PrayerBits for Tuesday

PrayerBits

A bite sized devotional program
produced by the West Side Presbyterian Church

Tuesday

Scripture lesson: Matthew 21:33-42 The Parable of the Evil Tenants

Time to reflect: This is a story, don't try to make it all make sense. Get the gist of the story and apply it to Jesus' time. These listeners were, in essence, condemning themselves. There ancestors had murdered the messengers (prophets) God had sent to them and they were about to have Jesus, the Son of God, killed. But we know the rest of the story, which Jesus' listeners did not – God did not react in a human fashion and destroy, as the answer given, but to save.

Moving through the day: Thank God for not reacting as we would.

The Parable of the Wicked Tenants

33 ‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. 34When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 37Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” 38But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” 39So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ 41They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’

42 Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:
“The stone that the builders rejected
   has become the cornerstone;*
this was the Lord’s doing,
   and it is amazing in our eyes”?