving the weeds would make sense. You can't go crawling all over your field pulling them all out when they're small, partly because of the time it would take, and partly because youd trample the corn in the process. Later, the weed roots would become entangled with the corn roots. If you pulled out a weed, you'd get a couple of corn plants along with it. Either way, you have to leave the weeds.
ReplyDeleteYour point is well-taken with regard to others ... "with what measure" and so on.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much it applies to myself considered as a bundle of often-conflicting desires and experiences? I don't want to just leave myself alone, but feel I need to be gentle with myself also. Likewise or even more so my children and children in our kids' church groups.
Answering my own question, I recall that as a youngster I was a fairly heavy smoker (cigarettes) ... as they say, quitting is easy, many do it quite frequently. Eventually, gradually, I came to understand that it *really* made me feel bad, physically ill ... I didn't exactly loose the desire, but when I understood that the desire wasn't satisfied by the act, I stopped doing it. On to the next question, awakening that desire in myself was a foolish thing to do. Concerning the other desires and experiences I want to uproot from my life ... there's a question there, but I find I don't know how to formulate it. I suppose the answer is still "forgiveness and patience." I almost wrote "suffering and patience."
Thank you, Richard.
And how about the usual footnote on this passage, that the word translated "weeds" most likely refers to darnel, a toxic plant that is indistinguishable from wheat when it first comes up? That's a stronger warning that we don't know what we're doing when we think it's only the weeds we're tearing out.
ReplyDeleteFantastic point.
ReplyDeleteWe will never know, of course, things having played out the way they have over the past 2,000 years. Still, I always wonder what human society would look like if we, in fact, had never made any educated and discerning choices, never valued anything, never discriminated, never had any principles, and ignored all mechanisms of self-preservation. There would be no science, no medicine, no art, no literature, no music. No civilization.
ReplyDeleteYes -- neither would there have been any poverty, war, or tended gardens -- at least not for very long. But would we as a species even have survived to this day?
Richard: I'm even more pessimistic than you about our ability to separate the weeds from the wheat, the goats from the sheep. You think we're bad at it, and get it wrong often, but, I suppose, occasionally get it right: "And truth be told, I think a part of the logic here is that we're horrible, often tragically so, in making these distinctions. Who are the real good guys? Who are the real bad guys? Are churches getting this distinction right? My take: I think the churches get this wrong more often than they get this right." Whereas I think that as long as we're separating people out from other people, we *in principle* *can't* get things right, for reasons expressed by Solzhenitsyn (here I make just very slight adjustments to a famous passage of his): "If only there were weeds somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing weeds and wheat cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, the line dividing sheep from goats cuts through the heart of every human being. It's natural to wonder who's which when hearing that parable--and esp. to wonder which camp one is in oneself. "It's really hard to tell, and we probably get a lot of these calls wrong" is probably an advance for most of us. Still better, though, I think, is to realize that if you're dividing whole people into two camps, you in principle can't get this right, but once we get past the assumption that everyone is wholly in one camp or the other, the answer about each of us is in fact clear. Who's a sheep and who's a goat? Well, by the criteria laid down in the parable, the answer seems quite easy: I, and everyone I know, is quite obviously both.
I love this parable, and I really like your thoughts on it. I read this post this morning, and I completely agreed. I thought about it several times throughout the day, though, and I realized that I might not understand what it means, practically speaking, to separate the wheat from the chaff. I kind of feel like an idiot, or like I'm missing something obvious, but isn't your claim that those in the weeding business are weeds itself an example of separating wheat from chaff? And if not, what is? Again, I'm sorry if these are dumb questions; sometimes I stumble over the basics.
