WWUTT 2216 The Parable of the Vinegrowers (Mark 11:27-12:12)

When Jesus cursed a fig tree and it withered, we considered how important it is for us to bear fruit in our lives, and we're going to see that same lesson today in the parable of the vineyard,

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When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. Here's your teacher,

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Mark, we are finishing up Chapter 11 and going into Chapter 12.

So I'm going to start reading here from 1127 through Mark 12 .12 out of the

Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. Then they came again to Jerusalem, and as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him and began saying to him,

By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do these things?

And Jesus said to them, I will ask you one question, and you answer me, and then

I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?

Answer me. And they began reasoning among themselves, saying, If we say from heaven, he will say,

Then why did you not believe him? But if we say from men, they were afraid of the crowd, for everyone was regarding John to have been a real prophet.

And answering Jesus, they said, We do not know. And Jesus said to them, Neither will

I tell you by what authority I do these things. And he began to speak to them in parables. A man planted a vineyard, and put a wall around it, and dug a vat under the winepress, and built a tower, and rented it out to vine -growers, and went on a journey.

And at the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine -growers in order to receive some of the fruit of the vineyard from the vine -growers.

And they took him, and beat him, and sent him away empty -handed. And again he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully.

And he sent another, and that one they killed, and so with many others, beating some and killing others.

He had one more, a beloved son. He sent him last of all to them, saying,

They will respect my son. But those vine -growers said to one another, This is the heir, come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.

And they took him, and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do?

He will come and destroy the vine -growers, and will give the vineyard to others. Have you not even read this scripture?

The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the chief cornerstone. This came about from the

Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. And they were seeking to seize him. And yet they feared the crowd, for they understood that he spoke the parable against them.

And so they left him, and went away. Now just to kind of remind you all of this is going on.

In that week, right before Jesus is going to be tried and crucified.

And this is happening on Tuesday. So if we think of the triumphal entry as being on Sunday, I know

I gave you an alternate theory concerning that last week, but if the triumphal entry was on Sunday, and then the cleansing of the temple was on Monday, then these events that we read about here are on Tuesday.

We're getting to the Olivet Discourse, which will be in chapter 13. Mark's version of the

Olivet Discourse. It's really only the Olivet Discourse in Matthew's gospel, because Matthew is the one that lays out these discourses.

We're going to see Jesus end times teaching in Mark. It's just not laid out the same way that it's put in Matthew.

Matthew contains more detail than Mark does. But all that to say that these are the events, this is the teaching that happens on Tuesday.

Then on Wednesday, you're going to have the Last Supper. If we're going to go with that alternate theory here, coming up in a week or two,

I'll kind of expound upon that. So if the Last Supper is on Wednesday night, then Jesus is crucified

Thursday. He's in a tomb Friday, Saturday, and rises again on Sunday. There's a potential timeline.

Of course, the traditional one is Palm Sunday, Jesus cleansing the temple

Monday, teaching on Tuesday. That remains pretty consistent. But then Wednesday is kind of a mystery.

It's almost a lost day, because nothing in the gospel accounts gives us anything on Wednesday.

And then Thursday, you have the Last Supper. Friday, Good Friday, that's when Jesus is crucified and buried in a tomb

Saturday, rises again Sunday. That's the traditional timeline. We're going to challenge that a little bit as we go through Mark's gospel, and I think we'll even rehash those things once again when we are in Luke's gospel as well.

But anyway, all this to recap and say these events, this particular teaching is happening in that third day.

So the first day being the triumphal entry, second being the cleansing of the temple, third being Jesus teaching on these things, like a whole day of teaching, which will end with the

Olivet Discourse or the teaching about the destruction of the temple, which Jesus will give on the Mount of Olives.

So we have this very brief exchange between Jesus and the

Pharisees, the scribes and the elders. They come to him. They challenge his authority. This is him coming back into Jerusalem.

That's the way this starts. Verse 27, they came again to Jerusalem, and as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him.

So here we are on that third day with Jesus coming into the temple, and the moment he comes in there and crowds are looking at him, the chief priests and the scribes and the

Pharisees, they all descend upon him, and this exchange is happening publicly. Now you might notice in the scripture references that are in the titles to the podcast episodes,

I've skipped a verse. I did not cover verse 26. I'm starting in verse 27 today.

