{"id":6482,"date":"2015-04-02T00:05:42","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T07:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=6482"},"modified":"2015-04-01T12:42:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-01T19:42:00","slug":"gods-enemy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/04\/02\/gods-enemy\/","title":{"rendered":"God’s Enemy"},"content":{"rendered":"

He presented another parable to them: \u201cThe kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while people were sleeping, his enemy came, sowed weeds among the wheat, and left. When the plants sprouted and produced grain, then the weeds also appeared. The landowner\u2019s slaves came to him and said, \u2018Master, didn\u2019t you sow good seed in your field? Then where did the weeds come from?\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\u201c\u2018An enemy did this!\u2019 he told them.<\/p>\n

\t\u201c\u2018So, do you want us to go and gather them up?\u2019 the slaves asked him.<\/p>\n

\t\u201c\u2018No,\u2019 he said. \u2018When you gather up the weeds, you might also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At harvest time I\u2019ll tell the reapers: Gather the weeds first and tie them in bundles to burn them, but store the wheat in my barn.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\tHe presented another parable to them: \u201cThe kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It\u2019s the smallest of all the seeds, but when grown, it\u2019s taller than the vegetables and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the sky come and nest in its branches.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tHe told them another parable: \u201cThe kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into 50 pounds of flour until it spread through all of it.\u201d (Matthew 13:24\u201333)<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tJesus gave his disciples three pictures of the kingdom of heaven. \u201cHeaven\u201d was used as a circumlocution for God. Matthew\u2019s Jewish audience, out of fear of using God\u2019s name in vain, was accustomed to using other words to represent God, rather than speaking of him directly.<\/p>\n

\tFirst, Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a field of wheat that was infested with weeds. Second, Jesus compared the kingdom to a mustard seed, that is tiny but becomes an enormous bush. And finally, Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a bit of yeast that spread to fill fifty pounds of flour.<\/p>\n

\tWhat does Jesus want us to understand then, about God\u2019s kingdom? The kingdom of God is made up of human beings. And as we know from our own lives, not everything we do is always necessarily good. We remain less than perfect, even with the Holy Spirit living inside of us. We make mistakes. We make progress very slowly. Sometimes it may seem that nothing much has improved in our behavior for a very long while. <\/p>\n

\tThe kingdom of heaven grows and spreads both in our own lives and in the world around us. There may be opposition and problems along the way; but its growth is inevitable and unstoppable.<\/p>\n

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He presented another parable to them: \u201cThe kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while people were sleeping, his enemy came, sowed weeds among the wheat, and left. When the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6482"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6482"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6484,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6482\/revisions\/6484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}