Here’s an amazing fact about your church that may come as a surprise to you. Not everyone in the church has the same purpose for being there. Some are placed there to be uplifting, supportive, and encouraging (Wheat), while some are there merely to wreak havoc, be negative, and to sow discord while trying to undermine the vision of the house (Tare). Once we realize that we have two types of people in the church, we place the unrealistic expectation upon the pastor to divide and conquer.
Here’s a newsflash, stop expecting the pastor to isolate and eliminate the wheat from the tare, it’s not the pastor’s responsibility. The pastor’s responsibility is to feed and nurture the wheat and the tare the same. Yes, both the wheat and the tare consume and grow from the same food, drink the same water, and intake the same light, but their purpose and intent are different. One gives life (wheat) and the other tries to destroy (tare) the life of the giver.”
Our assignment as wheat is to love the tare and to let them grow side by side with us until Christ himself divides and set asunder. Yes, worship next to them, and show them the love of Christ in you, all the while praying that repentance will come unto them before it’s too late.
Jesus clearly discussed this in “The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares,” found in Matthew 13:24-30 where it is written as follows:
Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘
Are you Wheat or Tare? EVERY CHURCH HAS BOTH, WHICH ONE ARE YOU?
~ Pastor Walter Robertson III
