LONG before I came upon the question of whether anyone would know if I were a Christian if I never opened my mouth, I stumbled on a perplexing problem related to one of Jesus’s better known parables: A farmer plants a field of wheat. During the night his enemy sneaks into the field and sows tare seeds along with the wheat. When the crop begins to grow the farm hands notice the tares growing up amongst the wheat and go to the farmer. “Should we root them out?” they ask. “No,” replies the farmer. “If you do that you will root up the wheat, too. Just let them grow until harvest and then we will harvest everything. Then we can thresh the wheat and burn the tares.” And that was how the farm hands handled it.
The explanation of the parable is pretty straightforward. The field is the world. The seed is the seed of the Gospel. The mature wheat that grows from it is the body of Christians – the Church. The weed seeds are false doctrine or worldly thinking and the tares that grow from it are church members who really aren’t Christians but who are mingled in with the wheat. Some commentators point out that except for not producing wheat, the tares pretty much look like the real thing – though I am sure there were subtle differences even when the plants were young because the farm hands caught the difference.
There are two different ways to process the parable. Both depend on understanding that every church has people who look like Christians but really aren’t. But one way looks outward, and the other looks inward.
The outward way looks at the people in a church to determine who the tares in the congregation are. In truth, this is a pretty useless exercise because even if we spot them, we cannot just throw them out. That would cause a lot of real Christians to suffer as well and would split the church. Besides, the tares are identifying other tares and making judgments. Implementing a tare identification program would create division, as well. And in the end, all that happens is the church gets distracted from its real work.
The inward way to process the parable is for Christians to begin asking themselves, “Am I a tare or wheat?” That causes us to second guess ourselves at every turn and because we are so focused on the question, we are drawn off track. For a long time, I was in the questioning mode. It really bothered me.
The question itself isn’t a bad question to ask if you know how to find the answer and realize that it isn’t up to you to make that determination any more than it is up to you to judge others. The best anyone can do is to do his best. To turn a common phrase from the Viet Nam era, “Bless ‘em all and let God sort it out.” But every once in a while, the question tickles the back of my mind.
When that happens I remember something I heard John MacArthur say in a radio message on the subject. In essence, what he said was this: If you are asking the question, you are wheat. Tares wouldn’t worry about it. Only a Christian would be bothered by the possibility. If you have to ask, you already have the answer.
So, when the question crosses my mind from time to time, I smile because I am reassured. If it bothers me, I am a Christian. Then I thank God for His mercy, and go about doing His work.
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