INTRO: Our messages have been on the latter parables of Jesus. In the first parable we looked at, Jesus told the disciples how they, the last of Jewish people in the Israeli theocracy before the Church age, would be the first in the kingdom. The last, Jesus said, would be first, and the first last. That parable covered some 2,000 years of Jewish history. God had chosen Israel to be His message bearers to the world. And, as I interpret this parable, because many were chosen, but so few chose to follow the Lord, the first would be last and the last first.
The disciples, however, understood now that Jesus would immediately set up that kingdom and they were already vying for positions in that kingdom. And so, Jesus gave a second parable in which He taught that the kingdom would not be set up now. He foretold in this parable that He would be rejected by His own, and He would be leaving for a considerable time. And in the time of absence, they were to be faithful with that which He would give them to do. |
