devotional post # 2042

Luke 20:9-16a JDV

Luk 20:1 Then he started telling the people this story: “A man planted a vineyard, leased it to tenant farmers, and went on a journey for a long time.

Luk 20:10 When harvest season came, he sent a slave to the tenants so that they would give him his portion of the crop. However, the tenants beat his slave and sent him away empty-handed.

Luk 20:11 So he sent another slave. They beat this one too, treated him terribly, and sent him away empty-handed.

Luk 20:12 So he even sent a third. But they wounded this one, and threw him out.

Luk 20:13 Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What should I do? I will send my one dear son; maybe they will show respect for him.’

Luk 20:14 But when the tenants saw him, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir; We should kill him so the inheritance will be ours!’

Luk 20:15 So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?

Luk 20:16a He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.”

a change of tenantship

Both John the Baptist and Jesus had predicted that God was going to judge his own people, and this story explained why. The message of the Old Testaments prophets about a coming cleansing judgment had to be fulfilled. There was going to be a change of tenantship. The owner of vineyard was dissatisfied with how the tenants had kept it.

Does this mean that God was abandoning Israel? Maybe not. Perhaps the vineyard that God was going to hand over to new tenants was Israel, and the new patriarchs the twelve apostles instead of the twelve sons of Jacob?

LORD, save your nation, and all nations for your Son.