SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/7/2023 9:02 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The Vindication of Kingdom
Equality”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
20:13-16
Message of the verses: “13 “But he
answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not
agree with me for a denarius? 14 ‘Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give
to this last man the same as to you. 15 ‘Is it not lawful for me to do what I
wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’ 16 “So
the last shall be first, and the first last.’”
“13 But he
replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with
me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this
last worker as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what
belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ 16 So the last will be first,
and the first last’” (ESB).
I put the ESV version on because of verse 14, as it
seems to make more sense to me than the NASB95 version.
In
verse 15 what we see is a rhetorical question:
Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you
begrudge my generosity?’ He certainly is
allowed to do that. What he paid the late-coming workers, or any others, was
strictly his own business, and he was perfectly within his lawful rights. He could do whatever he might wish to do with
his own assets.
John
MacArthur writes the following which I believe is very important for me to
understand: “The problem was not
injustice on the part of the landowner and foreman but jealously on the part of
the workers. “Is you eye envious because
I am generous” the owner asked the angry spokesman. As he had just reminded the group, he
completely lived up to their mutual agreement, and that should have been their
only concern. But jealously and envy are
not based on reason but on selfishness.
The charge of unfairness was not grounded in love for justice but in the
selfish assumption that the extra pay they wanted was pay they deserved. In reality of course, what the latter-day
workers were paid had absolutely no bearing on what the all-day workers were
paid. They had, as it were, entirely
separate contracts with the owner.”
Here
is a problem and that is that selfishness sees what it wants to see, and all
those envious men could see what that they did not receive the grand bonus they
expected and thought they deserved.
These early workers got exactly what they had agreed with the landowner
to pay them and I have stated before that getting paid as much as the landowner
was actually more than most workers of that day got paid as a denarius was paid
to people like soldiers and others with skill, not just ordinary day workers,
so they were actually getting more, but they still wanted more because they
were jealous of what the others got paid.
Perhaps it would have been good for them to do, would be to rejoice in
what their co-workers got paid instead of griping about what they did not get
paid because they were envious of them.
I think that perhaps rejoicing for the good fortunes of the others, has
to be a person who really has a grateful heart, and I think that is something
that has to come from the Lord. John
MacArthur writes “The other men had a hard time finding work at all, and when
they did it may have been menial, demanding, and low-paying. But regardless of the difference between the
men’s situation, capabilities, accomplishments, or needs, none of them was
wrongly paid.” As earlier stated they
were actually paid more than most unskilled workers during that time.
I
am going to conclude this SD with another quote from John MacArthur, and then
in our next SD I want to look at what he is writing about at the end of this
paragraph. “Although the parable
includes clear warnings about impugning the fairness of someone and about the
ugly sin of envy, its primary point is that of the owner’s right to pay all the
workers the same wage. Jesus, of course,
was not teaching economic or business principles but rather using such
principles to teach an
infinitely more wonderful spiritual truth.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Selfishness is something that has to do with
the old nature that every person is born with, and it takes the miracle of the
new birth in order to have a new nature so that I won’t be selfish all the
time, for even after the new birth I can be selfish if I don’t trust the Lord
to be filled with His Holy Spirit. Today
is the day that, as believers that we look back on the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ, although we don’t know the date in history that He was nailed to the
cross for the sins of the world, but we do know that this happened, and if one
is to have eternal life then one must believe that He truly died for you in a
personal way, accepting His forgiveness, and realizing that on your own you can
do nothing to be saved.
I
want to share a story about this, as it was told to me last Sunday by a very
dear friend of mine. He told me about
witnessing to a man who was a very intelligent man who after being witnessed to
many times said that if he were to go to heaven he would have to do it on his
own. This man had made a computer, and
this was back in 1978, so as I said he was very smart. My friend said to him that if his house was
on fire and all of his possessions were in the house, including that computer
and he was outside using a garden hose to put the fire out and the firemen came
and told him that they had better equipment to put the fire out, but he
insisted that he could do it on his own by using his little garden hose. The point was made and several days later
this man called the pastor of the church and was ready to receive Christ as his
personal Savior and Lord. My friend told
me that he had never used that story before and never used it again, but I
think that it is worth sharing.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust that the Lord will continue to work
in the heart of my wife as I know that He is working in her heart about
something that is very important to her and to me and I am thankful.
4/7/2023 9:46 AM
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