Wheat and Tares

 This is what I posted in response to a post about the church’s new PR guy. (who looks like a tare in his previous jobs, social media posts, etc. but also looks like a wheat with prior "I'm a Mormon" video and testimony)

I thought of this person when I read the following this morning:

Matthew 13:27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?

28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.

30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

The Master instructed them not to do anything about the tares until the harvest.
I think we can identify the tares among us but we are not to root them out. The Lord will do that at the harvest.

Elder Anderson spoke of this in Oct 22 Conference and referenced Elder Maxwell saying, “Some real tares even masquerade as wheat.”
Then he teaches us how to strengthen the wheat so we grow up strong for the coming harvest.

Also…

I’m recognizing that Laman and Lemuel were IN Lehi’s family and came WITH them all the way to the promised land. Lehi never plucked them out, though they were certainly “tares”. They grew up side by side with the wheat, until the Lord gathered the wheat (Nephi) out from among them. The fact that Lehi knew his two oldest were tares and that he allowed them to stay with them through the whole journey did not make Lehi uninspired. He did, however, identify their “tare-like” behaviors and repeatedly invited them to become “wheat”.

We will have tares with us all the way to our promised land (millennium). The Lord will remove us from them when it’s time. We’ll be safely gathered in Zion and the Lord will deal with the tares. We just focus on being strong wheat and not being deceived by the tares that look like wheat.

Elder Anderson teaches we do this as we:

1. Strengthen our faith in Jesus

2. Immerse ourselves in the life of Jesus

3. Make covenants with the Lord

4. Safeguard the gift of the Holy Ghost

5. Choose to be different from the world

I think these are defining differences between the wheat and the tares.

Just some thoughts that helped me be less ruffled by the tares in the church