ReplyDeleteDavid, to read the way you are suggesting means that the primary context for hearing the Word of God is not the worship of the church but elsewhere instead. Neither Matthew nor any of the NT writers ever say "Suspend everything that you know and have experienced and then listen as if Jesus Christ has not been revealed to you so that you can understand him historically." Most certainly this parable means something to the congregation today as it a revelation of judgment transformed, a critical part of understanding the person and work of Jesus Christ as well as seeing the heart of God. Are we to assume that God had a soft spot in the heart for the modern world by having the Spirit gift us with historical criticism and historical perspective after withholding such smarts from the medieval church? Saul, who knew the history better than any of us because he lived it, concluded that his history was ignorance in light of his encounter with the ascended Jesus. Everything in his world got re-narrated because he had a revelation. Before the revelation his history led him to kill people. After the revelation his life was reinterpreted and then and only then did his history become knowledge and he gain the willingness to give his life for the sake of his Lord. If we "historicize" Jesus after the manner you suggest we run the risk of denying "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever."
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this I thought of it differently. Who among us is not both a weed and wheat? It is often when we stop trying to remove the most difficult weeds of our heart, that we find that those weeds can be merely cultivated into a part of that soul crop. For example, I have a 6 year old daughter who is fiery and impulsive. These traits are trying and exhausting for me as a mom, and let's face it, likely difficult for her to live with as well. Many (Christian & otherwise) parenting books would clearly state I am to break her of these traits as soon as possible. I am determined to see her as having gifts... Gifts that need not only to be allowed to grow, but actually perhaps tender care in the greenhouse!! With the proper care and gentle guidance her passion and energy will transform to something much greater than I could have ever dreamt.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that just the way it is with everything, though? That which we think are weeds may be a sacred flower. That which we think of as worthy grain may turn out to be a bitter plant. Who are we to know the difference?
Or only the wheat that we allow to remain.
ReplyDeleteI'm not suggesting anything close to what you are putting in my mouth here. The last thing in the world that I would wish to do is deny "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever.' However, take a look at Deuteronomy 29:29. God has kept things secret until He finally chose to reveal them. Paul was given revelation that the people listening to this parable had no idea about yet.
ReplyDeleteWas there any error in what I provided as my view of the actual setting? Is that setting our setting?Well, if not, then what are the answers to the questions I asked? Then possibly we can move on to how this parable speaks to the church today.
Jesus gives the interpretation of this parable in Mt. 13:36-43. Verse 38 says the field is the world (Gk. kosmos). The point being the world is not the church. Weeds are not allowed to grow in the church. Scripture is clear concerning those who preach another gospel, Gal. 1:8,9; 2 Tim. 2:17,18; Mt.13:33 with Mt.16:12. False doctrine speads like leaven. This is what has happened to the churches today and there is little to no truth left in them.
ReplyDeleteUh....sexual sins are the most contagious. And alluring. It starts with eye contact. When we have friends who are secually active.....there are pressures to "investigate" and experience the joys for oneself....okay, to scratch the itch. The most prevalent of course is boy meets girl....eyes meet.....someone puts their hands where they don't belong and voila! This is the sin we tend to tolerate in others. Many of us have been conditioned to pass over this sin. Guess which sin is the next most contagious sin? Yep. The homo one. All of the sudden...sin is sin...and we can't cover this one up. Sound the alarms! Beware of the eyes!
ReplyDeletePlease tell me that you are joking or that I am misunderstanding you. Certainly sexual sins are tempting, but you think I am more likely to explore homosexuality because I have gay friends who are tolerated by the church? How often does that happen in your world?
ReplyDeleteFWIW, based on my reading of Romans 1 I would say that turning from one's natural opposite-sex orientation to a same-sex orientation might very well be a sin, but I don't think we have to worry about that one much these days.
Happy weeding!
ReplyDeleteWow! So good! I have thought exactly the same way about this parable that you think! The very desire to uproot the "weeds" is the very desire that uproots the "non-weeds". Then neither will have become of anything good. This article really hits the heart of that point and the last sentance is priceless! :)
ReplyDeleteI have read this parable many times before and I have always read it from either the perspective of a disciple or as one of the "wheat". This time I read it as a "weed". I am putting away my weedeater. Why do we want grace for ourselves and justice for everyone else?
ReplyDeleteIsn't everyone a weed at some point?
ReplyDeleteI believe in Restorative Justice, not punishment!
