Hi Readers,
The leg is healing well, which makes life better. Also, got a package in the mail from the West with a book and beef jerky. How nice to get little surprises like that from time to time.
Also, a relative posted some very old family pictures (from my mother's mother's side of the family). I had never seen these pictures before and I was surprised by joy :-) The picture here is my great grandma.
Finally, have been invited to preach (in Arabic, no less) at the local Anglican church in two weeks. We don't attend that church every week, but I try to get there from time to time bc, well, we're Anglican. So preaching in Arabic is a pleasant but challenging prospect. (Preaching in English or Spanish? Muy facil.)
Gospel passage: the wheat and the tares in Mt 13. Ideas?
Salam.
Abu Daoud (<-----eating beef jerky)
9 comments:
It's always amazing to see photos and other things from those who went before us. Four years ago, I put this together. It was educational in many ways.
Good to see you're on the mend.
Ideas? Perhaps that, against all Novatianism and Donatism, the presence of tares is a mark of the true Church?
What did you do to your leg, Abu Daoud?
Great grandma was a cute looking cowgirl and has a contemporary style. Did she like gardening?
My ex-wife was an Anglican from Nova Scotia and I went to her church a few times.
Gospel passage: the wheat and the tares in Mt 13. Ideas?
Jesus already de-parablized the parable when he explains it to his disciples privately. He explains every symbol he used in the parable and shows to his disciples that it describes how mankind will be dealt with at the end of the age. It also explains why God is, apparently, not doing anything right now to those who represent the tares (or weeds)---they're allowed to go on being their evil selves, but his disciples are taught the wisdom to be cautious and wise. Presumably, in the resurrection of both the quick and the dead they will be separated by the angels that He sends in order that each group will be dealt with accordingly. He is teaching us, and warning us, that there are and will be those who teach false doctrine, mislead many, and commit evil (possibly even within the church).
The Apostle Paul himself went thru some instances of the tares/wheat parable in his Epistles to those churches in Asia Minor where evil tares grew and caused problems to mislead its members. (So already in his time there were tares among the wheat of the Lord.) Paul made enormous and repeated effort to educate and edify those churches from their evil ways (so clearly not mark of a true church).
PS---Just one slight question. In verse 29 (Mt 13) the man (representing the Son of Man) says to his servants not to gather the tares "lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them." But in verse 41 the angels (the reapers) appear to have no problem in gathering out "all causes of sin and all evildoers" (represented by the tares) from the righteous. (Perhaps it's a part of the parable-analogy that wasn't meant to correspond literally to the real situation?)
Let me amend that: the presence of both wheat and tares, the former being real Saints: in Anglicanism, folks like C.S. Lewis, Evelyn Underhill, John Newton, John Wesley. This as opposed to a Church such as that in Laodicea, in Revelation, which, being "lukewarm" produces neither real wheat nor real weeds.
I have been pondering Jesus' usage of the "field" in a good number of his parables. Also, note how he presents many parables, but the disciples only request that this one be explained. Also interesting, this comes right before his return to Nazareth where he notes how people lack faith and do not honor a prophet in his home town.
Samuel: leg is broken, or was broken. Got hit by a car.
Sorry to hear that Abu Daoud, I wish you a speedy recovery. Keep away from those moving objects, they have rather hard surfaces upon contact. :-)
Jesus used very simple and everyday situations to describe the mysteries of the Kingdom. A model teacher He is, from whom I have learned a great deal (and continue to learn) in teaching my students: using simple ideas in clear and concrete language. It is surprising how many fairly complex things can be explained in simple terms (without the need to sound very sophisticated and highfalutin). (He created complex life forms from simpler atoms that can be fitted together according to the Laws that he inscribed in them.) Einstein was also such a person who was very talented in doing this.
FrGreg, I suspected you didn't mean it (but had something else in mind that perhaps you didn't write down). Thanks for clarifying anyway.
Samuel, obviously we don't want Laodicean Churches, nor churches which are comprised of only "weeds" (or where the weeds are largely in charge). However, every attempt to create a Church that is only "wheat" (i.e., Donatism and Novationism and other movements which have followed since, some of them pretty bizarre), has not, to say the least, produced the desired result.
But FrGreg, has not our Lord said that we are to be perfect even as our Heavenly Father is perfect? (Mt 5.48.) If so, then attempts to be an all-wheat church are not out of line with Scripture (even if in practice it has not always worked out), and is in fact what Jesus is teaching us is possible. And who knows? Maybe there are churches out there---and I'd bet there are---where tares are hardly a factor, being fully dominated by the wheat.
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