Reformed Brotherhood | Reformed Theology and Brotherly Love

In this profound exploration of Matthew 22:1-14, we examine Jesus's parable of the wedding feast—one of the most theologically dense teachings in Scripture. This parable reveals the magnificent scope of God's gospel invitation extended to all humanity, the tragic reality of human rejection, and the sovereign grace that ensures God's purposes will not be thwarted. Through the imagery of a royal wedding banquet, Jesus addresses the religious leaders who challenged His authority while simultaneously unveiling timeless truths about salvation, election, and the nature of the Church. This episode unpacks the parable's layers of meaning, from the universal call of the gospel to the particular grace of election, equipping believers to understand both the urgency and the sovereignty of God's redemptive work.

Key Takeaways

• The Universal Gospel Call Is Genuine and Urgent: God's invitation to salvation goes out indiscriminately to all people, regardless of ethnicity, social status, or moral condition. This external call is sincere, well-meant, and accompanied by genuine offers of grace.
• Human Rejection Is Willful and Culpable: The parable demonstrates that humanity's refusal of God's invitation is not due to insufficient information but to volitional rebellion. This rejection often progresses from indifference to active hostility against God and His messengers.
• God's Sovereign Purposes Cannot Be Frustrated: Despite widespread rejection, the wedding hall will be filled. God's redemptive plan includes the expansion of His covenant community beyond ethnic Israel to include Gentiles from every nation.
• The Wedding Garment Represents Imputed Righteousness: The garment required for the feast symbolizes the righteousness of Christ, received by faith alone, not earned through human effort. This illustrates the doctrine of justification by grace through faith.
• The Visible Church Contains Both Genuine and False Believers: The parable warns that not all who hear the gospel and enter the visible church possess true saving faith, distinguishing between the external call and the internal, effectual work of the Spirit.
• Eternal Punishment Is Real and Conscious: The parable's conclusion soberly affirms the doctrine of eternal, conscious punishment for those who reject Christ, depicted as "outer darkness" with "weeping and gnashing of teeth."
• "Many Are Called, But Few Are Chosen": This foundational statement maintains the biblical tension between the universal external call of the gospel and the particular, effectual call of God that sovereignly draws the elect to salvation.

Key Concepts The Nature of the Gospel Call: External and Effectual

Reformed theology has carefully distinguished between two aspects of God's call. The external or general call is the sincere proclamation of the gospel to all without distinction, inviting everyone to faith and repentance. This call is genuine on God's part—He truly offers salvation to all who hear. However, due to total depravity, the natural person will not respond to this call on their own. The internal or effectual call is the sovereign, irresistible work of the Holy Spirit by which the elect are regenerated, have their wills renewed, and are infallibly brought to saving faith. This distinction preserves both human responsibility (we are culpable for rejecting a genuine offer) and divine sovereignty (God alone saves by His grace). The parable beautifully illustrates both realities: servants genuinely invite all they find on the highways, yet the King ultimately determines who is properly clothed for the feast.

The Wedding Garment and Justification by Faith Alone

The wedding garment represents one of the parable's most critical theological elements. In ancient Near Eastern culture, hosts often provided garments for wedding guests, making the lack of proper attire inexcusable. Theologically, this garment symbolizes the righteousness of Christ imputed to believers—a righteousness not produced by human effort but received through faith alone. This directly confronts any notion of works-righteousness or the idea that we can stand before God based on our own moral achievements, religious observances, or church membership. The man without the garment represents those who presume to approach God on the basis of their own righteousness rather than Christ's alien righteousness. His speechlessness before judgment illustrates that on the last day, no one will successfully argue their case on grounds of personal merit. This underscores the Reformation principle of sola gratia and sola fide—salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, clothing us in a righteousness that is entirely Christ's.

The Tension Between Universal Call and Particular Election

The parable's conclusion—"many are called, but few are chosen"—encapsulates one of theology's profound mysteries. This statement places two realities side by side without resolving the tension philosophically. The invitation truly goes to all (universal call), yet only some respond savingly (particular election). Reformed theology maintains this biblical tension rather than collapsing it in either direction. We don't limit the external call only to the elect (hyper-Calvinism), nor do we make the internal call dependent solely on human decision (Arminianism). Instead, we affirm that the gospel invitation is genuinely universal while the effectual drawing is sovereignly particular. This means Christians can proclaim unreservedly, "Christ has died for you" to any person, knowing the offer is sincere, while simultaneously trusting that God will infallibly save all His elect through that proclamation.

