Notes of the Parables of Our Lord, by Chenevix Trench, provides us with unexpected insights. Don’t let its 19th century pedigree fool you. Christ spoke his parables for all times.
This is the book that made crystal-clear to me the parable of the wheat and the tares. You don’t have to be a farmer to understand it.
Tares take note: you don’t have a future.
Authenticity is demanded. Just looking like a believer to other people will not get it. “man looks on the appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart…”
That’s a great reminder. We might desire to clean things up, but that’s really not our place. We can go about our business and hopefully survive all of the badness without becoming bitter. I’ve seen what happens when disillusionment takes over and someone loses their Christian faith: it isn’t pretty.
Meddling humans like to say “You’ve got to break the eggs before you make an omelet.” But they never seem to get past the egg-breaking stage.
One is tempted to say, “If you have a great idea for a massive change that’ll produce an earthly paradise, take a cold shower and go to bed.”
Completely right. The whole point of everything that has happened since The Fall is that humans can’t make these vital decisions about right or wrong without Divine assistance. I have all sorts of ideas, but that doesn’t mean that they would make for a better world. I’m as capable of messing things up as any failed leader in history. We all fall short of the glory of God.
This makes me think of those verses where the Scripture says the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous, and how God uses even the evil for His purposes.