Matthew 13:38

Mat_13:38

The field is the world.

The moral dignity of the missionary enterprise

I. The grandeur of the object. Survey the field geographically. Estimate the miseries of the world. Consider these human beings as immortal, and candidates for an eternity of happiness or misery.

II. The missionary undertaking is arduous enough to call into action the noblest energies of man. This enterprise requires consummate wisdom, unwavering perseverance, undaunted courage, sublime faith.

III. The means by which this moral revolution is to be effected. By the preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Contemplate the simplicity, benevolence, and efficacy of this means. (F. Wayland, D. D.)

The gospel sphere

I. Its geographical and statistical extent.

II. Its moral condition.

III. Its redeemed condition.

IV. Its glorious destination. A destiny of universal knowledge, righteousness, peace, felicity.

V. His commanding claims upon us. (J. Burns, D. D.)

I. The field is the world, because the commission of Christ does not restrict the publication of the gospel to any one class or nation.

II. The world is the field in which the Church is to sow the seed of the Word, because the world has been given to Christ her Head.

III. Because, however wide it may be, ample means exist for its cultivation.

IV. That the field to be cultivated by the Church is the world, is shown by the example of the inspired apostles.

V. Follows from the fact that the gospel is suited alike to all the nations of the world.

VI. The very nature of moral principle in the heart, of man requires that the Church regard the world as the field.

VII. The composition of the congregation assembled in heaven proves that the field is the world.

1. Send the gospel to all.

2. Value souls.

3. Cultivate a lively sympathy with the glory of Christ.

4. Lay the foundation of all usefulness in personal godliness. (J. Stewart.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13:38 The field is the world: The Kingdom includes all nations (28:16-20). • The people of the Kingdom are those who follow Jesus (13:11-17, 23; 21:43).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Mat 13:38. Οὗτοι, these) Of whom most account is taken; or especially the disciples then present.—τοῦ πονηροῦ, of the wicked one) The word is in the masculine gender.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 13:38 . ὁ κόσμος , the wide world; universalism. σπέρμα , not the word this time, but the children of the kingdom. ζιζάνια , the sons of the wicked one ( τοῦ πονηροῦ , the devil).

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The tares are the children of the wicked one--As this sowing could only be "while men slept," no blame seems intended, and certainly none is charged upon "the servants"; it is probably just the dress of the parable.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(38) The tares are the children of the wicked one.—It was, perhaps, natural that theologians, who saw in heresy the greatest of all evils, should identify the tares with heretics. So far as heresy rises from the spirit of self-will, or antagonism to righteousness, we may admit that they are included in the class, but the true definition is that given in Mat_13:41, “all things that offend, and them which do iniquity.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

As therefore the tares are gathered,.... As it is represented in the parable, that in the time of harvest, the tares shall be gathered out from the wheat first; and being bound in bundles, shall burnt in the fire, prepared for that purpose,

so shall it be in the end of this world; hypocritical and heretical men, and all formal professors, shall be gathered out from among the saints, and the several churches, among whom they have been; and shall be together cast into everlasting burnings, prepared for the devil and his angels, whose children they are.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;

Ver. 38. The field is the world] The Christian world, the Church, not the Roman Catholic Church only, the Pope’s territories, as he would have it. The Rogatian heretics would needs have made the world believe that they were the only Catholics. The Anabaptists have the same conceit of themselves. Munzer their chieftain, in his book written against Luther, and dedicated to Christ the most illustrious Prince (as he styleth him), inveigheth bitterly at him, as one that was merely carnal, and utterly void of the spirit of revelation. And Pareus upon this text tells us, that in a conference at Frankendale, the Anabaptists thus argued, The field is the world, therefore not the Church; that by the same reason they might deny, that tares breed in the Church. But tares are and will be in the visible Church, as our Saviour purposely teacheth by this parable.

The tares are the children of that wicked one] So called partly in respect of their serpentine nature, those corrupt qualities whereby they resemble the devil; and partly because they creep into the Church by Satan’s subtlety, being his agents and emissaries. Agnosco te primogenitum diaboli, saith St John of that heretic Cerinthus. And hypocrites are his sons and heirs, the very freeholders of hell, and other sinners but their tenants, which have their part or lot with hypocrites, Mat 24:29.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The children of the kingdom; the sons, etc. (Revised Version); Mat_5:9, note. The tares are the children of the wicked one; of the evil one (Revised Version); cf. Mat_6:13, note. (On the bearing that the evidence of the Old Syriac and the Old Latin versions here has on the masculine interpretation there, see Chase, "Lord"s Prayer," etc., pp. 155, 159, sqq.)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The good seed are the children of the kingdom - That is, the children of God, the righteous.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

world kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield "Mat 4:8").