I didn't get 26 last week. Well, that's because verse 26 is not in the original manuscripts.

So this was an addition, and then when the verse and chapter markers were added, it kind of cements it in there, but that particular phrase in verse 26 is not in the original manuscript.

But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions.

That's carried over from Matthew. Mark didn't write it though, because in the earliest manuscripts, we don't have evidence of it being there.

It was some overzealous scribe that added it later, because of what Jesus teaches there in the section that we covered last week.

Sounds like something he taught in Matthew that ended with that verse. So someone carried it over from Matthew into Mark, but Mark is not the...

He did not write that same lesson into the words that he writes down Jesus teaching to his disciples in his gospel.

So anyway, all that just to say that's why I didn't cover verse 26. You can go back to my

Matthew lesson in Matthew chapter 6 and hear what I had said about that one.

So continuing on, they challenged Jesus by saying, by what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do these things?

And they're mostly thinking about the cleansing of the temple that just happened the day before, because that was the big event from yesterday, and Jesus even taught some of them there after the cleansing of the temple.

But of course, Jesus teaching is all kind of wrapped up into this as well. They're mostly thinking about what happened yesterday, but everything else that's been going on with Jesus' ministry.

Who's given you this authority? And Jesus says to them, I'm going to ask you a question and you answer me, and then

I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Now of course, what is the authority that Jesus does these things?

Where did he get this authority from? He receives it from the Father. It's not time for him to tell them that yet, because if he says that now, he immediately gets arrested, put on trial, and he's going to be put to death earlier than he wants to be put to death, than God has planned for Jesus to be put to death.

So he's not going to answer that question yet. But since they're right there in the midst of the crowds, Jesus is going to make an example of them before the people that are watching.

Let's put you on the spot. Let's see what you think about John the Baptist. And are you going to be brave enough to answer honestly, or will you dodge it?

We see that they get dodgy with the question. So Jesus says, was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?

Answer me. And they began reasoning among themselves, saying, if we say from heaven, he will say, then why did you not believe him?

Seems like they are pretty smart to Jesus' shrewdness here. But if we say from men, well, then they're going to make the people mad, because the people did regard

John as a prophet. Some of the people even think that Jesus is the reincarnation of John, as we had talked about previously.

But the people thought of John the Baptist as being a prophet that was sent from God. So if the

Pharisees who are, they actually have a certain regard among the people, even though Jesus is being listened to by the people here, and he's challenged the

Pharisees and called out their false teaching, even before the crowds, even though Jesus has done that, there's still a certain regard that the people have for the

Pharisees. They were the teachers of the people. The Pharisees even had, you know, they were like the blue collar guys.

They had jobs like most of the people that they were around and taught. The Sadducees were that upper echelon of folks that were of the aristocracy, and they had favoritism with the

Romans, and a lot of their appointments were granted to them by the Romans, including who the chief priest was going to be.

So the Sadducees had more to lose. The Pharisees were the common man. So the

Pharisees still had a certain rapport with the people. They did not want to do something that was going to make them lose the last of their influence that they had over the people, especially considering what they were planning to do with Jesus.

And we see that with the parable that's coming up here in a moment. So they said, if we say from men, the people are going to get mad at us.

So they just simply say, we don't know. And Jesus says, then neither will I tell you by what authority

I do these things. And of course, Jesus will tell them by what authority he does these things on the night of his trial.

But next, Jesus gives this parable and the parable. The Pharisees are wise, too. They recognize it is about them.

And so Jesus says here in chapter 12, beginning in verse one. And he began to speak to them in parables.

A man planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a vat under the winepress and built a tower and rented it out to vine growers and went on a journey.

Now, Jesus is referencing Isaiah chapter five, and the people would have recognized that as Jesus is starting in on this parable.

What does he start quoting? The lyrics to Isaiah five. Now I say lyrics because it actually is a song.

Let me read it to you. Isaiah five, beginning in verse one. Let me sing now for my well beloved, a song of my beloved concerning his vineyard.

My well beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it all around, removed it stones and planted it with the choices vine.

And he built a tower in the middle of it and also hewed out a wide vat in it. Then he hoped for it to produce good grapes, but it only produced worthless ones.

