Portraits of the Kingdom: Parable of the Slain Son

Notes:

And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. 6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not read this Scripture: “ ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; 11  this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” 12 And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.

Context:

Significant Parable: Only Major Parable outside a list of them in Mark 4:

Sower

Lamp

Seed

Mustard Seed

Mark 11:27 “27 And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him.”

Temple=Recreation of the Garden of Eden

Corrupt Leadership Strategy: Kill and Control

v. 3: Beat him and sent him away empty handed.

v. 4: Struck him on the head and treated him shamefully.

v. 5: Killed him.

Then sent many others: Beat or killed.

You are more broken then you realize!

Power

Matthew 23:34 “34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town.”

Zechariah 1:4–6 “4 Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets cried out, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, Return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.’ But they did not hear or pay attention to me, declares the Lord. 5 Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? 6 But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? So they repented and said, ‘As the Lord of hosts purposed to deal with us for our ways and deeds, so has he dealt with us.’ ””

Isaiah 5:1–2 “1 Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2 He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.”

v. 6: “Beloved Son”

v. 7: Motivation: “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.”

v. 8: Took him, Killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

James Edwards asks the question: What kind of Father would send his own Son into such a hostile environment?

Servants were there to serve.

Servants were SENT: Apostellein (Apostle)

“indefatigable love of God”

“Incapable of being fatigued.”

“Reckless love of God.”

Father’s motivation: “They will respect my son.”

Speaks to what?

Their sin

Their thirst for power.

Their thirst for control.

Their culpability.

Compassionate Owner Strategy: Destruct, Distribute, and Deliver

v.9: What will the owner of the vineyard do?

Owner= “Lord”

Destroys the Tenants:

What he DOESN’T do: Destroy the Vineyard

He destroys the tenants:

Leadership Structure is gone.

Leadership knows Jesus is speaking judgement on them!

No Sanhedrin

“Priest” =Temple Language

“Christianity is not a religion, but it’s a relationship.”

“No creed but Christ.”

Not anti-institutional, but anti-??

Judgment=Compassionate.

Compassionate for the People.

Compassionate to remove the tenants out of their fake, false, pretentious, controlling, pride-producing, rule enforcing control freaks!

Freedom from the system!

Distribute:

Land owner gives the land to others

Who?

The Church?

Priesthood of All Believer!

The parity of church leadership: elders and pastors. “Parity” is a word that is used essentially as a synonym for “equality.” In discussions of the eldership it merely means that, with respect to authority and accountability, elders are on the same “level” with one another. As usual, John Murray gets right to the point: “There is not the slightest evidence in the New Testament that among the elders here was any hierarchy; the elders exercise government in unison, and on a parity with one another.”[23] Witmer, Timothy Z.. Shepherd Leader (p. 41). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Strauch summarizes the result: “Due to the ‘deceitful light of human authorities,’ which replaced the New Testament teaching on eldership, the Christian doctrine of eldership was lost for nearly fourteen centuries.”[34] For more than a millennium, “pastoral care” became identified with the hearing of confessions by an anonymous confessor who would prescribe ready-made penance to the dutiful sinner. Witmer, Timothy Z.. Shepherd Leader (pp. 50-51). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Delivers:

Son the Tenants killed becomes the Cornerstone

Jesus’ self-awareness as the Son of God

Jesus’ self-awareness as the Guide to the whole new building!

Not about maintaining what we’ve built, but about the Gospel.

Keeps the main thing, the main thing.

The Sovereign’s Strategy All Along

11  this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

Marvelous for us to see God’s sovereignty.

Should cause us to ponder… What is this saying?

Only Mark adds Psalm 118

Psalm 118:22–23 “22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 23 This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.”

v. 11: “This was the Lord’s dong, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

Speaks of God’s Compassion

Speaks of God’s Providence.

“God’s indomitable providence”

Indomitable= “incapable of being subdued.”

Edwards: “Mark’s beleaguered church in Rome, so ravished by Nero’s insane persecutions, as it can also in our day, when the church (at least in the West) is often caught in compromise and confusion and decline. The existence of the vineyard is assured not by the self-aggrandizement of the tenants but by the self-sacrifice of the Son.”

David Garland: “The impotent animal sacrifices in a fruitless, racist, chauvinistic, stone structure will end. The Son whom these leaders will put to death will be raised by God and will become the locus of salvation.”

If Jesus were to confront your holy hill? Your sacred cow? Your position of power?

Would you say, “This was the Lord’s Doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

Or, would you say, “STOP IT! I like what I have! I like what I control!”

This parable is a riddle, and the religious figured it out real quick.

David Garland: “Mark does not present Jesus despised and rejected by the people of Israel but by the leaders of the people.”

Different emphasis!

Unique culpability!