The Wheat and the Weeds The Parable of the Weeds (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43) can be seen as a metaphor on spiritual warfare that goes on in the world. The field represents the world, the man who sows the good seed represents the Son of Man and the enemy who sows the weed represents the devil. The good seed represents the children of the kingdom, while the weeds represent the children of the evil one. As the wheat grew, the weeds…
Fertile Soil In the Gospels, the Parable of the Sower is one of two parables which Jesus explained to His disciples (cf. Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23; Mark 4:1-9, 14-20 and Luke 8:4-8, 11-15). The other is the Parable of the Weeds (cf. Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43). With regards to the Parable of the Sower, one commentary explains that in Jesus’ time, people often sowed the seed first and then plowed the fields. As a result of this planting method, much of…
The Yoke of Christ Jesus was preaching to the crowds when He said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) In the context of Matthew’s Gospel, those who “labor and are burdened” were the people who…
Loving Jesus more than Family One of the things that Jesus said that raises up a lot of questions comes from Matthew 10: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:37) Here, it is vital to pay attention to the words that Jesus said. First of all, Jesus did not say do not love your father or mother, son…
From Adam to Christ In Rom 5:12-21, St. Paul preaches on the sin of Adam vis-à-vis the grace of God through Christ. He said, “Therefore, just as through one person, sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned.” (Rom 5:12) St. Paul tells us that it was through the sin of Adam, the first man, that sin entered the world. The sin of Adam was his disobedience to God’s…
Dying for sinners Would you die for a sinner? St. Paul said, “Only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.” (Rom 5:7) According to St. Paul, what makes the Sacrifice of Christ so incredible is that it was done for sinners. It is rare enough that anyone would be willing to lay down his life for a righteous man, but for someone to give us…
Gratitude Perhaps you have seen or read this passage from St. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians: “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” (1Thessalonians 5:16-18) In this chapter, St. Paul exhorted the early Church in Thessalonica on specific essentials of Christian life, and some of these is to “rejoice always,” “to pray without ceasing,” and to “give thanks in all circumstances.” Having gratitude in…
God so loves the world When Jesus said to Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. (John 3:16),” He was speaking of how God the Father gave Him up to be born as a man, to live as a man, and to suffer and die on the Cross as a man. And the purpose for all of this, is…
The Mission of the Holy Spirit St. Cyril of Alexandria (378-444) once wrote: “After Christ had completed His mission on earth, it still remained necessary for us to become sharers in the divine nature of the Word; i.e., we had to give up our own life and be so transformed that we would begin to live an entirely new kind of life that would be pleasing to God. This was something we could do only by sharing in the Holy…
Lessons from the Ascension There are two things that we can learn from the Ascension of the Lord: Regarding the Ascension, St. Paul said that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, in accord with the exercise of His great might, which He worked in Christ, raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power and dominion, and every name that is named not…