Bible stories : 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.
The master of the house would seem to be God and the vineyard is the place where those servants who have been called to work for the master as laborers will enter into the work. The laborers are those who have been called and saved by God. They enter into the work or their calling by God under the guidance of the master, which is Jesus Christ. In another place in the Scriptures, Jesus uses this symbolism of believers being used by God to labor for the Lord as in Matthew 9:37-38 where He says “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
That evening, the owner generously rewards one denarius to each of the late workers, but when he offers one denarius to the first workers, they complain, saying, “These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day” (Matt. 20:12, NKJV). The owner replies, “I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” and finishes with the most famous line of the parable: “So the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matt. 20: 13-16, NIV).
Jesus’s teaching regularly challenged this idea and never as overtly as in the parable of the workers. For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, “You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, “Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?” Discover extra details with the The Parable Of The Workers In The Vineyard video on YouTube.