Exploring My Strange Bible - Weeds and Wheat - Gospel of Matthew Part 21

Episode Date: September 24, 2018

We consider one of Jesus’ parables in this episode. Jesus is explaining who he is and what the kingdom of God that he is announcing is like. He is trying to shift and recreate new paradigms for people and life and God. The “Weeds and Wheat” is a famous parable that Jesus gives in Matthew Chapter 13. Listen in as we dive in together. Want to learn more about the larger biblical ideas about God's justice in this video? Check out Josh Butler, Skeletons in God’s Closet: The Mercy of Hell, the Surprise of Judgment, and the Hope of Holy War.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right. Well, in this episode, we're going to keep exploring the gospel according to Matthew. All right, well, in this episode, we're going to keep exploring the gospel according to Matthew.

We're in the section of Matthew chapter 13, where Jesus is talking about parables. And specifically, we're going to look at a parable Jesus tells called the weeds and the wheat. Here, Jesus is in a very typical Jewish mode of communication. He's using images and symbols connected to Jewish apocalyptic literature and tradition. So he's going to use lots of imagery of fire and angels and final judgment and weeds and grass being thrown in the fire and so on. A lot of this imagery, it gets confusing for a lot of modern readers. And part of that is we don't naturally understand the biblical and Jewish backgrounds to apocalyptic imagery in the Bible. And so we're going to be sorting some of that out as well. But also, we want to really let Jesus's own warnings and teachings about God's act of final justice and setting all things right in the world. And if I

choose not to align myself with God's purposes to bring about new creation, I apparently, according to Jesus, that's just not something you want to choose because the consequences are really serious. I've been helped enormously recently by a wonderful book on this whole topic of Jesus' teachings about final judgment by a friend of mine and a really wise theologian. His name's Josh Butler. He wrote a very helpful book called The Skeletons in God's Closet, The Mercy of Hell, The Surprise of Judgment, and The Hope of Holy War. If this teaching gets you interested in wanting to learn more and learning a more biblical frame for

thinking about these issues of God's judgment in the Bible, Josh Butler's book is awesome, and I really recommend it. I drew on it for a number of ideas and especially one-liners in this teaching. So, I hope this is helpful for you. Let's dive in and learn together. Matthew 13, verse 24. You guys ready? Alright. Jesus told them another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.

But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. Now the owner's servants came to him and said, Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where did all these weeds come from? An enemy did this, he replied. The servants then asked him, well, do you want us to go and pull all the weeds up? No, he answered, because while you're pulling up weeds, you may uproot the wheat along with them. No, let them grow together until the harvest. At that time, I will tell the harvesters, first collect the weeds, tie them in bundles to be burned, then gather the wheat

and bring it into my barn. Now, just scan down, you'll see Jesus tells another parable right after that about a mustard seed, small and then grows into a big tree. And then right after that, it's a parable about a woman baking bread. So Josh is actually going to tackle those next week. Go down to verse 36 with me. Then Jesus, he left the crowd and went into the house. And his disciples came to him and said, Jesus, explain to us this parable about the weeds in the field. Jesus answered, The one who sowed good seed is the son of man. That's Jesus' way of referring to himself.

The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one. The enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the people of the evil one. The enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels. They'll weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.

They'll throw them into the blazing furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. Do you have ears? You should listen. The words of Jesus. All right, who's uncomfortable right now? Who's uncomfortable? I am.

You know, if you're not, at least be uncomfortable for me right now. Here you go. Some of you brought a friend today maybe, and you're like, dang it. This is like hell, hell Sunday. Great. It's great. So Jesus is telling a parable, but me began with a short story of my own. Kind of help us frame how to approach this. So I have a four-year-old son. His name's Roman. I also have a two-year-old son. His name's August.

And my son, both sons, love to eat dirt and sticks and, you know, whatever. We have a whole section of our yard that's just for them to do their thing, which is eat dirt and sticks, right? And so the boys get slivers. That's my point here. The boys get slivers. And it's just a part of life being a toddler or whatever. And so

I, you know, on a regular basis have to remove slivers from my boys' fingers. And it's just, it's the worst thing in the world, you guys. Somehow, especially my four-year-old, when he gets a sliver, and I can see it, you know? It's not even deep. It's like the surface ones, you know? Actually, it's the minor surface ones that hurt the worst. You guys know what I'm talking about.

