"The most important aspect of Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the surrounding influence and qualities produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to give our attention to, and it is the one thing that is continually under attack.
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- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
What do you think "the point" of this parable is? Biblical Scholars have various opinions.
Matthew 20 - The Parable of the Workers in the VineyardHere are my opinions:
1"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3"About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' 5So they went. "He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?'
7" 'Because no one has hired us,' they answered. "He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.'
8"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.' 9"The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. 10So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12'These men 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.'
13"But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? 14Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?'
16"So the last will be first, and the first will be last."
1. The Parable Is About Grace. If anything, it's showing that grace isn't "fair". What we get is undeserved. Grace is the value of the Kingdom.
2. The reaction of those hired first mirrors that of the Elder Brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son. And I think that's an interpretive key. The Elder Brother is jealous of all the grace that gets poured out on his little brother. Do we get jealous of those who "receive more grace" than we do?
3. Question: Is it Biblically and theologically correct to say that some people receive (or require) more grace than others? If so, who would those people be?
What do you think?
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Comments on "What Do You Think About This Parable?":
2. damien
- 03/10/2010 1:50 pm CST
i think most all of us have some difficulty accepting the landowner's treatment of the workers in this parable. and i think we have even more difficulty with the master in the parable of the talents as he dispenses rewards for stewardship and declares, "for everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him."
what stands out most to me is the picture these parables give us of god, who has divine perogative to do as he pleases. regardless of why he does what he does, god has the right and authority to govern everything under him without our needing to sign off on it. in our sin and just plain creatureliness we have a fundamental problem with that.
jesus was so different from us this way. think of the radically different attitude he displays when he says, "I praise you, father, lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. yes, father, for this was your good pleasure." matthew 11:25-26
3. formerly Wickle)
- 03/10/2010 2:17 pm CST
Damien, I think that that's partly because Jesus wasn't trying to discuss labor relations with these parables. The stories themselves aren't the point.
As for whether some people receive more grace ... Not really, though it might seem so.
If the "good person" who's always been working for charity and helping the poor and would never hurt a fly becomes a Christian, it might seem that he doesn't have much for which he needs forgiveness.
The serial killer who becomes a Christian has been forgiven for more, perhaps ... but the first person was really given much grace before his salvation.
So I'm not sure that any believer has received more than any other in that sense, if we can really quantify grace.
Certainly, we're blessed in different ways than others, and it might seem to be more. (Example: I am in no danger of having my town burned down and my family slaughtered tonight.)
4. Sherry
- 03/10/2010 3:15 pm CST
No, we all get full pay, all the grace that is available and all that we need. Some of us, however, think that because we're so "good" to start with, we should get more. But how can we get more than full pay, more than all the grace God has available to give us freely?
5. nhe
- 03/10/2010 4:48 pm CST
To answer your question about some people needing more grace Shrode, I don't think this parable teaches that, and I don't think that notion is biblical.
I do however think that grace is more pronounced in the life of the prodigal, the repentant thief on the cross, and the 11th hour worker. This is simply because God loves seeing His grace take center stage.
"The last shall be first" is true not because the last need more grace, but because this notion places a bright spotlight on grace.
6. Jared
- 03/10/2010 5:01 pm CST
I think most immediate context is ingrafting of Gentiles and "sinners" into the covenant. Pharisees and "the Jews" would have been really "older brotherly" about that, these outsiders being ushered into the same grace like so many Johnny Come Latelies.
The parallel with Prodigal Son parable is right, I think.
Another note here is the Grace vs. Law thing, I think. ie. Are you getting paid because you're putting in the hours, or are you putting in the hours because you're getting paid? (Are you saved because you obey, or do you obey because you're saved? A pharisaical spirit is really concerned about "fairness" when it comes to this sort of thing, because they work like they're earning favor.)
7. Shrode
- 03/11/2010 10:27 am CST
Jared,
I'm glad for your thoughts. Your second thought reminds me of an illustration I just read yesterday in Tim Keller's "The Prodigal God". It was a story he borrowed from Elizabeth Elliot. In the made-up story, Jesus tells the disciples to pick up a rock and carry it. Peter picks up the smallest rock he can find. At lunchtime, Jesus turns all the rocks into bread for lunch. After lunch, Jesus tells them all to pick up rocks again. Peter thinking he's got it figured out picks up a small boulder and carries it all day. At the end of the day, Jesus tells everyone to throw their rocks into the lake. Peter's ticked. And Jesus asks him, "Who were you carrying the rock for?"