So you see there that even at the beginning of this lyric here in Isaiah five, it says that it is a song.

Let me sing now for my well beloved, a song for my beloved concerning his vineyard.

Now, when you go to it and you look at it in an English text, you have it paragraphed out in such a way that makes it look like poetry, but it's even more than that.

It's not just prophecy. It's not just poetry. It is also lyrics. It's lyrics to a song. So Jesus is quoting song lyrics.

He's quoting song lyrics to the crowd as he sets up this particular parable. And he says at the harvest time, he sent a slave to the vine growers in order to receive some of the fruit of the vineyard from the vine growers.

Now this calls back to the cursing of the fig tree that we had considered last week in chapter 11, because remember the fig tree represented

Israel. And I said then that oftentimes Israel is represented by some sort of agrarian example, like whether it's a fig tree or a vineyard or some other kind of planting.

You see that throughout the Old Testament. In fact, we even went to Hosea, which I had just started a study in and found references in Hosea to Israel being either a fig tree or a vineyard.

So this is Jesus talking about Israel and how the vine growers are those people that God has entrusted

Israel to. They're supposed to be teaching Israel. They're supposed to be building up the people of God with the word of God.

But what is it that they are doing instead? We continue on here. Verse three, and they took him and beat him and sent him away empty handed.

This is the slave that the owner had sent to gather up some of the fruit of the vineyard.

But it turns out that the vine growers are not willing to share. They're taking the vineyard as though it belongs to them.

And so they beat the slave and send him away empty handed. So the owner sends another slave, verse four, and they wounded him in the head and they treated him shamefully.

Now when it comes to parables, we've talked about this before regarding parables, but there's one lesson that Jesus is wanting to convey here with a parable.

And we have to be careful not to become too analytical with some of the things that are happening in the parable.

Because if we're too analytical, then we're going to tend to lose the point. And we might see some of these examples that are given here and think, oh, which prophet does this pertain to?

Because surely this is Jesus sending the prophets and the way that the people regarded the prophets, right?

So you have the first one that just gets beaten and sent away empty handed. Well, what prophet could that be regarding?

Well, we don't know. It's not specific enough just to say that he's been beaten and sent away empty handed.

And then the next one, they wound in the head. That's a little more specific. They treat him shamefully, but then it doesn't even say there, it doesn't even add in they sent him away empty handed and he doesn't return with anything.

All it says is they wounded him in the head and treated him shamefully. That's all we get. But even there, there's not enough detail.

Even though it's more detail, it's not enough for us to know which prophet that might be referring to. And then in the next one, he sent another and that one they killed.

And so with many others beating some and killing others. So really what we have here in these three first slaves, all that's signifying is how the prophets were regarded by the people.

When you get to Hebrews chapter 11 and you're reading about the Old Testament faithful, the first one that's talked about there is

Abel and Abel was put to death. Well, that's not the first prophet that's mentioned here.

It's just that he was beaten and sent away empty handed. So it's just giving three ways in which the people would often treat the prophets.

They would not listen to what the prophet said as delivering a word from the Lord. Some they beat, some they wounded and treated shamefully and others they even killed.

So it's just kind of giving three examples of the ways that the people regarded the prophets and treated them.

But of course, with this next one, and we know that for sure is referring to Christ.

He had one more, a beloved son. He sent him last of all to them saying, they will respect my son.

Now again, this is where you got to be careful in the way that you interpret the parables, because is that what

God said? Is that what the father said when he sent the son? Oh, he's going to respect my son.

So I'll send him because I know that they'll listen to the son and my son will return with some of the fruit of the vineyard.

No, because when you go back to Isaiah 53, you know there that the expectation was that he was going to be persecuted.

God knew that he wasn't going to listen to his son. This was part of the plan and that him being crushed was not going to be by the people, but through the people,

God was going to place our iniquities upon Christ who died on the cross through using these people,

Jews and Gentiles conspiring together to put the son of God to death. And then it's through that act that God is going to use the blood of Christ to atone for our sins.

So that's fully the expectation here. This is just a parable. So don't read into this the father saying, oh,

I'm going to send my son and this is going to work out. And I've heard some preachers say it that way. I've heard some preachers preach it just like that.