Because you press on it, and it really, it's like a needle or whatever. So he gets these slivers, and so, you know, I love the boy, you know? And he's in misery, and so I'm like, buddy, we've got to deal with that. And the moment he hears those words, he's like, no. And so I get out the tweezers.

And for him, I don't know how this happened, right? This is the first time I remember. It's like he's the first time I know ever he's seen tweezers. And to them, they look like instruments of destruction and torture or something like that. And he just runs and he screams or whatever, and so this happened, this happened the other week, so I'm like, buddy, we got, I can take it out, it's going to take five seconds, just let me deal with it, and so I get the tweezers out, and I have to chase, I have to chase him, right, because he's screaming, screaming,

it's one of these things where I have to like sit him down and like hold him and be like, buddy, look, like, and he's screaming, no, no, you're, it's hurting me, it's hurting me. So I take it out, and it's what, it's the moment, like 10 seconds after it's out, and then he's just like, oh, oh, and then he's fine, and I'm just like, see, it wasn't so bad, and he's like, oh yeah, whatever, and then he's like on to the next thing, and I'm just like, you're crazy, you're crazy, right? I've told you stories about my, my crazy toddler son before. So here's why I'm telling you this. The most recent time this happened, sunny weather, and we live pretty close to Hawthorne.

There's a lot of foot traffic on our street. So our windows are open, and I'm holding my son, right? And he's screaming, don't hurt me, Dad, right? You know, and I'm just like, oh my gosh, like what? Someone's going to storm in the door, you know, from the sidewalk here, and whatever, claim my son, you know, what are you doing, I'm just removing a sliver, like he's fine, you know, but you know, that's where my mind went, I have a really good friend who he went camping with his son for the first time, his son's five, and it was the same thing, like he was trying to adjust the sleeping bag for his son for the first time. His son's five, and it was the same thing. Like, he was trying to adjust the sleeping bag for his son in the tent at night, and then his son starts screaming like,

Dad, it's hurting me, or whatever, and he's thinking, what do all these people around me think I'm doing? You know, anyway, so here you go. So here's the point, right? You're in the camp spot next to my friend, right? You're walking by the sidewalk of my house, and you just hear my son screaming, saying those words, right? And you're bound to misinterpret everything that's happening, right, in the house. But you come into the house, you hear the story, and all of a sudden, this situation has context. Now, it makes sense what's happened, pulling a sliver out. It hurts for him, and he thinks it's horrible, but actually,'s what he needs, right? You guys with me here? Do you have ears? So we just read a parable of Jesus, but you'll know that we read it out of context,

right? Like we didn't read the parable before it. We didn't read the 12 chapters that came before it. Now we have been slowly, right, over the months as we go through Matthew, but this is a problem that we have, right? We encounter the teachings of Jesus mostly in isolated little tidbits, and we're bound to encounter them out of context. And so, what sounds to us harsh and really terrifying and horrible, I promise you, come into the house, hear the whole story, and all of a sudden you will see a Jesus

who so loves and is committed to his good world. He is committed to dealing with evil and removing it from his good world as an act of mercy and grace. But you need to be patient, right? We need to drop our agendas, come into the house, and hear the story that Jesus is telling. So what is, again, just because this is so important and because it's the issue of hell, right? I just really want to stop and really take kind of the whole first of exploring this to just get the setting and to see where this teaching fits in. Because here's, I guarantee, this is what happened in a

whole bunch of our minds as I was reading the parable, is you had a story appear in your head. And it's a story that most people in our culture, and maybe even many of you, what you think Christians believe, and what the story of the Bible is. And it goes something like this. So here we all are on planet Earth. And it's mostly great here, often tragic, however. And so here's you and me, and we're living out our days here. And, you know, it's good here, and sometimes we do good, but again, most people think what Christians believe. Christians have this guilt complex thing and believe that we're all just

totally horrible. And so Jesus comes onto the scene to tell everyone that He's really great and that we are really horrible, and that if you do more good than bad and have correct beliefs about Jesus, then things are going to go well for you. And if you do more bad than good and have incorrect beliefs about Jesus, then that's bad news. You've chosen poorly. And the way those choices play out, again, most people think Christians believe, is when you die, if you have correct beliefs about Jesus

