Daily Devotional for Tuesday, April 28

The Lord of the Vineyard

“Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him,” Luke 20:13.

As Jesus was teaching and preaching, religious leaders came up asking about His authority. After that confrontation, Jesus told this parable in Luke 20.

For centuries, God sent prophets to His people. They heard from God and passed it on to the people. In the Yetfa language we worked in, naturally, there was no word for prophet. They did not have that concept. In cases like that, a translator must search out the best way to express that thought. In Yetfa, we used a phrase for prophet: Awa ma kautokel taoro nel (“God’s Word turn and tell person”). A prophet hears from God and takes His message to the people.

In Jesus’ parable, His people (the vineyard) are entrusted to religious leaders (the husbandmen), those chosen to care for the vineyard. The prophets (servants) are sent to receive that which belongs to God (the owner), but they are treated harshly.

Being a prophet in Israel was a dangerous calling. Those who should have been revered were ridiculed, beaten, flogged, thrown into cisterns and regularly mistreated for their message and conviction. Jesus condemned Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee.” His parable confronted and condemned the religious leaders.

God (the owner) sent His Son to receive the fruit, but even the Master’s own Son was not honored. Jesus told what happened to the vineyard owner’s son and what would happen to Him as God’s Son. He would be killed by those entrusted to care for God’s people. Jesus also revealed the consequences. Their murder would seal their judgment. God will come and destroy them and give His vineyard to others.

THOUGHT

“The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked” (Nahum 1:2, 3).

Kelli Reynolds