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For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.Eph 2:9 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Friday, July 15, 2022
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :The Parable of the Tenants Bible Verse:Matthew 21:33-41 (ESV) "“Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” " Message:
Parables and allegory are overlapping descriptions of stories, very similar in meaning with only a shade of difference. In an allegory, the author intends a more direct one-to-one correspondence of the characters and actions in the story, to people and events in the world. The Parable of the Tenants is perhaps the most allegorical of the parables, because Jesus is describing specific people and a specific series of events.
The master is God, the Father, and the house is the Kingdom of God. The vineyard is Israel — the Jewish nation in Canaan. In this regard, read the quotation from Psalm 80, just above; Israel as a vine or vineyard was a common metaphor in Jewish literature, and Christ’s pointed meaning become even more clear because of it.
God has built a fence around them in both a literal physical sense — he defined the boundaries of the land he gave to them — and perhaps in a more metaphorical sense: He gave them the law, which separated the Jews from all other people.
The winepress is the bounty of the land, God’s gift of “milk and honey” to the Jews in Canaan, and the tower is the Temple. Having situated his chosen people, he went into another country — we might call this heaven — and left the nation in the care of the “tenants”, the priesthood of Aaron and, later, also the kings. The fruit of this vineyard is righteousness before God; but when God sent his prophets to Israel and Judah, they were killed by the very people who were supposed to be the stewards.
Finally, God sends his Son, who will soon be killed by the same tenants: the high priests. And what will become of those who kill Christ? They will be put to death — and not a death of the body, but the true death that comes only by God’s wrath against the sinful. And he will find new tenants: all those who, whether Jewish or Gentile, will confess that Jesus is the Christ and repent of their sins through his sacrifice.
We can call this a parable or an allegory, but we could also call it prophecy. It accurately predicts the specific events to follow, up until today. We live in a specific age, the age described at the end of this parable, between Christ’s ascension and his coming again.
Meditation : Our fundamental goal, as Christians, is to correct our own conduct and leave Christ in control of the outcome. Prayer : Oh Lord as I face creation Let me see with eyes made clear By Your promise of salvation, Never to return to fear.....Amen |
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