well, you threw me in that briar patch, so here we go.
let’s examine the parable:
who sowed first, the man or the enemy?
what was planted first, the wheat or the tares?
does error spring from truth or truth from error.
Jesus established His Church ( the wheat, the children of the kingdom ) and the devil sowed the weeds AMONG THE WHEAT, THE WHEAT WAS THERE ALREADY! the weeds never overcome or extinguish the wheat, the wheat is there until the end.
so let’s take the parable and look at through the lens of history. was the Church planted among the Arians or did the Arians spring out out of the Church? what about Pelagianism?
Donatism? Cathars? Waldensians? Baptists? Mormons? Jehovah Witnesses?
the wheat Jesus planted is still here, just as He promised and the parable indicates. the devil can not make such a guarantee so some of his weeds have died and some are still here until the end.
the wheat existed at some point without the weeds, just as the Church has existed for 2,000 years and for many centuries without many of the above named “weeds”.
so the man who sowed the wheat has protected his crop until the harvest, just as he promised he would!
Since the weeds were planted soon after the wheat there was only a short period of time, Paul indicates it was during the life of the apostles (2 Thess. 2:1-12), that the “sowing” of wheat occurred.
“so let’s take the parable and look at through the lens of history. was the Church planted among the Arians or did the Arians spring out out of the Church?”
No doubt by “the Church” you refer “the Catholic church”, yes?
Not until both produced fruit or seed after a time was it possible to tell wheat from weeds.
What has been the fruitage of “the Church”? That of weeds or “Sons of the Kingdom”.
“the wheat existed at some point without the weeds, just as the Church has existed for 2,000 years and for many centuries without many of the above named “weeds”.”
“”the wheat existed at some point without the weeds,....”
When was this?
Remember that while growing to a point of producing fruit the wheat and weeds could not be distinguished one from the other and when such differentiation could be made it was now impossible to separate the two.
Now that the mixed crop is maturing has history shown “the Church” to be Christian wheat or just part of the poisonous weeds?
“Jesus established His Church ( the wheat, the children of the kingdom, and the devil sowed the weeds among the wheat)...”
So your premise is that the wheat (the children of the kingdom) only exist in one particular church under Peter, that alone being the NT church based upon her historical decent and other claims, and that church itself cannot be a mixture of tares and wheat, but that the tares are such as who deny the supremacy and infallibility of the Popes, present and past?
Or do some tares and wheat exist within as well as without Roman Catholicism, including in Protestant churches, or do the latter need to convert to Catholicism to be “wheat”?
And what is the basis for your assurance that the claims of Rome are true?