Good Seed

Are there good and bad people?

Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.’ He answered, ‘The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; The field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen! - Matthew 13:36-43

Jesus explains the parable of the weeds growing among the wheat in very simple terms.  The weeds are children of the evil one.

But we don't like to believe that bad people are born that way, so what must be happening is the evil is being introduced into them at some point.

That means we all start out as good seed, and something in the world turns some into weeds.

If that's the way it works, then we all need to be on our guard always, for the evil could corrupt us at any time, and turn us bad.

It is all about the choices we make, and not about our nature.  That's scary, because we may think we are making good choices, and yet we may be led astray.

But Jesus says something interesting here when he explains the end time.  He says the evildoers will be culled and tossed out.  Are the evildoers the ones who are led astray or the ones who lead others astray?

There is an advantage to seeing ourselves as naive and easily manipulated by evildoers.  It gives us an out.  We can realize what we are doing and ask for help, and that will be our salvation.

So, we can think that all start out good, and some are led astray by evil.  From those, some become evildoers, recruiting others into doing evil as well, while others are misled and misguided by them.

We may not be able to save the recruiters, but the recruits can be saved.

And that is good news for us.  If we feel we are being manipulated, we can turn away and get back to being good seed.

That is the real message here.  No one is lost by design.  It is a choice we make, and we can choose to fix it.

More to come...