Have you ever noticed that from the birth of Jesus until now, Christianity is messy? By messy, I mean messy. The book of John, probably my favorite book in the Bible, opens in chapter one, verse one, with, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Don’t try to convince me that you read that once and nailed it. No way!
As we study the New Testament, we find bad people, like a tax collector becoming a humble philanthropist and an apostle of Jesus betraying Him for money. Then we have a very loose-living Samaritan woman talking with Jesus, and when He says He is the Messiah, she doesn’t argue with him; she goes and tells her community to come and meet this person. But when Jesus tells the religious leaders of His fellow Jews, they plot to kill Him! And this back and forth continues.
On and on
While Christ’s apostles were still living, false doctrines arose and were taught. It took the Church over three hundred years to make an official declaration that Jesus is divine, and God is a triune God. Mind you, the Apostle John wrote this in the first chapter of his first book! On and on, this messiness continued. Bad decisions and bad behavior flowed from the Church while churches sprung up where none were expected. At one point, during WWII, the “church” simultaneously hated the Jews, loved the Jews, and was indifferent towards the Jews.
Go to Jesus
In our present world, we find deep, well-grounded Christians with effective local churches in Africa and Asia while inept, heretical local churches dominate Western countries. So, by now, you understand my question, so let’s move on to a meaningful answer. That means, let’s go to Jesus.
Matthew 13:24-30: He [Jesus] put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds [tares] among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And 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?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let 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.”‘”
False Wheat
Tares or darnel usually grows in the same production zones as wheat and was a serious weed of cultivation until modern sorting machinery enabled darnel seeds to be separated efficiently from seed wheat. The similarity between these two plants is so great that in some regions, darnel is referred to as “false wheat”. It bears a close resemblance to wheat until the ear appears.
Wikipedia
Christianity is messy because we are sons and daughters of Adam, sinners to our core. And satan has been trying to destroy God and all His work his whole life. Therefore, only God knows who belongs to Him. The fruit of God and the fruit of the enemy grow together, the wheat and the tares. It’s messy. Bad people get saved and serve God, and “good” people plot evil and serve satan. But there will be a day when Adam’s history comes to an abrupt stop; the wheat and the tares will be separated. God’s fruit will be with Him forever, and satan and his fruit will be eternally punished. Until then, it’s just going to be messy.
Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash
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