24He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?' 28He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' 29But he said, 'No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"
After reading it, I got to wondering how it would have been written if it was written by certain other groups within Christianity.
The Arminian version:
24He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who had a field of neutral plants, 25some plants decided to be wheat, while others decided to be weeds. 26So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow a good seed in your field for the other plants to follow? How then does it have weeds?' 28He said to them, 'I did, but only some decided to do so' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' 29But he said, 'No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"
The Calvinist version:
24He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed seed in his field, 25When the plants came up and bore grain, weeds appeared also. 27And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?' 28He said to them, 'I did not sow good seed only, but I sowed some good wheat seeds and some bad weed seeds' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' 29But he said, 'No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"
The "Left Behind/pre-millenial/pre-trib/dispensationalist etc." version:
24He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?' 28He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' 29But he said, 'Not yet, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30Let both grow together until the first part of the harvest, and at the first part of harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the wheat first and bring them into my barn. Leave the weeds there for a while to be stricken by plagues and blights, until the second part of the harvest. When the second part of the harvest comes, go and pull the weeds, bind them in bundles to be burned, but some of the weeds will have changed into wheat, leave that wheat in the field. Then replant the wheat from the barn back into the field for 1000 years. After the 1000 years a plague of locust will attempt to attack the wheat, my son will kill the locust and then you can put all the wheat back into my barn.'"
2 comments:
Good ones, but you forgot the worse version of all:
The Baptist (all Calvinistic, Arminian and Anabaptist) version:
24He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed seed in his field, 25When the plants came up and bore grain, weeds appeared also. 27And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?' 28He said to them, 'I did not sow good seed only, but I sowed some good wheat seeds and some bad weed seeds' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' 29But he said, 'WHY YES, so that in gathering the weeds you root them out of the field and have a pure wheat field only. Then only water the wheat. 30Do not let both grow together until the harvest, so that at harvest time I can tell the reapers, ‘you have nothing left to do, I’ve instructed man to already go and read the hearts of the wheat and weeds. Take your rest from reaping reapers.'"
You forgot the Lutheran version which is that the wheat can metamorphosize from weeds to wheat and back again endlessly.
Cheers,
Crypto-Lutheran
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