and you've done more good than bad, your destiny is heaven. And heaven in the popular imagination is something about disembodied, non-physical bliss, all your dreams come true, grapes and Corvettes or whatever, I don't know, and like clouds and harps and singing. And then if you have had incorrect beliefs about Jesus, and if you do more bad than good, then hell is where you go, and hell is an end game that's horrible, subterranean. It involves torture, God torturing people, and people crying for help, but God not sparing and torturing them forever and ever. There you go. Am I wrong? That this is what most people think Christians believe and think that the story of the Bible is telling. Am I wrong?

I don't think I'm wrong. I mean, I've asked my neighbors, right? And if you ask your neighbors, this is what people think the disciples of Jesus believe. And so there's a long story of how this story came into form, especially in American Christianity. But it's not just like I have problems with this. I think the Bible has problems with this. Jesus has problems with this. This is like walking by my house and hearing my son screaming, don't hurt me, right? And it's so full of half-truths and out-of-context statements, you just have to stop and say, stop. Let's step in. Let's be patient. Let's hear the whole story. And that's precisely what we've been trying to do as we go through the gospel according to Matthew.

Remember, on any given day, what you would hear Jesus talking about is not you're going to heaven or hell. What would you hear Jesus talking about on any given day? We've been talking about is not you're going to heaven or hell. What would you hear Jesus talking about on any given day? We've been talking about this for months now. What do you hear about? You hear about the kingdom, right? Matthew chapter 4. It's the first summary of Jesus's teaching. It's Matthew's way of saying, here's what you'd hear Jesus talking about any given day. From that time on, Jesus began to preach, repent. The kingdom of heaven has come near. Jesus went throughout Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every sickness, disease and sickness among the people. And so just stop right here. It's the good news.

It's the gospel. And the gospel is about what? Good news of, it's about the kingdom. And what is the good news about the kingdom? So the kingdom of heaven is here. Do you see that right there? Look at Jesus. It's here. So according to Jesus, heaven, first and foremost, is not just an endgame destination. According to Jesus, heaven is a reality that is here now in him and in himself.

And this opens us up to the whole story that the Bible is actually trying to tell us and that Jesus is trying to tell us. Let's keep this slide right here and just think with me about sentence one of the Bible. It's very simple. First sentence of the Bible. Some of you are geeks, and you know this, right? So first sentence, in the beginning, God made heaven and earth. So that's interesting. So the Bible doesn't begin, in the beginning, God made heaven and hell. In the beginning, God made heaven and hell. In the beginning, God made heaven and earth. So the way that the story of the Bible begins is with a story of heaven and earth as spaces. These are the counterparts. The counterpart of heaven in the Bible is not hell.

The counterpart of heaven in the Bible is earth. It's God's space and human space. It's the image of Eden as a place where God and His good creation, and God rules His good creation through the image-bearing creatures, these humans that He's made and appointed as stewards and caretakers and rulers of his good world. And God and humans dwell together in harmony and in peace and so on. Heaven married to earth. That's how the story of the Bible begins.

It lasts two pages. Two pages. And what happens, of course, is the tragedy that humans seize autonomy from God. Many of you have seen me draw these circles before. Humans seize autonomy from God. Many of you have seen me draw these circles before. Humans seize autonomy from God. They want to define good and evil for themselves instead of trusting God's definition of good and evil. And because God has made them with dignity as His image-bearing human beings,

God allows humans to push heaven out of earth, so to speak. It's like humans wage a war on heaven here on earth. But of course, we can't push God completely out of His good creation. It's His, after all. And so here's the state of play in the story of the Bible, is that heaven has been disconnected, not completely, but God has given humans an independence and the autonomy that they wanted. And the story of Genesis 3 through 11 tells the story of humans bringing ruin and evil and sin into God's good world. Okay, where does hell come in? So according to the story of the Bible, the story of the Bible does not begin with heaven and hell. It begins with heaven and earth, which means this. Whatever hell is, we'll talk about it more, hell has no place in God's good world. Hell is not something God contrived from the beginning. Hell and evil and