ReplyDeleteThe point of what I am saying is that the history of Jesus Christ has never become past. What matters is the parable being read today, not merely the recollection of the history. There is always a provisionality to the accessibility of setting and context and because of that there is increasingly among biblical scholars incredulity regarding our capacity to correctly identify sitz im leben. To suggest that the true understanding of the parable is only attainable when seen as an artifact from the life of Jesus where he is only talking to Israel is to again deny that the real context of the reading of Matthew is the community that has already experienced the revelation of Jesus Christ. Matthew is not the same book in the worshiping community as it is in the seminar room.
ReplyDelete"To suggest that the true understanding of the parable is only attainable when seen as an artifact from the life of Jesus where he is only talking to Israel is to again deny that the real context of the reading of Matthew is the community that has already experienced the revelation of Jesus Christ."
ReplyDeleteThat is not what I am suggesting. I am suggesting that before we apply it to 'our situation' we ought to first understand what it meant to the original hearers. When Jesus used a particular word, it had meaning in the original context. Do you agree with that? If so, all I am asking is that we start there. To ignore what that might have been and to just interpret it as we see fit seems to open the door to unfettered speculation. Where are the protections against rampant eisegesis?
How would you support your assertion that 'the real context of the reading of Matthew is the community that has already experienced the revelation of Jesus Christ?'
Who is Jesus talking to in this parable if not Israelites? Was He thinking of Alan K. and a message for him that had nothing to do with the message he had for His actual listeners???
Not to worry, regardless of your perspective, you will not be weeded out. The saints look like the sinners and the sinners look like the saints, and no one appears to be qualified to judge righteously in such matters. Though it appears at least someone ought to based on 1 Corinthians 5:12,13.
ReplyDeleteAmen. The church is the good seed, not the field. This is similar to the principal that believers are in the world, but not of the world (John 17:14,15). The church is to judge those inside the church and act accordingly, and God judges those outside the church (1 Corinthians 5:12,13). So many people define love as tolerance, but the church at Corinth was rebuked for tolerating unrepentant sin, to the point they were proud of how tolerant they were and boasting about it. Paul makes it clear that they were not considering the negative impact on the church of tolerating such unrepntant sin.
ReplyDeleteI laughed when you said the farmer had clearly lost his mind. I used to follow this 'traditional' approach to gardening as well, until I came across a Japanese farmer/philosopher who disagreed. Masanobu Fukuoka developed a style of cultivation known as "Do-Nothing Farming" (if you can actually give credit to someone for inventing 'doing nothing'). I will be borrowing, "Don't get into the the weeding business."
ReplyDeleteI had a professor who was fond of saying "It can never mean what it never meant." I used to believe this until I realized what I had to assume about capacity to attain "original" meaning. We have to brim with confidence that the Spirit's goal is to "get us back there." If this is what the Spirit wants, then why has the understanding of original context modified over the past 2000 years? If we suggest that we can start with original context, we have made the Bible into something that it is not. There was an event--the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that is the Word of God. Prophets and apostles were witness to the event--inasmuch as they faithfully witnessed to the event what they wrote is the Word of God. The church for 2000 years has proclaimed what the prophets and apostles testify to--the event, the person of Jesus Christ. I cannot access the event without the proclamation of the church, the church cannot proclaim without the witness of the prophets and the apostles. There simply is no back door where I can get around the worship of the church and stand behind the prophets and the apostles and record the event as if I had an iPhone to video it with.
ReplyDeleteI cannot shrink down Jesus Christ and think of him merely as a prophet like John the Baptist or Elijah or one of the others for the sake of understanding Jesus like his fellow Israelites did. This is not to deny the particularity of the event, but to emphasize what I said above--the history of Jesus Christ never becomes past. The starting place is never original context but today in the life of worship.
If you are concerned about rampant eisegesis, then what are we to say about, for example, John's Gospel where John the Baptist blurts out after catching his first glimpse of Jesus the words, "Behold! The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" Did the writer witness John the Baptist saying those exact words? If so, then why is such a bold interpretation not uttered in the synoptic gospels? The very act of witness and testimony involves interpretation and I want to suggest that appropriate constraints have always been in place. We have a canon. We have the Holy Spirit--not just any Spirit but the Spirit of Jesus Christ who bears testimony about Jesus Christ. If we try to secure ourselves by locating original setting, a book like John's Gospel just laughs right back in our face. The New Testament's goal is to have its way with us. To let it do so is not to spiritualize but instead to let the history be what is really is--the revelation of Jesus Christ.