kingdom (See Scofield "Mat 3:2").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

38.] This verse has been variously interpreted, notwithstanding that its statements are so plain. The consideration of it will lead us into that of the general nature and place of the parable itself. The field is the world; if understood of the Church, then the Church only as commensurate with the world, πορευθέντες εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἅπαντα κηρύξατε τὸ εὐαγγέλιον πάσῃ τῇ κτίσει (Mar 16:15); the Church standing for the world, not, the world for the Church. (This latter view, Stier says, Augustine upholds against the Donatists: but I cannot find it in his Ep. contra Donatistas (vol. ix.), where he several times plainly asserts the field to be commensurate with the world, and the Church to be the ‘triticum inter zizania.’) And the parable has, like the former ones, its various references to various counter-workings of the Evil One against the grace of God. Its two principal references are, (1) to the whole history of the world from beginning to end; the coming of sin into the world by the malice of the devil, the mixed state of mankind, notwithstanding the development of God’s purposes by the dispensations of grace,—and the final separation of the good and evil at the end. The very declaration ‘the harvest is the end of the world’ suggests the original sowing as the beginning of it. Yet this sowing is not in the fact, as in the parable, one only, but repeated again and again.

In the parable the Lord gathers as it were the whole human race into one lifetime, as they will be gathered in one harvest, and sets that forth as simultaneous, which has been scattered over the ages of time. But (2) as applying principally to the βασ. τ. οὐρ. which lay in the future and began with the Lord’s incarnation, the parable sets forth to us the universal sowing of good seed by the Gospel: it sows no bad seed: all this is done by the enemy, and further we may not enquire. Soon, even as soon as Act_5 in the history of the Church, did the tares begin to appear; and in remarkable coincidence with the wheat bringing forth fruit (see Act 4:32-37). Again, see Act 13:10, where Paul calls Elymas by the very name υἱὸς διαβόλου. And ever since, the same has been the case; throughout the whole world, where the Son of Man sows good seed, the Enemy sows tares. And it is not the office, however much it may be the desire, of the servants of the householder, the labourers in His field, to collect or root up these tares, to put them out of the world literally, or of the Church spiritually (save in some few exceptional cases, such as that in Act_5); this is reserved for another time and for other hands,—for the harvest, the end; for the reapers, the angels. (3) It is also most important to notice that, as the Lord here gathers up ages into one season of seed time and harvest, so He also gathers up the various changes of human character and shiftings of human will into two distinct classes. We are not to suppose that the wheat can never become tares, or the tares wheat: this would be to contradict the purpose of Him who willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live; and this gracious purpose shines through the command ἄφετε συναυξάνεσθαι ἀμφότερα—let time be given (as above) for the leaven to work. As in the parable of the sower, the various classes were the concentrations of various dispositions, all of which are frequently found in one and the same individual, so here the line of demarcation between wheat and tares, so fixed and impassable at last, is, during the probation time, the time of συναύξησις, not yet determined by Him who will have all to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. In the very first example, that of our first parents, the good seed degenerated, but their restoration and renewal was implied in the promises made to them, and indeed in their very punishment itself; and we their progeny are by nature the children of wrath, till renewed by the same grace. The parable is delivered by the Lord as knowing all things, and describing by the final result; and gives no countenance whatever to predestinarian error. (4) The parable has an historical importance, having been much in the mouths and writings of the Donatists, who, maintaining that the Church is a perfectly holy congregation, denied the applicability of this Scripture to convict them of error, seeing that it is spoken not of the Church but of the world: missing the deeper truth which would have led them to see that, after all, the world is the Church, only overrun by these very tares.

τὸ δὲ καλὸν σπ., οὗτοί εἰσιν strikingly sets forth again the identity of the seed, in its growth, with those who are the plants: see above on ver. 19.

οἱ υἱοὶ τ. βασ.] not in the same sense as in ch. 8:12,—sons there, by covenant and external privilege: here,—by the effectual grace of adoption: the kingdom, there, in mere paradigm, on this imperfect earth: here, in its true accomplishment. in the new heavens and earth wherein dwelleth righteousness: but in their state among the tares, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(L) 38. And the field is the world; and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one.]—οἱ υἱοὶ τῆς βασιλείας] i.e. those who are qualified to enter into it; cf. “Son of the coming world,” Taanith 22a, and other phrases quoted by Dalm. Words, p. 115. The phrase is used with rather a different application in 8:12. There it means “those who were chosen to enter the kingdom, but have failed to justify the choice.”

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.