sin and its consequences are something that comes later into the story as a corruption and a distortion and as a tragic reality in God's good world. Hell is something that God does not want for his world, and that's where the story of the Bible comes into play. Humans are the ones who unleash evil in God's good world. Now watch. Watch this. In the teachings of Jesus, you will see Jesus use hell not just to describe a future reality, but to describe a present reality, something that humans do and unleash. Look at what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 23 right here. He's pronouncing woes on the most religious people you could ever imagine, right? The Pharisees. And he says, woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you've succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. Now, just stop right there. If in Jesus' mind, hell is only an endgame future reality, that statement makes no sense whatsoever, because he's not describing what the Pharisees are doing in the future. He's describing what they're doing right now. And what are they doing? What's the behavior and heart motivation that Jesus is targeting in the Pharisees. What's he call them? Hypocrites, right? Religious pride and hypocrisy. And when people act with religious pride

and hypocrisy, it's not just that it's sin. Jesus says that they are creating and unleashing hell in God's good world. He uses the word hell to describe it. Do you see that right there? Just to be clear. I just want to be crystal clear. You see this? For Jesus, hell is something that religious prideful people create and unleash in God's good world. Are you with me? Step two, Jesus' disciples, the apostles, continued to teach about this idea of hell. Look at what James says about it in James chapter 3. You'll see it on the screen here. Again, it's a familiar passage to many of us.

James is talking about the power of our words to destroy or to bring life. And he says, The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body and sets the whole course of one's life on fire and is itself set on fire by hell. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who have been made in God's likeness.

So look at what he's saying here. He's talking about, think cubicle land, where half of you work, or whatever, like your workspace and your ability to fill someone with a sense of value and love through your words. and love through your words. And then also think about your ability to degrade and destroy someone's dignity and worth through the same apparatus on your face, right? Through your mouth. And when we gossip, when we tear down other people's dignity and worth with our words, James says, what are we creating and unleashing in God's good world? What does he say? Hell.

Hell. Now that statement makes no sense whatsoever if hell is only this. It seems to me what Jesus and the apostles, and there's lots of other statements like this, is that how Jesus sees the story going, and James as well, is that hell is something that we have unleashed here in God's good world. It's our sin, it's our selfishness, it's our evil, It's our evil. And the ruinous consequences of that are hell.

We create it and we unleash it in God's good world. In the story of the... So, that's bad news, right? So what's the good news? What's the good news according to Jesus? The kingdom of heaven in the person of Jesus is here. And the whole mission of Jesus is to confront hell and to get the hell out of his world, so to speak. Are you with me?

That's the story of the Bible. That is the good news. The kingdom of heaven is here to confront hell and to get the hell out of God's good world and to get the hell out of you, so to speak. But this is the story. You come into the living room, hear the whole context, and you realize, like, oh, whatever hell is, hell fits into the story

of God's mercy. See, God could just walk away and just let us unleash this forever and ever and ever, but in God's mercy, he will not allow human evil to go unchecked. He will deal with it, and he's here to deal with it. And he tells this parable to describe what he's there doing right now. Are you guys with me here? Okay, let's go back to the parable and just watch the details of the parable fit into a different story. This is really profound what Jesus is doing. Jesus tells a story about a farmer sowing seed, which we've heard this before, haven't we? Like the previous parable, right? And this farmer is sowing seed. The focus is not on the soil. The focus is on these two things growing in the field. So the farmer sows what? What's he trying to grow, the farmer? He's trying to grow wheat. So he sows a bunch of

wheat, and then people are asleep. And then everyone wakes up in the morning, and lo and behold, what's also there alongside the wheat? Weeds. And in the parable, Jesus focuses on two questions that the farm workers come to ask the farmer. Two questions. What's the first one? Verse 27, what's the first question? What? Where did all these weeds come from, right? You're going around sowing wheat. Farmer, where's, where, why are these weeds here? So what's Jesus doing? Think. These parables are a commentary on the good news of the kingdom of heaven invading earth, of what Jesus has been up to. Jesus comes onto the scene announcing the kingdom of heaven is here, and He's the Messiah,

and He's healing and confronting evil. And then all of a sudden, right, we've been reading all these stories of opposition against Jesus, right? The very people that Jesus has sent to, their leaders, their religious leaders, they hate Jesus, they oppose him, and they actually have put in motion a plan to murder Jesus, right? And then John the Baptist and Jesus' own family, like they're kind of weirded out by Jesus, and they don't really get behind him fully. The weeds, right? Where do all these weeds come from, Jesus? You're the Messiah. You're bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth. Why all these weeds? And what is the farmer's response? Where did the weeds come from? What does the farmer say? It's an enemy. An enemy did this. So that's interesting. So Jesus,

