SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/14/2023 8:18 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Illustration”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
21:33-39
Message of the verses: “33 "Listen to
another parable. There was a landowner who PLANTED A VINEYARD AND PUT A WALL
AROUND IT AND DUG A WINE PRESS IN IT, AND BUILT A TOWER, and rented it out to
vine-growers, and went on a journey. 34 “And when the harvest time approached,
he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his produce. 35 “And the vine-growers
took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. 36 “Again
he sent another group of slaves larger than the first; and they did the same
thing to them. 37 “But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will
respect my son.’ 38 “But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among
themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and seize his
inheritance.’ 39 “And they took him, and threw him out of the vineyard, and
killed him.”
In these verses Jesus is giving the illustration of
the parable, and as always in His parabolic teaching, Jesus told a simple and
understandable story, which often included a shocking element, in order to
explain a profound truth that was unknown or generally misunderstood. This parable of Jesus here speaks of landowner
who planted a vineyard, and this was commonplace in that agrarian society and
was easy for those who were listening to Him to identify with, as there were
many vineyards like this in Palestine, and still are today. In the story we see that a wealthy landowner
got this vineyard ready for it to produce grapes and once it was ready to
produce grapes he would lease it out to others to care for it while he was
away. Now as you look at the details
that are in this story we can see that the landowner took great care in getting
this vineyard ready. He put a wall around
it to keep animals and thieves away and even built a tower in order to process
the grapes. He, as stated took great care
in what he was doing and did a great job in doing it. MacArthur adds “In the
wide, shallow, upper basin, the grapes would be squeezed, and the juice would
run down through a trough into a lower basin.
From there the grape juice would be poured into wineskins or clay jars
for storage. Often the owner would build
a tower which would be used as a lookout post against marauders, as shelter for
the workers and as a storage place for seed and implements.” Well I guess I did not get the use of the
tower right but thanks to MacArthur’s quote it got straightened out.
As
mentioned the landowner did a great job in getting his vineyard ready and then rented
it out to vine-growers that he thought were reliable caretakers, making an
agreement with them to pay a certain percentage of the proceeds to him as
rent. The rest of the money would belong
to them for doing the work. The
landowner was satisfied with everything and so he left as he went on a journey.
I am meeting some unsaved friends for breakfast this
morning, some of which I have prayed for, for almost 50 years, so I pray that
the Lord will give me opportunities to talk to them about the Lord.
7/14/2023 8:42 AM
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