Jesus says this in regard to a previous parable in Matt 13 (paralleled elsewhere), but not in regard to the wheat and the tares: Jesus clearly says the good seed are the sons of the kingdom and the weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the field is the world. (Nor are these details obscure in the Greek texts, or in other ancient language texts so far as I know.) The text, so far as it goes, does not say that wheat seeds can turn into weeds (“can turn bad and so can be viewed as no better than a weed”), nor that they do; much less does it say that God’s word can turn into weeds when sown in the heart! – which would seem to be the result of simply conflating ideas between two parables here.
A conflation of ideas runs against what Jesus “clearly says” here while He is explaining the parable. What I mean is that it is not a matter of simply looking up what Jesus or the Bible “clearly says”, or words with completely different meanings wouldn’t have to be substituted.
I don’t say that because I’m unsympathetic to the attempt – ideologically I would prefer for Jesus to be talking about sowing the word in a persons heart instead of sowing children of the kingdom in the world here. Since that very evidently isn’t the case, then I’m obliged to work with what’s actually there, rather than substituting for it. Adding in details from elsewhere can certainly help flesh out the meaning (and maybe illustrate that Jesus was only trying to make a limited point or two here which should not be construed as testimony constraining against fairly obvious meanings elsewhere), but I don’t find that substituting meanings back and forth is the best way to proceed with this material.
It happens, for example, that there are direct contextual clues (including by reference to OT scripture) that the furnace isn’t intended for, and doesn’t represent, hopeless punishment; I can point to those without having to make a term/idea substitution.
I do certainly agree that the “sons of the kingdom” mentioned in this parable aren’t some special elect who are immune from falling – no moreso are the tares immune from being saved from their sins. Jesus Himself warns earlier in GosMatt about “sons of the kingdom” being thrown into the outer darkness (i.e. into the situation equivalent to the furnace in this and the related fishing parable) and those previously outside the kingdom (equivalent to the tares in this parable, or the bad fish in the nearby related parable) coming in. In fact, Jesus hints pretty strongly about the chief ground for the sons of the kingdom being thrown outside! – because in their hearts they don’t really want those outside to come into the kingdom, too!
(Also, I appreciate your numerous examples demonstrating that most of what Jesus has to say in condemnation is aimed at misbehaving servants of His – even the ones He calls sons or servants of the evil one are obviously supposed to have been His servants. The apostles themselves are not immune from such warnings, and the only two people actually called “Satan” in the Gospels are Satan and the apostle Peter! That has to be taken seriously as a judgment warning; but just as obviously it doesn’t necessarily involve a hopeless condemnation.)
None of this extension and comparison of principles requires that the figures in this parable be something other than what Jesus explained them to be. But I (and many other people here) certainly would agree that the parable, when read in conjunction with other information, is not intended to refer to two classes of people who are immune from shifting from one class to another.
On the same principle, that the scriptures cannot be nullified, the sons of the kingdom as Jesus says in Matthew is the seed sown by the farmer, and the world is where he sows it. If a concept substitution is attempted one way, it can be attempted the other way just as easily, unless there are good reasons for inferring only one direction of substitution, and then good reasons for the substitution to go in one direction rather than another. But then there must be good reasons for inferring a term substitution was meant by Jesus at all, rather than Jesus using a similar metaphor to talk about two somewhat different ideas (and so the two uses of the same imagery shouldn’t be pitted against one another). I don’t think this has been established in your article yet.
For what it’s worth, Oba, we do have several members here who also regard this parable as being about wheat and weeds sown in a person’s heart. But (so far as I recall) they don’t shift back and forth between metaphorical applications on this, so that the end result is a world of people who have let one kind of seed grow in their hearts instead of the other. Rather, they follow their metaphorical substitution out to the end, where God gathers up and destroys the evil (weeds) out of the heart (field) of the person at the judgment.
Also, while I don’t go that route for this parable, I do agree (as most other members here) that the wheat threshing metaphor mentioned by John the Baptist is intended to refer to purification of the soul from evil, through disciplinary punishment where necessary. There are strong connections to this notion in John’s reference to Malachi 4 (with important lead-ins from Mal 3), which also includes the language about chopping down and burning the tree: it’s meant to be purgative and remedial, not hopelessly punitive. (This by the way would apply by extraction to Jesus’ own remarks about trees being threatened with destruction – it wasn’t hopeless punishment over here, and so doesn’t refer to hopeless punishment over there.) You may find that connection helpful if you decide to update your work.
I especially appreciated your connection of threshing to tribulation; I think many other readers here will find that interesting, too.
While you did work hard to compare this parable to other scriptural parables about seeds and heart, you didn’t include a comparative reference to the “world” in your article at all. The only time you even use the word is when you write, “Certainly if you just look at the condition of the world it is evident that Satan still rules it.” Breaking the connection to Jesus’ identification of the field as “the world” in this parable doesn’t help your explanatory case any; and you can see that keeping that meaning in the account is important, or you wouldn’t have written that doing so will help to give a clearer understanding. Leaving that important detail out of the account, cannot help but obscure a proper understanding of the parable by proportion of its omission.
I don’t want to sound like I’m being harshly critical of your attempt. I’m intrigued by the idea of multiple overlapping and interlacing metaphorical applications to one parable’s details (partly because this seems to be how Biblical prophecy often works). I just don’t see yet that this kind of interpretation is called for in regard to this parable. And even if I did see that, I would never try to promote it over-against other interpretative attempts by claiming this is a “clear” or “simple” matter of just reading what the scriptures say here – especially when your attempt completely leaves out one of the major important details.
(Possibly you did write that material and thought you had posted it, but something happened and you posted your article in pieces and got distracted and missed including that piece; thus explaining why you seem to think you included it when commenting on your article for us.)
Not really my concern of course – we ourselves might be regarded as a “propaganda” site, and any apologetic thrust could be labeled as that by someone who doesn’t accept it, so I’m not overly quick to throw that out as a charge – but this may be of interest to Johnny: many people here can sympathize from personal experience about being disenfranchised, even to an extent of emotional terrorism, and I know Johnny is especially not fond of that.
This is not something I have personally had to worry about yet, and I try to be charitably understanding about why groups do so. Still, losing your children over it is a grief I can only approximately imagine, and I know it would be harder to be charitable toward those who instigated that break.
(To those who haven’t read Obadiah’s article yet, he has structured it as a criticism of JW leadership; and I really think many readers here will at least be able to sympathize with Oba’s frustration at them. Actually, his language and condemnations of them remind me a lot of several members when talking on this topic. 
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Peace and strength to you, and may you also keep progressing in truth, walking according to what light you can see from the Holy Spirit, looking for more light thereby.
. Posting links to someone else’s blog, on threads that have been dormant for five months and two years respectively, is bound to raise people’s suspicions about your motives in coming here.
To be clear, the article was written almost two years ago, so “Obadiah” wasn’t responding to the thread here by doing so.
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