And again he sent another; and him they killed, and many others; beating some, and killing some.
The world is pictured as a vineyard entrusted to husbandmen who were to work it faithfully and unselfishly throughout, not keeping its blessings and facilities for only the portion under their own care, but returning its fruit to its Lord, picturing the covenant responsibility given to the Jewish nation. The repeated sendings show God's patience in sending prophets and other messengers to receive what belonged to Him and to call His people to account, and after earlier ones were mistreated sending more responsible ones. The keepers treated them as enemies and met them with contemptuous, unjust and cruel insult, with beating, persecution and killing, and when further messengers came they received the same treatment with even more determined hatred.
The account moves from these mistreated servants to God sending His only begotten Son, whom the people likewise rejected and killed. That violence pictures the Jewish nation, and especially its religious leaders, turning the people from God's claims and rejecting Christ. Those leaders are thus made responsible for the nation's sin and ruin, so that the vineyard would be taken from them and they would be severely punished.
The parable applies beyond the Jewish nation to the church in every generation, which has received great privileges and blessings from God and owes Him returns corresponding to them. When religious teachers turn people away from God's commandments and use their influence to oppose and reject those who call for obedience, they withhold the fruits of love, humility and self-sacrificing service and prove unfaithful. The parables that use this vineyard figure are to be studied and put into practice through faithful cultivation of the soil and disinterested care for buildings. Training in cultivation of the soil and in manual labor fits workers to take hold of any work in mission fields and to instruct others as they have been instructed, while the love of sports and amusements that perplexes school work passes away.
The world is pictured as a vineyard entrusted to husbandmen who were to work it faithfully and unselfishly throughout, not keeping its blessings and facilities for only the portion under their own care, but returning its fruit to its Lord, picturing the covenant responsibility given to the Jewish nation. The repeated sendings show God's patience in sending prophets and other messengers to receive what belonged to Him and to call His people to account, and after earlier ones were mistreated sending more responsible ones. The keepers treated them as enemies and met them with contemptuous, unjust and cruel insult, with beating, persecution and killing, and when further messengers came they received the same treatment with even more determined hatred.
The account moves from these mistreated servants to God sending His only begotten Son, whom the people likewise rejected and killed. That violence pictures the Jewish nation, and especially its religious leaders, turning the people from God's claims and rejecting Christ. Those leaders are thus made responsible for the nation's sin and ruin, so that the vineyard would be taken from them and they would be severely punished.
The parable applies beyond the Jewish nation to the church in every generation, which has received great privileges and blessings from God and owes Him returns corresponding to them. When religious teachers turn people away from God's commandments and use their influence to oppose and reject those who call for obedience, they withhold the fruits of love, humility and self-sacrificing service and prove unfaithful. The parables that use this vineyard figure are to be studied and put into practice through faithful cultivation of the soil and disinterested care for buildings. Training in cultivation of the soil and in manual labor fits workers to take hold of any work in mission fields and to instruct others as they have been instructed, while the love of sports and amusements that perplexes school work passes away.