2022.08.24 WednesdayIn Mark 10:35-45 it is James and John who come to Jesus with this request. Matthew 20:16 New International Version 16 "So the last will be first, and the first will be last." Read full chapter Matthew 20:16 in all English translations Matthew 19 Matthew 21 New International Version (NIV) Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. "Upon this rock," says He, "I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Note, God will be sure not to be behind-hand with any for the service they do him: never any lost by working for God. And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?" Prophets By submitting your email address, you understand that you will receive email communications from Bible Gateway, a division of The Zondervan Corporation, 3900 Sparks Drive SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546 USA, including commercial communications and messages from partners of Bible Gateway. THE FALSE AND THE TRUE AMBITION ( Matthew 20:20-28 ), 20:20-28 At that time the mother of Zebedee's sons came to him with her sons, kneeling before him, and asking something from him. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard ( Matthew 20:1-2 ). Now if you go back to the last verse of the previous chapter, you'll find this same statement. c. Early in the morning: This is literally at dawn, usually reckoned to be about 6:00 in the morning. The people whose hearts are yielded to him will be recognized as his children no matter their rank or riches by worldly standards. Peter boasts of leaving "all" to follow Jesus as if this somehow earns him some special reward (19:27). Usernames should only contain letters, numbers, dots, dashes, or underscores. But Jesus called them unto him, and he said, You know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. As the elder brother, in the parable of the prodigal, repined at the reception of his younger brother, and complained of his father's generosity to him; so these labourers quarrelled with their master, and found fault, not because they had not enough, so much as because others were made equal with them. He would not even claim the right to choose how His servants were rewarded, but yield that to His Father. Jesus summed up his whole life in one poignant sentence: "The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many." a great multitude followed Him. And they went their way. He who had just confessed the glory of the Lord would not hear His Master speaking thus of His going to the cross (by which alone the Church, or even the kingdom, could be established), and sought to swerve Him from it. Cookie Notice: These workers hired at the very beginning of the working day agreed to work for a denarius a day, the common daily wage for a workingman. See Matthew 19:27-29. for many be called, but few chosenThis is another of our Lord's terse and pregnant sayings, more than once uttered in different connections. Copyright 1996 - 2023 All rights reserved. No doubt the first verse says, that "when He was come down from the mount, great multitudes followed Him;" but then the second verse gives no intimation that the subject which follows is to be taken as chronologically subsequent. The Lord works in delivering power; but withal the power of Satan fills and carries away the unclean to their own destruction. The highest creature must go away into nothing, if he must go away with that only which is his own: but if we understand it of that which is ours by gift, the free gift of God, it teaches us to be content with such things as we have. By submitting your email address, you understand that you will receive email communications from Bible Gateway, a division of The Zondervan Corporation, 3900 Sparks Drive SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546 USA, including commercial communications and messages from partners of Bible Gateway. It means that no matter when a man enters the Kingdom, late or soon, in the first flush of youth, in the strength of the midday, or when the shadows are lengthening, he is equally dear to God. GenesisExodusLeviticusNumbersDeuteronomyJoshuaJudgesRuth1 Samuel2 Samuel1 Kings2 Kings1 Chronicles2 ChroniclesEzraNehemiahEstherJobPsalmsProverbsEcclesiastesSong of SongsIsaiahJeremiahLamentationsEzekielDanielHoseaJoelAmosObadiahJonahMicahNahumHabakkukZephaniahHaggaiZechariahMalachiMatthewMarkLukeJohnActsRomans1 Corinthians2 CorinthiansGalatiansEphesiansPhilippiansColossians1 Thessalonians2 Thessalonians1 Timothy2 TimothyTitusPhilemonHebrewsJames1 Peter2 Peter1 John2 John3 JohnJudeRevelation. Those that have had gospel offers made them at the third, or sixth hour, and have resisted and refused them, will not have that to say for themselves at the eleventh hour, that these had; No man has hired us; nor can they be sure that any man will hire them at the ninth or eleventh hour; and therefore not to discourage any, but to awaken all, be it remembered, that now is the accepted time; if we will hear his voice, it must be to-day. However imperfect it may be, if faith is there, Jesus accepts it. iv. And I believe that we can believe and trust Jesus Christ for physical healing, as well as spiritual healing. And still is he betrayed! Matthew did not wish to show James and John guilty of worldly ambition, and so he puts the request into the mouth of their mother rather than of themselves. It adds to the reason for this interpretation, that Christ was conversing about the rewards that should be given to his followers, and not about the numbers that should be called, or about the doctrine of election. A man out of his plenty may give us a gift of a hundred pounds, and in truth we are grateful; a child may give us a birthday or Christmas gift which cost only a few pence but which was laboriously and lovingly saved up for--and that gift, with little value of its own, touches our heart far more. It is a just prefiguration of what will be in the close of the age the mass of the unbelieving Jews, now impure, but then also given up to the devil, and so to evident perdition. [At the end of his parable about the Kingdom of Heaven being like workers hired at different times during the day, Jesus said,] "So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last.". Peter wanted to know what they would get in return. He was going to build His Church "upon this rock" Himself, the Son of God. Now according to the historians, this scourging was such an awful taxing thing upon the person that many people never made it to the cross. These blind men received their sight from Jesus, and then they gave to him their grateful loyalty. A hook is cast into the sea, and the fish that takes it produces the required money for Peter as for his gracious Master and Lord. