QUESTIONS | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 3, 1868

QUESTIONS.

“INQUIRER” asks the following questions:

1. In the parable of the tares, Matt. xiii, 38, we read that the “good seed” are the children of the kingdom; but in the account of the same parable, Luke viii, 11, it says, “the seed is the word of God.” How shall this be reconciled? INQUIRER.

ANSWER. Inquirer mistakes in supposing that Luke viii, 11, and Matt. xiii, 38, both refer to the same parable. One is the parable of the sower, and the other the parable of the wheat and tares. And being different parables, given to illustrate different subjects, there is no difficulty in the fact that the word, seed, is used in a different sense in one from what it is in the other.

2. We are told in Matt. xiii, 39, that “the harvest is the end of the world;” while in John iv, 35, it is declared that at the time of the first advent, the fields “were white already to harvest.” Is not this an apparent contradiction, and how shall a harmony be obtained?

ANSWER. Harvest, literally, is the time of reaping grain and other fruits of the earth. It is, hence, put metaphorically, first, for people who are ripe for judgment, or salvation; and, secondly, for those who are ready for the reception of new truth. An instance of its use in the first sense is found in Joel iii, 13. “Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe;” and another in Rev. xiv, 15, where the gathering of the wheat, the saints, includes the destruction of the chaff, the wicked. In the other sense it is used in Matt. ix, 37: “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.” So in the passages in question. In the parable of the tares it is used in the first sense, in John iv, 35, in the latter.

3. Again, in Acts xv, 10, the apostle Peter expostulates with his Judaizing brethren thus: “Now, therefore, why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?” Did not the apostle speak rather disrespectfully of the dispensations of God in such language? Was not that very law, of which he spoke, given to the Hebrews by the hand of Moses, through the Lord’s direction? How, then, could Peter be justified in speaking as he did?

ANSWER. The ritual or ceremonial law, to which Peter here refers, was exceedingly burdensome to the Jewish people; so much so that in the opinion of Dr. Clarke, if God had not especially blessed their fields and their flocks to make them very fruitful, they could not possibly have borne it. This law, in all its multitude of particulars, was imposed upon them because of their transgressions. For this reason the yoke was put upon their necks, and it was doubtless designed to be heavy. Hence Peter only spoke in accordance with the facts in the case.