Secrets of the Kingdom
The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ Matthew 13:27 · Berean Standard Bible
The servants ask the landowner: Sir, did you not plant good seed? Where did these weeds come from?
This is the question we all ask: if God is good, why is there evil? The servants' confusion reflects our own.
The servants in the parable speak to the master.
The servants ask the question everyone asks: where did this evil come from? God planted good things -- so why is there so much that is wrong?
The servants (douloi) express surprise to the master (oikodespote): did you not sow good seed? Where did the weeds come from? This question voices the perennial theological problem of evil's origin alongside God's good creation.
The servants' question mirrors humanity's perennial theodicy question: if God (the master) sowed only good, how can evil exist? The parable provides a narrative answer: an enemy did this.
The servants question the master within the parable.
The servants voice the universal human question: if you planted good things, where did the bad come from? The parable's answer is clear: evil has an external, enemy source.
25But while everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and slipped away.
26When the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the weeds also appeared.
27The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
28‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
29‘No,’ he said, ‘if you pull the weeds now, you might uproot the wheat with them.
Read all of Matthew 13 — A farmer scatters seed, a woman hides yeast, a merchant finds a pearl. Jesus teaches in parables — and not everyone is meant to understand.
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