Matthew 21: 23-46

Matthew 21: 23-46

These are a lot of verses for one day but there are two parables that belong together.

Mat 21:23 When He entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him while He was teaching, and said, "By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?"

You would think that by now the Priests and Elders would have given up. That, however, was not in the game plan so they tried again. This time they were asking Jesus by what authority he was teaching. They were using Old Testament logic again Leviticus 24: 10-23. If Jesus acknowledge he was the Son of God. They would stone him.

Mat 21:24 Jesus said to them, "I will also ask you one thing, which if you tell Me, I will also tell you by what authority I do these things.

Don’t you just love parables? They make things easy to understand even if you are a Pharisee.

Mat 21:25 "The baptism of John was from what source, from heaven or from men?" And they began reasoning among themselves, saying, "If we say, 'From heaven,' He will say to us, 'Then why did you not believe him?'

Mat 21:26 "But if we say, 'From men,' we fear the people; for they all regard John as a prophet."

Mat 21:27 And answering Jesus, they said, "We do not know." He also said to them,

At this point Jesus had already acknowledged his authority source. It was the same as John the Baptists which was God. The Priests and Scribed did not believe John the Baptist. The problem was the people did believe John the Baptist.

 "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. Mat 21:28 "But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, 'Son, go work today in the vineyard.'

Mat 21:29 "And he answered, 'I will not'; but afterward he regretted it and went.

Mat 21:30 "The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, 'I will, sir'; but he did not go. Mat 21:31 "Which of the two did the will of his father?" They *said, "The first." Jesus *said to them, "Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you.

The MAN is God, the first son is Christians who at first did not believe but repented and accepted Christ. The second son are the Pharisees, Priests, Scribes and any unbeliever. Now you can guess who will or won’t get into Heaven.

Mat 21:32 "For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him. Mat 21:33 "Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who PLANTED A VINEYARD AND PUT A WALL AROUND IT AND DUG A WINE PRESS IN IT, AND BUILT A TOWER, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. Mat 21:34 "When the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his produce. Mat 21:35 "The vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. Mat 21:36 "Again he sent another group of slaves larger than the first; and they did the same thing to them. Mat 21:37 "But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' Mat 21:38 "But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, 'This is the heir; come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.' Mat 21:39 "They took him, and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Mat 21:40 "Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?"

Life Application New Testament Commentary says: “The main elements in this parable are (1) the landowner—God, (2) the vineyard—Israel, (3) the farmers—the Jewish religious leaders, (4) the landowner’s servants—the prophets and priests who remained faithful to God and preached to Israel, (5) the son—Jesus, and (6) the others—the Gentiles. In a vineyard such as this, the lookout tower would have been for guards who would protect the farm from thieves; the wall would have kept wild animals out.”

Mat 21:41 They *said to Him, "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons." Mat 21:42 Jesus *said to them, "Did you never read in the Scriptures, 'THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone; THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES'?

This was also stated IN the Old Testament Psalms_118:22-23

 Mat 21:43 "Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it. Mat 21:44 "And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust." Mat 21:45

Again Jesus is referring to the Old Testament Isa_8:14-15; Isa_28:16; Dan_2:34; Dan_2:44-45 Remember that the Pharisees, Scribes, Priests believed what was in the Old Testament. It is astounding that a lay person, a carpenters son, would be this well versed in the Old Testament. In that era most lay people could not read. And even if they could to purchase a Torah would have been very expensive since they were all hand written.

 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them. Mat 21:46 When they sought to seize Him, they feared the people, because they considered Him to be a prophet.

They caught on even so they still rejected Jesus.

ALL CAPS in the New Testament are used in the text to indicate Old Testament quotations or obvious references to Old Testament texts.  Variations of Old Testament wording are found in New Testament citations depending on whether the New Testament writer translated from a Hebrew text, used existing Greek or Aramaic translations, or paraphrased the material. It should be noted that modern rules for the indication of direct quotation were not used in biblical times; thus, the ancient writer would use exact quotations or references to quotation without specific indication of such.

ASTERISKS are used to mark verbs that are historical presents in the Greek which have been translated with an English past tense in order to conform to modern usage.  The translators recognized that in some contexts the present tense seems more unexpected and unjustified to the English reader than a past tense would have been.  But Greek authors frequently used the present tense for the sake of heightened vividness, thereby transporting their readers in imagination to the actual scene at the time of occurrence. However, the translators felt that it would be wise to change these historical presents to English past tenses.