One of the worst sermons I've ever heard in my life was preached kind of like that.

But those vine growers said to one another, this is the heir, come and let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours.

Now we know that was not on the mind of the Pharisees. They didn't look at Jesus going, oh, this is

God's son, so let's go kill him. That wasn't what was going on in their minds. They didn't regard

Jesus as having been sent from God. So verse eight, and they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.

All of this, of course, prophetically pointing to something that's going to happen in that very week. What will the owner of the vineyard do?

He will come and destroy the vine growers and will give the vineyard to others.

Now the vineyard itself here is not the people of Israel that the

Pharisees are manipulating. So it's not like these people are all on my side.

You guys are the ones that are attempting to lead them astray. No, that's not the case at all, because you have

Jews and Gentiles that will conspire together to put the son of God to death.

So this isn't regarding the lay person in Israel. That's who the vineyard is.

The vineyard is just very simply the kingdom of God and everyone who would therefore be in that kingdom.

Most of the parables are a parable about the kingdom of God. So that's what the vineyard is representing here.

And the vine growers think that it belongs to them because these are the men that God has entrusted to care for the kingdom and the people that live within it.

But they are benefiting themselves rather than feeding the flock of God.

And so they are going to be destroyed by the owner of the vineyard.

And that would not just be the teachers, but even all the people that would follow the teaching of those teachers. So then in verse 10, have you not even read this scripture?

The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This came about from the

Lord and it is marvelous in our eyes. And that's a reference that comes from Psalm 118,

Jesus quoting from the Psalms there. Verse 12, and they were seeking to seize him and yet they feared the crowd.

Once again, that has a connection with what we read right at the end of chapter 11. They didn't answer

Jesus' question because they feared the crowd. So here they fear the crowd once again, though they want to seize him and kill him, they're not going to, for they understood that he spoke the parable against them.

And so they left him and went away. Now still, some of the

Pharisees and the Herodians are going to challenge Jesus, and that's coming up in the next section, which we'll look at tomorrow regarding the question about paying taxes to Caesar.

But here again, you have this promise of Jesus, where he's saying that the vineyard will be taken away from the vine growers.

Those who had been entrusted with caring for that which belonged to God, they didn't care for it, they benefited themselves.

So God is going to destroy them. We think of like James 3 .1, not many of you should aspire to become teachers, my brothers, for you know that teachers will be judged with greater strictness.

So God will take it away from the vine growers, he will destroy them, and he will give it to others.

Who is he going to give it to? Well, that's in reference to Gentiles. And so even the church is made up of not just Jews, but Gentiles, all of us who believe in Jesus Christ.

And we have now been brought into this vineyard, the kingdom of God, through faith in Jesus Christ.

And we must care for this vineyard. We must not squander it or use it to benefit ourselves, just like the

Pharisees and the false teachers had done before. But we must be careful with this, that we would honor the

Lord with it, that we would walk in holiness, that we would desire to encourage one another and build each other up in love, just as we are doing.

So we must do so more and more. For if we don't, just as judgment came upon those who did not care for God's vineyard, his judgment will be poured out on us as well, if we don't take care of those things that belong to God.

This is the same sort of a lesson that we drew out of Jesus cursing the fig tree. It certainly had a direct correlation with Israel when that happened,

Jesus cursing this fig tree and it withered away and dying right there in front of his own disciples.

And so we must be careful. We must bear good fruit. And so it is the same with us with regards to this parable of the vineyard.

We must bear good fruit. If we are followers of Jesus, let us demonstrate it in our lives, making the most of the time, as Paul says in Ephesians 5, because the days are evil.

Hold fast to Christ and his righteousness in these days. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read here, and I pray that it does convict our hearts and motivate us to be as Christ.

What do we have in our lives that would separate us from Christ? That's more about us chasing after our flesh or chasing after the world and those things that we want, what our flesh desires.

If there's anything in our lives that's like that, that would cause us to take our focus off of Christ, focus on ourselves and these passions and desires that we have.

May we be convicted of heart, lose those things in our life that we may cling all the more to Christ and live in his righteousness today.

We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. For more information about our ministry, visit us online at www .tt

.com. On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, thanking you for listening.