Everything you need to know about The Parable Of The Workers In The Vineyard? But he answered one of them, “I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” So the last will be first, and the first will be last (Matthew 20:13–16). The landowner reframes the discussion. This isn’t really about the workers being taken advantage of—they’re receiving exactly what he promised. This story is about the vineyard owner’s generosity to the other workers. It’s just that when the early workers see the owner’s kindness, they feel like they’re being cheated—and in the midst of this misunderstanding, the owner still calls them “friends.”
Jesus often uses parables to reveal what the kingdom of heaven is like. He portrays how one enters the kingdom and who the different characters are. In this Parable of the Laborers or Workers in the Vineyard, there are things that He tells the disciples and us about the grace of God and that God is always more than fair. Here is a discussion on this parable and what Jesus means in giving it.
There is also another angle in this parable. When vineyard laborers enter into the harvest, they are entering into a vineyard looking for those who bear fruit which Jesus says that those who are the children of God will be the only ones bearing fruit, showing those who are truly saved and those who are not (John 15). Jesus says in fact “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matt 7:16).
Then . . . if the first are last and the last are first, would we not want to be like those late workers, having only to have worked one hour before receiving the same reward? The conclusion of the parable still raises uncomfortable questions. The Christian life is not uncommonly thought of as one confined by rules and restrictions. Are some of us just “unluckily” born into a life where our Christian status prohibits (or “strongly discourages”) pre-marital sex, alcohol consumption, or relationships with non-Christians?
Jesus spent a great deal of His ministry announcing the coming of God’s kingdom and overcoming first-century presumptions by teaching people to recognize that kingdom. And a lot of His parables focused on communicating valuable truths about this kingdom. One misunderstanding that Jesus needed to clarify was the idea that the Jews held a special insider relationship with God. From the very beginning, God told Abraham that all the nations of the world would be blessed through his offspring (Genesis 22:18), but as far as the Israelites were concerned, these other nations would never be as blessed as they were. See even more details with the The Parable Of The Workers In The Vineyard video on YouTube.