A Reward for
Faithful Service
It is essential to observe that this parable in Matthew 20:1-16 relates to service, for the laborers are sent into the vineyard. There is also no doubt that it sprang out of Peter’s question: “Behold, we have left all things and have followed Thee; what then shall happen to us?” (ch. 19:27 JND). In reply, the Lord graciously told His disciples that they should have a special place in the kingdom and should sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. He also told them that everyone who had forsaken anything for His name’s sake should be abundantly recompensed. He then added the significant warning that many who were first should be last, and the last first, and this He proceeded to explain in the parable. “For,” He says, “the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard” (ch. 20:1).
We have, in the next place, a description of the several laborers, with the different hours at which they were hired. But, in fact, there are but two classes, those who agreed upon the amount they were to receive, and those who left themselves in the hands of the Master to give what He deemed right.
Those who agreed for their penny were, in a word, legal servants, whereas those who left themselves to the One who had called them were under the power of grace. To the first, the labor was a means of recompense; to the last, it was a privilege, and hence they prize it in and for itself, knowing something of the grace that had bestowed it. All this is brought out when the steward settles with the laborers. In obedience to his lord, he begins with the last, and everyone received a penny. This excited the anger of the first, for if the last had a penny, surely they were entitled to more. The answer was that they had received what they bargained for, that the master had the right to do what he would with his own, and that their eye was not to be evil because he was good.
The exhibition of grace, with all its sovereign rights, only excited the envy of the natural heart —hence the enmity of the Jew when the gospel was proclaimed to the Gentile, and thus, though the “first,” he became the “last.” So it was with these laborers. Those who went to labor last in the vineyard left the master’s presence satisfied with his goodness, and so became “first,” while those who were first in their labors left his presence with murmurs in their hearts and on their lips, strangers still to grace. So the last shall be first (referring to Matt. 19:30), and the first last, for many are called (as all these laborers had been), but few chosen.
	E. Dennett, adapted from
	The Christian Friend, 1887