I mean, he lays into the Pharisees, but ultimately he doesn't see, he doesn't see the people who are plotting to murder him as his real enemy, does he? Jesus doesn't see the Romans as his enemy. We've explored that already. Jesus sees a darker reality to evil and hell that's been unleashed in God's good world. and hell that's been unleashed in God's good world. And it goes right back to the first pages of the Bible, where you have humans influenced by spiritual evil. They come to believe a different story about God's character, that God's holding out on them, that maybe we actually should define good and evil for ourselves because God's holding out on us. Actually, this will be better if we become like God and run the show ourselves. It's a different

story. And Jesus sees an enemy at the root of this. Now, this is very subtle in the Bible. This is not the devil made me do it mentality, a silly, right? That's not the biblical view here, because it's humans who fully choose and embrace and do evil and unleash hell in God's good world. But Jesus sees that evil is actually foreign to God's good world. It's an intruder, and it's an intruder into your life and my life. And, you know, I've used this example before, but I think it's true to us. You have these moments where you're tempted to do or to say something to another person.

You know it's wrong. And in your mind, you're going like, no, no, that's not. Well, yes, yes. Actually, yes, that's really the best thing I could do. Right now, and then, blah, and then you do it, right? And then a second later or a week later or whatever,

you look back and you're like, oh, my gosh, like what was I thinking? What was I doing? How many of you know exactly what I'm talking about? You know what I'm talking about. If you don't, you're in denial, right? Go see a counselor, right? So we experience evil as something foreign to us, alien, but yet it's we who choose it, and we love it. We choose it so much, but yet we hate it at the same time. And Jesus is the enemy,

and Jesus doesn't give us half the information that we would love to have about the enemy. But evil is a real intruder in God's good world and into your life. And Jesus wants hell out of your life and out of his good world, and that's good news. It's good news. So an enemy did this. What's the second question they ask? So an enemy did this. What's the second question the farm workers ask? All right, do you want us to go and pull up all the weeds? The weed whacker, right? Let's go for it. Come on, farmer, this is our job, right?

We work for you. Let us go pull up all the weeds. And what does the farmer say? Sheesh, no, no. Bad idea. Really, really bad idea. So you didn't see that coming. So why is that?

What's the reason given? Look at the reason the farmer gives. He says, no, no, because while you're pulling up weeds, what you think is a weed is actually wheat. And what you think is wheat and you leave is actually a weed. Like, this is just a bad idea, right? So let them both grow together. Do you see that right there?

What's Jesus doing? So Jesus, first of all, he assumes here that the farm workers are poor evaluators. They're poor judges of whether something is wheat or weed. Right? And we might like to think of ourselves as really quite discerning about people's character. And like, of course, I know that that person is not a follower of Jesus. And I know that they're not saved, but that person definitely is.

And Jesus is like, stop it. Stop it. Right? If you go around declaring and then like dealing out Jesus' justice, right, and judgment on people that you think are weeds, it's just, it's horrible, it's going to result in disaster. Can you just try and imagine what would happen if the church took upon itself the responsibility to be the Jesus police, you know,

and to, like, punish people who weren't followers of Jesus. Can you just work hard and try and imagine the church ever doing that? Right? You don't have to work hard, do you? When you think in terms of 2,000 years of church history, you don't have to think that hard to remember examples of that. Disaster.

And I think in Jesus' mind, a betrayal, overstepping our bounds from being followers of Jesus to thinking that we are Jesus in His role as judge. No, He says. Now, there's a detail in the parable that makes a little more sense of this. I should have said this a minute ago, but I'll say it now. Let me show you pictures. So the weeds, we think dandelions or something like that. Don't think that.

