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The Parable of the Tenants can be perceived as a microcosm of the Lord creating for us a world to prosper in. In a sense, God is our landlord, asking that the rent we pay Him be in the form of the two great commandments of Lord Jesus: that we love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Jesus tells us elsewhere in the Bible that these two commandments sum up the Law and the prophets.
Our faith in God is an instrument of our love for Him and eachother. We put our faith and trust in God, that all things we experience come together for good, to paraphrase Romans 8:28. And according to Deuteronomy 28, those who listen to God’s Voice will prosper.
So what of the Parable of the Tenants in Matthew 21:33-43? Perhaps some context may help. In Verse 23, Jesus enters a temple to teach. We don’t know for sure if Jesus intended to convey the Parable of the Tenants and the few Parables afterwards. Verse 23 says that when Lord Jesus came into the temple and STARTED TEACHING, he was challenged by “the chief priests and the elders” as to what authority Jesus had to teach. At that point, we don’t know what Jesus was teaching when he was confronted by them, but when he was, he opened up with parables which symbolized people who have, in their doings and proclamations, rejected God.
So, the Landlord is God. The vineyard is the world that God created for us. The fruit the tenants were expected to grow, represents the fruit of their faith and love in God, if such faith and love existed. Their not bearing fruit, and their killing of the Landlord’s servants and son represents their rejection of things that God stands for. It is not a happy vineyard for sure, as far as we’re concerned!
In Verses 45 and 46, the Pharisees and the chief priests, whom we are pretty much led to believe are the “chief priests and the elders” who encountered Jesus as he was teaching, believe that the Parable of the Tenants is speaking about them...they are the tenants in the Parable. I guess that if Jesus wasn’t speaking about them, a Verse within that Chapter would have said so; so, we would not be wrong if we believe at the very least that the tenants included the Pharisees and the chief priests, and perhaps a minority in the crowds listening to Jesus who were fully devoted to those Pharisees and chief priests.
The Bible in the New Testament makes it clear that Pharisees, scribes and similar people have not stuck to the Word of God as it was given to Moses. Their concocted interpretations are found to have nothing to do with what God conveyed to Moses.
The first Chapter in the Book of Isaiah is telling. I imagine that if the first chapter were put to music, it would be something similar to Brahms’ Symphony Number 1 in C Minor, depicting God’s anguish against the people (Note 1). The first few notes, accompanied by a pounding kettle drum, would be Verse 2 which says “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the LORD has spoken: ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.’” Who are those children? Surely, they include the scribes, Pharisees, Chief Priests and elders, and the Jews who were mislead by them, and Jews who, on their own, turned away from God. Verse 1 makes it clear that God is speaking to those people in Judah and Jerusalem.
Those people would be the tenants in Jesus’ Parable, as well as Judah and Jerusalem being the vineyards. Coincidently, Verse 8 in Isaiah opens with “And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a VINEYARD...”
The next set of notes in Brahms’ piece might correspond to Verses 18-20 in which God says, “Come now, let us reason together...though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
In a sense, Isaiah in the Parable of the Tenants the Landlord too is being reasonable to some extent as, instead of evicting or killing the tenants outright he sends another group of servants to collect the fruit. Finally, when they reject the son, Jesus makes a point o asking what should be done with the tenants. The crowd effectively responds with what it says in Isaiah 1:20, that they are to “be eaten by the sword.”
(Note 1: The Brahms Symphony I refer to may not have been composed with the idea of it being a religious or spiritual symphony. The composer Dvorak said that Brahms “believes in nothing.” Brahms said, in composing the German Requiem, that he would dispense with John 3:16 if it were up to him. Brahms may not be a man of God, as I am, but in my secular, earthly travels I couldn’t help but be reminded of Isaiah Chapter 1 in the first movement of his Symphony No. 1 when I heard it.)
Our faith in God is an instrument of our love for Him and eachother. We put our faith and trust in God, that all things we experience come together for good, to paraphrase Romans 8:28. And according to Deuteronomy 28, those who listen to God’s Voice will prosper.
So what of the Parable of the Tenants in Matthew 21:33-43? Perhaps some context may help. In Verse 23, Jesus enters a temple to teach. We don’t know for sure if Jesus intended to convey the Parable of the Tenants and the few Parables afterwards. Verse 23 says that when Lord Jesus came into the temple and STARTED TEACHING, he was challenged by “the chief priests and the elders” as to what authority Jesus had to teach. At that point, we don’t know what Jesus was teaching when he was confronted by them, but when he was, he opened up with parables which symbolized people who have, in their doings and proclamations, rejected God.
So, the Landlord is God. The vineyard is the world that God created for us. The fruit the tenants were expected to grow, represents the fruit of their faith and love in God, if such faith and love existed. Their not bearing fruit, and their killing of the Landlord’s servants and son represents their rejection of things that God stands for. It is not a happy vineyard for sure, as far as we’re concerned!
In Verses 45 and 46, the Pharisees and the chief priests, whom we are pretty much led to believe are the “chief priests and the elders” who encountered Jesus as he was teaching, believe that the Parable of the Tenants is speaking about them...they are the tenants in the Parable. I guess that if Jesus wasn’t speaking about them, a Verse within that Chapter would have said so; so, we would not be wrong if we believe at the very least that the tenants included the Pharisees and the chief priests, and perhaps a minority in the crowds listening to Jesus who were fully devoted to those Pharisees and chief priests.
The Bible in the New Testament makes it clear that Pharisees, scribes and similar people have not stuck to the Word of God as it was given to Moses. Their concocted interpretations are found to have nothing to do with what God conveyed to Moses.
The first Chapter in the Book of Isaiah is telling. I imagine that if the first chapter were put to music, it would be something similar to Brahms’ Symphony Number 1 in C Minor, depicting God’s anguish against the people (Note 1). The first few notes, accompanied by a pounding kettle drum, would be Verse 2 which says “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the LORD has spoken: ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.’” Who are those children? Surely, they include the scribes, Pharisees, Chief Priests and elders, and the Jews who were mislead by them, and Jews who, on their own, turned away from God. Verse 1 makes it clear that God is speaking to those people in Judah and Jerusalem.
Those people would be the tenants in Jesus’ Parable, as well as Judah and Jerusalem being the vineyards. Coincidently, Verse 8 in Isaiah opens with “And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a VINEYARD...”
The next set of notes in Brahms’ piece might correspond to Verses 18-20 in which God says, “Come now, let us reason together...though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
In a sense, Isaiah in the Parable of the Tenants the Landlord too is being reasonable to some extent as, instead of evicting or killing the tenants outright he sends another group of servants to collect the fruit. Finally, when they reject the son, Jesus makes a point o asking what should be done with the tenants. The crowd effectively responds with what it says in Isaiah 1:20, that they are to “be eaten by the sword.”
(Note 1: The Brahms Symphony I refer to may not have been composed with the idea of it being a religious or spiritual symphony. The composer Dvorak said that Brahms “believes in nothing.” Brahms said, in composing the German Requiem, that he would dispense with John 3:16 if it were up to him. Brahms may not be a man of God, as I am, but in my secular, earthly travels I couldn’t help but be reminded of Isaiah Chapter 1 in the first movement of his Symphony No. 1 when I heard it.)
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