The setting for the parable is the 1st century AD:
Mal 4:5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
Jesus proclaimed John as Elijah:
Mat 11:13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.
Mat 11:14 And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come.
Mat 3:10
The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
Mat 3:11 “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you withfn the Holy Spirit and fire.
Mat 3:12
His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
John states that Jesus has the winnowing fork in his hand, this is giving a clear indication of the
imminence of the end of the age harvest that was to occur in the 1st century AD.
When we include John's statement that
"the ax is already at the root of the trees" we get an even clearer picture of imminence.
That the harvest was already under way in the 1st century is established in a number of NT scriptures, the first of which is John's statement that the winnowing fork is already in Christ's hand. The winnowing fork is used at the
end of the harvest not the beginning.
The winnowing fork is an implement that was sometimes shaped like a large fork or sometime like a large shovel.
The “thresher” took the fork/shovel and threw the stalks of the roughage into the air, the allowed the wind to blow away the chaff to separate from the wheat.
John in his gospel affirmed that the harvest was underway:
Jhn 4:35 “Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields,
for they are already white for harvest!
Jesus said the harvest would be at
the end of the AGE (world in the KJV):
Mat 13:38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
Mat 13:39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil;
the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
Mat 13:40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
We have other statements in the NT about the time of this "end of the world" or
age occurring in the 1st century AD:
There are no tares in Christ's church - there are plenty of confused futurists though.....