So weeds think, excuse me, wheat, amber waves of grain, this kind of thing. But the word that Jesus uses, zidania in Greek, it's referring to a very specific type of invasive plant. Farmers call it false wheat. Do you see why? I mean, it's obvious why. It looks exactly like wheat in the

early phases, in the green early phases of growth. So the whole point is it's not obvious what's weeds and what's wheat. And Jesus does not trust his disciples to be good, consistent evaluators of whether someone's a weed or whether someone's wheat. This is really profound, I think, right? And you know what Jesus is talking about, right? It's this mixed bag of the human heart where we just have this tendency to maximize the flaws of other people and to minimize our own flaws and have a sense of pride about ourselves over other people. You know what I'm talking about, right? We think, well, of course I'm wheat. And of course they're a weed. And Jesus says, dude, whoa, whoa. He's just blind in so many ways, right?

And actually, there's a word for religious pride that maximizes other flaws and minimizes my own. What's the good word that we have for that kind of mindset? It's called hypocrisy. And if I remember correctly, Jesus said religious hypocrisy is actually this. It's this. It unleashes this. It actually destroys everything. Stop it, Jesus says. That's not your job. You have one job, and it's the job that the farmer is all about, and it's the job that the farmer hired the workers to do, which is to what?

To grow wheat, right? To sow seeds, to grow wheat. What's the job of Jesus' follower? What is Jesus' response to hell unleashed on earth? So look at what he says here. The Son of Man is the one who sows the seed, is the Son of Man. Jesus' response to hell unleashed on his good world is to sow the good news. That despite what we have done to ourselves and to God's good world, God has not rejected his world. But rather, in the person of Jesus, he has come among us as fully human, to actually be the kind of human being, the hell-free human being that we are all made and called to be but perpetually failed to be. And in Jesus' death, we see the Creator

actually allowing the hell that we have unleashed and the evil we've unleashed on His good world, Jesus allows it to overwhelm Him. And He takes literally into Himself the consequences of our sin and of our evil, and He allows it to destroy him. But because his commitment to us and his love for his beautiful yet broken world is so strong and it's so eternal, the resurrection of Jesus is a statement of God's eternal love and commitment to his world. And for those who will allow Jesus's life and death and resurrection to be true for them, to humbly receive it in gratefulness and trust, his life becomes a gift.

And his life becomes a gift that actually begins to turn us more and more into wheat, so to speak. I mean, think about it. Jesus knows the mixed nature of the human heart. And, you know, He's distinguishing weeds and wheat and the good and evil in the parable to make a point about judgment that we'll talk about in a minute. But, again, come sit in the living room, get the whole context of Jesus' teachings. We know that Jesus knows that the heart is a mixed reality of good and evil. And here's the thing, Jesus is serious about hell. The good news is about heaven invading earth to get the hell out

of earth. And Jesus actually takes this more seriously than we do, you guys. So think of something that we could all agree on, and even your neighbor who doesn't follow Jesus, we could agree on this, that there are some things in our world that are so hellish and so evil, they need to be removed from God's good world, right? Abusing children for sex, that you pay money to do that, that's a hellish evil. Sex trafficking, it's a hellish evil in our world. It needs to stop. And Jesus agrees with us that it needs to stop and be removed from God's good world, but he takes it even more seriously than we do, because we would be content if sex trafficking was removed from God's good world. Jesus will not be satisfied until lust is removed from his good world, right? This impulse in us to use or even abuse another human being for my own gratification,

right? The Sermon on the Mount, you guys, this is back to last fall. We want to see racially motivated violence out of God's good world. And Jesus does too, but he takes it more seriously than we do because we want racially motivated violence to be gone from God's good world. Jesus wants pride and contempt and rage to be uprooted from the human heart. Are you with me here? So we want to prune the branches and make the tree smaller. Jesus wants to uproot hell from his good world and from our hearts. He takes this more seriously than we do. And he knows the mixed nature of our character. And so this is the paradox of the good news.