Thanks Jared, for turning me on to Tim Keller btw.
As for your first thought, Carson rejects the idea that Jesus is talking about Gentiles, but I tend to agree that is a fairly immediate application, at least it was for the early church.
"Then some of the believers who belonged tot he party of the Pharisees stood up and said, 'The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.'" (Acts 15:5)
Like the vineyard workers in the story, it ticks them off that anyone should receive the same amount they got, for less work than they did. To quote Blomberg from his Matthew commentary (NAC), "Little seems more unequal than the equal treatment of unequals!"
9. Shrode
- 03/11/2010 2:46 pm CST
Me too. :-)
Here's what he wrote in the Expositor's commentary on Matthew-
The point is not that those who work just an hour do as much as those who work all day, nor that the willingness of the latecomers matches that of the all-day workers, nor that Gentiles are the latecomers in contrast to the Jews (the context knows no such distinctions), nor that all men are equal before God or that all kingdom work is equal...Huffman (pp.209-10) is right. The parable begins with a typical scene and introduces atypical elements to surprise the reader and make a powerful point. "Jesus deliberately and cleverly led the listeners along by degrees until they understood that if God's generosity was to be represented by a man, such a man would be different from any man ever encountered" (p.209).I was a little disappointed in Carson there. I think he's right about some of those other theories being wrong, but he doesn't come right out and say, "IT'S ABOUT GRACE PEOPLE!"
Of course, I thought Blomberg (NAC) was wrong about something in this passage also. Blomberg says that this passage teaches that "there are no degrees of reward in heaven" (p.304).
What Blomberg says that was really good was: "All but the last group hired protest the man's egalitarianism, as most of us would too. Little seems more unequal than the equal treatment of unequals!" (p. 303)
But the best comments of all come from R.T. France (TNTC)
The essential point of the parable is that God is like that; his generosity transcends human ideas of fairness. No one receives less than they deserve, but some receive far more. (p. 289)
God's grace to the undeserving should be a cause for joy, not jealousy. At a later date the same message would properly apply to the acceptance of Gentiles into the people of God... (p.289)
The rewards God gives...from the viewpoint of human justice ...may sometimes look unfairly generous. It is a measure of our failure to share God's values that we feel a natural sympathy with the complaint of v.12, however much we accept the cool logic of vv.13-15. 'It is frightening to realize that our identification with the first workers, and hence with the opponents of Jesus, reveals how loveless and unmerciful we basically are. We may be more "under law" in our thinking and less "under grace" than we realize. God is good and compassionate far beyond his children's understanding!' (Stein, p. 138) (Blomberg, 290)
10. Sean
- 03/11/2010 8:20 pm CST
The question I think needs to be asked first is which of us is less damned than the others? The answer to me is "no one."
Since we are all equally damned, it seems to me then that we all receive the same, astoundingly awesome amount of grace. Enough grace to crush our awful pride and reveal to us our need for Christ. Those who thought they were short-changed were fooling themselves. I know, I do it daily - think myself more deserving of God's blessing than others. If it were any other way, then those who "worked harder" would have reason to boast - and we know that's not the case.
11. G. Frederick
- 03/12/2010 2:37 am CST
Sean, you nearly took the words right out of my fingers, what I was thinking all along as I was reading the comments is "guilty in one point; guilty of the whole". We all are guilty to the point of being worthy of death, since we can't pay it and only the one worthy of all praise and glory could and did pay it for us: grace, we all receive that "astoundingly awesome amount of grace".
Leave a Comment:
I could be wrong but I think God doesn't necessarily favor anyone more it's just that sometimes his grace isn't as obvious. The big things are easily seen but the little ones tend to get lost in the day-to-day and some may never be known to us and aren't intended to. Some people may merit more of the obvious grace. However, I think he is probably alot more generous with grace than any of us take the time to notice.