On not being able to discern the difference, even in church: My childhood pastor used to preach how we're supposed to "bear fruit" as a Christian, and proclaimed himself as a "fruit inspector." So there were those who were and those who clearly were not spotlit as being in his favor. Years later, it turned out one of his favorite, most humbly exhalted examples of "servanthood" deacons turned out to be a child molester.
ReplyDelete"The starting place is never original context but today in the life of worship."
ReplyDeleteI am having a great deal of trouble following your argument. Can we take a specific part of the parable to see where your approach and my approach might lead?
Matthew 13:24 “. . . The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field."
1) It seems to me that most of these words are simple enough that 2000 years has probably not changed their meaning too much?
2) 'kingdom of heaven' is not a straightforward expression and so I need some help with it. How would your approach provide this help?
3) I see that whatever this man who is sewing seeds in his field is doing it is not the kingdom of heaven it is something that can be compared or is in some manner like the kingdom of heaven. How do we find out what this similarity might be?
4) Fortunately, we get some help (or is it in fact help?) when Jesus says that the sewer is the son of man. What in the world is a son of man? OTH, every male child is a son of man. How do I determine this today apart from OT and NT context?
5) Jesus also says that the good seed are sons of the kingdom. We have no idea what the kingdom is yet; how can we guess at what the sons of the kingdom are. And, clearly, He provided this as an explanation?
Anyway, I really am confused and would appreciate any help you could provide.
How does this square with Paul's injunction in I Cor 5 to expel the immoral brother?
ReplyDeleteBearded darnel is difficult to distinguish from wheat, but its sleep inducing properties are not found in wheat.
ReplyDeleteOf course we must be tolerant, but is tolerance the same as connivance. The same One who cried, 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do' to the mob, also declared those who publicly professed a contrary insight to His own, 'If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.'
Also, in Christ's explanation, the field is the world, the order of society, not the church. Christ's message warns against pre-emtively trying to rid society of by self-effort, rather than through the persuasion of the Holy Spirit.
Do I detect the tendency to judgement here? If so, I have a job reconciling that attitude with parable of Jesus. But then. I'm ever hopeful that God might judge me to not be a 'let and a hindrance' to the good he can see in the weed (the adversary?).
ReplyDeleteI got a kick out of reading all the comments by people working very hard to keep their gloves on to pull some weeds, and their goggles to see them better.
ReplyDeleteI was just going to comment on your Capon sounding writing (especially the phrase "don't get into the weeding business") and recommend him to you when I found you quoting him yourself!
ReplyDeleteI think the idea of forgiveness is alien to even many Christians. We want to put limits on this. To have a few caveats. We always say "I forgive you, but..." or "I'll forgive you if...." But then that stops being forgiveness. If you put limitations or expectations in your forgiveness then it is no longer really forgiveness. You have moved into a business deal.
oh my this makes me laugh on every level! so true. :))
ReplyDeleteNo dear friend...the truth is only Jesus and Christians who proclaim Christ are different in that they proclaim Christ. You aren't any different than the common day sinner! Be careful not to eleveate yourself to the place of 'better than' and 'no leaven'. You too are leaven and I'm sure I can confirm this with the folks in your life that know you. Insulted? Then humble yourself before the King of Humility, Grace and Redemption and say, "Yes Lord, I too am a Sinner". Wishing you Jesus! Hugs.
ReplyDeleteThats right! I recently had a pastor and his wife reach out to me. But when i wouldnt leave my church i already attended to go to their church, i was told theyd no longer pour into me. Conditional help conditional care conditional love. That was very telling to say the least.
ReplyDeleteThere must be no more debate on this in our time. We are nearing the 'rapture'. The wheat must have manifested its fruit. "By their fruit you shall know them" But, we still have to consider that some wheat are late bloomer. They still need food for the season, just continue the feeding the WORD.
ReplyDelete