It's good news that heaven is invading earth and that Jesus wants to invade your life. That's really good news. It's like, it's good news that heaven is invading earth and that Jesus wants to invade your life. That's really good news. But it's also good news that challenges us, right? Because like if you see a madman running at you with an M16 or something, is that good news or bad news? It's bad news. If you see a surgeon running at you with a scalpel ready to slice you open, running at you with a scalpel ready to slice you open. Is that good news or bad news? You know what I'm saying? Well, I mean, if you've got this diseased organ that has to be removed or you will die,

it's the best news you could ever hope to hear, but it's going to hurt like hell, isn't it? Good news. The kingdom of heaven is here. He wants to get the hell out of earth and out of you. And he's lived and he died and he was raised for you and for me so you and I can actually be converted into wheat. Not so that we can go around saying, oh, you're definitely still a weed. You know what I mean?

There's the weeds cropping up again all over. That's the whole point is to kill that stuff. Kill it dead. That's the whole goal. That's the weeds cropping up again all over. That's the whole point, is to kill that stuff. Kill it dead. That's the whole goal. That's the good news. And it challenges, it doesn't leave anybody space to stand over others. It puts us all on level ground in need of Jesus' grace, in need of the good news, that we need to hear it and let it humble us again

to come before the cross. Amen? So, what about, okay, so the story goes like this. God kicks hell out of earth, and everyone's converted into wheat. Is that how the story goes? Is that how the parable ends? It doesn't end like that, right? So Jesus explains the parable, and the way that he explains it is he says there will be some, again, now we think, so did you know the password or not, right, about Jesus, and were you more good than bad? No, no, no, no. Think, stop, come into the living room, be patient, hear the whole gospel of Matthew, hear the whole story of the Bible. If God is on a mission to heal His good world and to remove hell of it, and if that is challenging good news to hear, then how does hell play into this story? Because, of course, the story of the Bible ends reversing the direction

here of heaven reuniting fully with earth. Go to the last page of the Bible, the last page of the Bible, the last two pages particularly, and here's what you'll hear, wedding bells, right? You'll hear about a wedding ceremony of heaven meeting earth completely and getting married. You'll hear, you'll see images of a city, the new Jerusalem coming down to earth to be fully merged with it. And it's a city, but then all of a sudden it's a garden, the Garden of Eden recreated again. And then here's what you hear, last page of the Bible. Where does evil go when heaven remarries earth? Where does it go?

It's an image of this new city. And hell is, we're told told it's outside the city. We're like, Bible, tell us more. Give us more literal details about this, right? So we go, oh, here's Jesus. Maybe he's going to give us some literal details about it, right? He's explaining the parable. And so we think he's telling a parable, so now he's going to speak literally about it. So he starts talking about angels and furnaces and people gnashing their teeth and people shining like the sun and so on. We think, okay, so he's being literal now. So I just, the Bible, the message of the Bible is fairly simple to get. The details in the Bible are not simple.

They require you to engage your brain. And if we had time, I would do this. Almost every single image in Jesus' explanation of this parable is drawn from the book of Daniel. The angels, the furnace, right? The people shining like the sun. Jesus is explaining the parable by using apocalyptic language from the book of Daniel. What kind of book is the book of Daniel? It's a book full of

dragons and beasts, and the book tells you that they are symbols. This is a way, this is a common way that Jewish authors wrote, using apocalyptic imagery and metaphor to describe something real. And Jesus uses these metaphors to describe this right here. Now just work with me here. Just for a second, we'll make the point. Look at two statements that Jesus makes about this in Matthew chapter, here we go. So Matthew chapter 8, it's a parable actually. He ends by saying, the sons of the kingdom will be cast into outer darkness.

In that place will be weeping of gnashing of teeth. And then the conclusion of this parable, Matthew chapter 13, the son of man will throw them into the furnace of fire. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus is talking about this. Now, which is it? Is it pitch black or is it full of fire? If Jesus is all of a sudden shifted into literal language, can both of those be true at the same time? Just stop. Ask yourself that question. Can both of those be true at the same time? Just stop. Ask yourself that question. Can both of those be true at the same time? Okay, either you're scared to answer.

I don't know what's happening in the room right now. But I mean, last time I sat in front of a fire, it produced light. Lots and lots of light. Right? Are you with me here?

It's a metaphor. Now, some of you get scared when I say metaphor because you think, oh, it's not real. That's ridiculous, right? So my wife, Jessica, is a fireball. It's a metaphor. Now, some of you get scared when I say metaphor because you think, oh, it's not real. That's ridiculous, right? So my wife, Jessica, is a fireball. It's true.

