People are scared or even offended by Jesus’s power. He keeps who He is a secret, while doing things that, in retrospect, will make it obvious. This is all part of preparing his disciples for what’s coming. Some of the events are actually clever exercises for them.

In the wheat field of God’s world, unbelievers are busily at work in their various under-the-sun schemes and projects, trying to make sense out of a life that can feel to them like vanity and feeding on the wind.

We cannot understand our times, or know what we should do in them, unless we see our times in the larger framework of history. There is a framework of history, and Christians can know it. Jesus reveals it to us in the parable of the wheat and the tares, and this is the subject of our study.

Jesus sets His disciples up for their coming persecution with the beatitudes and the command to love their enemies. He points out that some people call Him Lord yet don’t do what He commands. A Centurion understands what the disciples do not. This teaches the true meaning of the word Lord.

Jesus eats with sinners, doesn’t command his disciples to fast, heals on the Sabbath, and even claims to forgive sin. Then he prays all night before choosing his disciples. What’s He up to?

Nobody likes to be thought of as strange. Yet many of our secular contemporaries think of those who believe the Gospel as strange, perhaps even dangerous. So disenchanted has their worldview become, that they have no place for spiritual realities or God – or weird people like us who believe such things.

Jesus won’t let demons tell everyone who He is. He prioritizes preaching and recruiting disciples over healing, while keeping part of His mission a secret. His personal touch when healing is unique.