A "field" in the Bible usually represents the Lord's church, and more specifically the desire for good within the church. It's where good things start, take root, and grow. When you have a desire to be a good person and to do good things, the natural first questions are "What does that mean?", "What should I do?", "What can I do?". You look for ideas, concepts, direction. Once you figure out something you want to do or a change you want to make in yourself, you seek specific knowledge. If you want to volunteer at a food pantry, say, you'd need to know whom to call, when they need help, where to go, what to bring. Armed with that knowhow, you're ready to get to work. That process could be compared to food production. You start with a field -- which is that desire to be good. Then you plant seeds -- those ideas and concepts. Those seeds sprout into plants -- the specific facts and knowledge needed for the task (easily seen in the food pantry example, but also true with deeper tasks like "being more tolerant of my co-workers" or "taking more time for prayer," or "consciously being a more loving spouse"). Finally, those plants produce food -- the actual good thing that you go and do. The Writings also say that in a number of cases a "field" represents the doctrine, or teachings, of the church. This sounds markedly different. The desire for good is emotional, a drive, a wanting; doctrine is a set of ideas. But for a church to be true, its doctrine must be centered on a desire for good, and must lead people toward doing what is good. So sound doctrine is actually closely bound up with the desire for good.

1321. That 'let us confound their lip' means that nobody has the truth of doctrine becomes clear from the meaning of 'lip' as doctrine, dealt with above at verse 1. Consequently 'confounding lips' is confounding the things that comprise doctrine, that is, the truths of doctrine. In the internal sense 'confounding' means not only darkening but also erasing and scattering so that no truth is left. When worship of self supplants worship of the Lord all truth is not only perverted but also done away with, till at length falsity is acknowledged in place of truth and evil in place of good. In fact all the light of truth comes from the Lord, and all thick darkness from man. When man takes the Lord's place in worship the light of truth turns to thick darkness, and in this case people see the light as thick darkness, and thick darkness as the light.

[2] Such also is the life of those people after death. To them the life of falsity looks like light, while the life of truth looks to them like thick darkness. But when they go near heaven the light of such life turns to total darkness. While they are in the world they are indeed able to utter the truth, and to do so eloquently and with seeming zeal. And because they are all the time thinking of themselves it seems to them as though truth is also in their minds. But because their end in view is worship of themselves, this end conditions their thoughts so that they do not acknowledge truth except insofar as self is present in that truth. Anyone like this, though truth is on his lips, clearly has no truth within him. This is quite evident in the next life, for there such people not only fail to acknowledge the truth which they have professed during their lifetime, but also hate it and persecute it. This they do to the extent that pride or worship of self is not taken away from them.