More true than you know, right? So that's a metaphor. Does it mean that I don't believe my wife is real? No, that's the opposite, right? When you use metaphors, it's because the thing you're trying to describe is too real, and the only adequate language available to capture it, to capture facets of what this thing is, my wife and all of her tenacity and splendor, is fire, fireball, right? When we use metaphors, when I say that Jesus is describing this with metaphors, it is real.

And the only adequate language are images and metaphors that give us windows into what it is. So darkness is this image of loneliness and isolation. It's an image of the sin of separation. It's this refusal to acknowledge God's authority over me and that I want to be God and I want to define good and evil for myself. Thank you very much. I would rather be alone than be in a room with God, so to speak. An image of fire, of sin and evil having this corrosive effect of breaking something down until it's no longer recognizable for what it once was.

It's the way that sin and hell make us, they dehumanize us. These powerful images, these images of loss, weeping, but also of anger and hatred, gnashing teeth. Why would anyone choose this, we might say? Like, why wouldn't everyone want to participate in this? But you just have to stop. Remember, hell isn't just the end of the game. Why do you gossip about your co-worker? You're choosing hell when you do that, and we love it. We choose hell all of the time.

Why is it that we view ourselves as better than other people because of our religious beliefs? Jesus says that's hell. It's choosing hell. We love hell. We choose it every day. And hell, as C.S. Lewis said, it's the monument of God's honoring of the dignity of human decision. If humans refuse to be healed, if I refuse to let the surgeon remove, right, the diseased organ from me, then God will let me. But what He will not do is allow my evil to continue to ruin His good world. That's good news. He will remove it so that it can no longer destroy his good world or others. And we all have questions about what this is, and Jesus just says, no, no.

Here's your job. Grow wheat. Jesus, do you want us to pull up the weeds? No, dude. Grow wheat. Jesus, I would love to really know more about grow wheat. Are you with me here? He refuses. He refuses to give us any inch that will let us think of ourselves as like different from or better than other people. The only thing

that makes us different, it has nothing to do with us. It has to do with a simple acknowledgement of the good news that Jesus has lived for me, he's died for me, he's been raised for me. When he looks at me and I receive him, he looks at me and he sees wheat. He sees his life in me and what he's done for me. And the only way it makes me different is that I should become the greatest servant and the most humble person who can just share the good news about Jesus and allow Jesus to sort out the rest. Are you with me here? It's good news. And so I think to conclude, this gives us, this parable gives us a word of hope and a word of challenge. It gives us hope because we look at our own lives, the own mixed nature of our character, and we wonder, like, am I ever going to change, you know, these issues that I deal with? And we

look out at our world and we're like the cries of the innocent and the tragedies. Is there any hope? Right? And Jesus tells this parable to say yes. Just because we are not the judge doesn't mean there is not a just judge who loves his world and is committed to it, and he hears the cries of the innocent, and he hears the prayers of repentance and the cries to Jesus, please change me, and he's the author and the finisher of our faith. Amen? It's a word of hope, but it's also a word of challenge, because not for one second does this give followers of Jesus leverage to start going around declaring weed and wheat and looking down.

No, it just totally undercuts every way that we could possibly elevate ourselves. And so it challenges us. And so here's where I'd encourage us to go right now. We have this time, like we do every week, to come before the cross in the presence of Jesus, right? We eat the story as we take the bread and the cup together. We eat the story of Jesus's life and of his death and his resurrection for us. And so for some of us, this may need to be a moment of prayer where we pray for people that we love and care about, that they

would come to know the Jesus that loves them and that's here to invade their life in the best way possible, in the way that's good news for them. And there might be some of us who we can see like issues of this in our character that have yet to be resolved, and we know that Jesus wants this for us, but we still feel like we're right here. And so we come and we repent and we know that Jesus wants this for us but we still feel like we're right here and so we come and we repent and we confess that the hell that's still inside of us and by Jesus's grace he sees the finished product right and we allow that his life and his death erection death and resurrection to be for us and to remind us of our true identity the wheat that Jesus is turning us into remind us of our true identity, the wheat that Jesus is turning us into. Thank you guys for listening to Exploring My Strange Bible podcast.

We'll see you next time as we keep exploring the gospel of Matthew together. Thank you.