![]() ![]() When it’s time to pay the workers, the foreman begins with the last workers picked. “These who were hired last worked only one hour,” they said, “and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day” (Matthew 20:8-12). When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. But each one of them also received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, “Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.” He doesn’t discuss pay in either of these instances. Seeing unhired laborers, he puts them to work. Twice in the heat of the afternoon, the owner heads back into town. He tells them that they shall be paid “whatever is right.” Happy for the work, the laborers head to the vineyard. This time he doesn’t make them a specific promise about payment. He picks up a handful of laborers and promises them a day’s wages.Īs the morning progresses, the landowner heads back into town to pick up a few more workers. Early in the day, the landowner heads out to the location where workers-for-hire wait to be employed for the day. Jesus’s story begins with a landowner hiring day laborers. He said to them, “You also go and work in my vineyard” (Matthew 20:1-7). “Because no one has hired us,” they answered. He asked them, “Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?” About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. ![]() He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. He told them, “You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.Ībout nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyardįor the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. Jesus’s teaching regularly challenged this idea and never as overtly as in the parable of the workers. From the very beginning, God told Abraham that all the nations of the world would be blessed through his offspring (Genesis 22:18), but as far as the Israelites were concerned, these other nations would never be as blessed as they were. ![]() One misunderstanding that Jesus needed to clarify was the idea that the Jews held a special insider relationship with God. And a lot of His parables focused on communicating valuable truths about this kingdom. Jesus spent a great deal of His ministry announcing the coming of God’s kingdom and overcoming first-century presumptions by teaching people to recognize that kingdom. ![]()
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