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? And after the supper He took the cup, likewise and said, this cup is a new covenant in my blood, which is shed for the remission of sins, and as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death, until He comes"( 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 ). This would not be a legal claim on man, but the scattering of good seed, life and fruit from God, and this in the unlimited field of the world, not in the land of Israel merely. It ought to be so with every forgiven soul. Lowly, noiseless grace now it was to be, according to the prophet, till the hour strikes for victory in judgment. He said to them, 'Go you also to the vineyard.' In other words, it is certain that in the gospel of Luke, in whose preface we have expressly the words "set in order," the Holy Ghost does in no way tie Himself to what, after all, is the most elementary form of arrangement; for it needs little observation to see, that the simple sequence of facts as they occurred is that which demands a faithful enumeration, and nothing more. What can have more evil in it? [5.] [2.] It is easy to sympathize with these who had worked all day. Note, First, The soul of man stands ready to be hired into some service or other; it was (as all the creatures were) created to work, and is either a servant to iniquity, or a servant to righteousness,Romans 6:19. So the last shall be first, and the first last The GENTILES, who have been long without the true God, shall now enjoy all the privileges of the new covenant; and the Jews, who have enjoyed these from the beginning, shall now be dispossessed of them; for, because they here rejected the Lord, he also hath rejected them. But what a mercy that those who appear now to be rejected may be called in another muster, enrolled, serve in the field, or work in the vineyard? Laborers in the Vineyard. This made it to be plainly and only a difficulty for God to solve. Where did they come from? All through their history the Jews had dreamed of the Messiah; but the Messiah of whom they had dreamed was always a conquering king, a mighty leader, one who would smash the enemies of Israel and reign in power over the kingdoms of the earth. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, 18We are going up to Jerusalem,(C) and the Son of Man(D) will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. GenesisExodusLeviticusNumbersDeuteronomyJoshuaJudgesRuth1 Samuel2 Samuel1 Kings2 Kings1 Chronicles2 ChroniclesEzraNehemiahEstherJobPsalmsProverbsEcclesiastesSong of SongsIsaiahJeremiahLamentationsEzekielDanielHoseaJoelAmosObadiahJonahMicahNahumHabakkukZephaniahHaggaiZechariahMalachiMatthewMarkLukeJohnActsRomans1 Corinthians2 CorinthiansGalatiansEphesiansPhilippiansColossians1 Thessalonians2 Thessalonians1 Timothy2 TimothyTitusPhilemonHebrewsJames1 Peter2 Peter1 John2 John3 JohnJudeRevelation, Select a Beginning Point Luke-Acts The New Testament The Old Testament Higher proportionate rewards shall be given to them than to others. Certainly, He did not arrange His own betrayal. But if you were silent and refused to confess your crimes, then each time he would lay the whip on heavier, and heavier, until you'd be forced to cry out your crime against the Roman government. So we have a farther scene. He may therefore give or withhold his blessings, as he pleases. b. It shows us his kindness. Pauline Epistles Here, too, these Pharisees question and reproach His grace, when they see the Lord sitting at ease in the presence of publicans and sinners, who came and sat down with Him in Matthew's house. The offence removed. They may not be as long in the vineyard as others; their race may be sooner run; but I have chosen to honor them in this manner, and I have a right to do it. For they needed someone to help Him bear the cross. The strange thing is that instinctively the world itself has accepted these standards. He here is predicting the fact that He is going to be scourged. He had no reason to quarrel with the master; for what he gave was absolutely his own, Matthew 20:15; Matthew 20:15. The Lord hints at what the man's real desires were not Christ, not heaven, not eternity, but present things. They were beggars; but it was not money they asked for, it was nothing less than sight. Yet He confidently said it would happen. But if He here does not go beyond a hint of that which the Gentiles were about to receive on the ruinous unbelief and judgment of the Jew, He does not keep back their own awful course and doom in the figure that follows. The discontent arose not because of any injustice in the landowner, but because of jealousy in the all-day workers (Matthew 20:9-15). He makes some more useful than others, without regard to the time which they serve, and he will reward them accordingly. Both Mark and Luke add their own touches to the story, to show that on this occasion there was in the atmosphere of the apostolic band a certain tenseness and a certain foreboding of tragedy to come. It is an evil eye, which is displeased at the good of others, and desires their hurt. Accordingly, here we have a witness of it, and a witness so much the sweeter, because the present total rejection that was filling the heart of the leaders surely testified to the Lord's heart of that which was at hand. Therefore what this saying means is quite simply--it cost the life and the death of Jesus Christ to bring men back to God. 4 He told them, 'You also go and work in my . "Jesus deliberately and cleverly led the listeners along by degrees until they understood that if Gods generosity was to be represented by a man, such a man would be different from any man ever encountered." That they might possibly be outstripped by their successors in profession, and, though they were before others in profession, might be found inferior to them in knowledge, grace, and holiness. They're on the way to Jerusalem; they've come down the Jordan Valley. "Come, come from this market-place.". But this is enough to silence all murmurs and objectors, that God is sovereign Lord of all, and may do what he will with his own. There is no question of to whom the ransom was paid. And so they were actually thinking evil, because of His good. And who knows, but what they may have put her up to it, because when Jesus asked the question, they're ready to respond. Envy is unlikeness to God, who is good, and doeth good, and delighteth in doing good; nay, it is an opposition and contradiction to God; it is a dislike of his proceedings, and a displeasure at what he does, and is pleased with. Does not this suit you, poor sinner you who never did serve him, you who could not, as you are, minister to him? But if this be so, there is here absolute certainty that our Lord, on the very Sabbath in which He cast out the unclean spirit from the man in the synagogue of Capernaum, immediately after quitting the synagogue, entered the house of Peter, and that there and then He healed Peter's wife's mother of the fever. Luke-Acts None can suppose that these were deemed useless, or that, because not now chosen to serve their country in the field, they were proscribed from the rights and privileges of citizens, much less destroyed, because others were found better qualified to serve their country at the post of honour and danger.
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