Memorable Quotes

"The most scandalous and tragic thing that could happen at a wedding or a wedding banquet is that nobody shows up. The guests don't come. Or in fact, not only do they not come, they don't want to come—they burn the invitations."

"You don't bring anything to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary."

"Many a man in this world will silence his own conscience with many a fair excuse. But in that day, there will be no excuse, no plea, no delay." - William Perkins

Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:58] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 493 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse, and this is the podcast where we will talk about every single parable. Hey, brothers and sisters. So when was the last time that you were at a wedding? I think weddings are one of the most glorious of all kinds of human events and celebrations, and I think the solemness of the vows and the promises that are exchanged between a man and a woman in marriage in that ceremony, or maybe only equaled by the joy of those same vows and promises.

And of course, the whole point of coming together to celebrate a, a wedding. Is to make that joy consummate and complete by having others participate in it. The seeing the union of a man and a woman become one, the excitement of that love expressed in promise and commitment. It's an incredible thing. And I was thinking about this recently because our wedding invitation is actually framed in, in our living room because one of the guests that we invited gave that to us as a really thoughtful gift.

And so our wedding ceremony and the party that followed, and it was a. Amazing and awesome party, especially thanks to my in-laws and my parents who generously made sure that that was possible was an exceptional event that we still talk about all the time. Actually, you know, in my wedding when we had this grand kind of wedding banquet afterwards, we had a friend of ours who actually performed the song that we danced to on grand piano and sang for us, which is amazing.

We had a DJ in one room and we had a live jazz band in another, and I specifically recall. That when we left late in the evening, my new wife and I, that there were still people on the dance floor having a good time. And I thought, this is the way it's supposed to be. I mean, this is a wedding. This is a wedding banquet.

[00:02:58] Why No One Comes

[00:02:58] Jesse Schwamb: And so it also made me think recently, especially as we find ourselves in Matthew chapter 22, continuing to look at all these incredible parables that Jesus gives to us, that perhaps the most scandalous and tragic thing that could happen at a wedding or a wedding banquet is that nobody shows up. The guests don't come.

Or in fact, like not only do they not come, they don't want to come, they burn the invitations. They wanna have nothing to do with the celebration or the ceremony itself. And so Jesus has been doing all of this teaching that we've been tracking, and he's been responding to these leaders in the Jewish community, the people we call the Pharisees and the scribes who have challenged his authority.

And he's been progressing in the way that he's almost ratcheting up the language that he's using, the indictments that he's bringing to them. And now he's about to bring in weddings and specifically the wedding banquet. And that is where we're gonna find ourselves in a Matthew Chapter 22. Now, by the way, I should also mention that because my wife is super popular lady and super lovable.

We had a pretty large wedding. I think we had over 200 guests, and so. Because my father-in-law is retired military, we were actually able to have our whole wedding banquet, our whole celebration and party on a local army base. But because of that, it meant that before you could actually get onto the base, all of our guests.

Had to be searched. So it's nothing like, you know, basically just shaken down your wedding guests before they show up. So that also was super fun.

[00:04:32] Reading Matthew 22

[00:04:32] Jesse Schwamb: But let's go to the scriptures, everybody. So here's Matthew chapter 22. Uh, listen to this as we take a look at what Jesus has to say and why he brings in weddings.

Actually, it might be helpful to say or to give you something, rather to listen to or listen for before you even hear me read the scriptures because. This parable of this wedding banquet, it is definitely one of the most theologically dense parables in the entire synaptic tradition. It is set like we've been saying within the final week of Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem, and it's embedded in the sequence of confrontational exchanges that he's having with the Jewish leadership because they have challenged his authority.

And so as you listen to this being read, I want you to clue in, key in as they say to a couple of things. See if you can find the, like the Christological proclamation in this. There's a, a covenantal poll. I think there's some sociological instruction and there's an eschatological warning. All of this happens as is Jesus's jam in the short span of several verses where he illuminates all of these principles of the sovereign grace of God and the summons of the gospel.

Total depravity and culpability of this, these rebellious people who refuse the call, the historical judgment of God upon the covenant breaking Israel. And then of course, the subsequent expansion of that covenant into the community include to include the Gentiles. All of this is happening. In this parable, and so I want you just to listen for that as we together read.

Or in my case, I guess I just read, especially if you're driving, do not read the parable that begins in the first part of Matthew chapter 22. Here's the word of God. And Jesus answered and spoke to them again in parables saying The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and he sent out his slaves to call those who had been called to the wedding feast and they were unwilling to come again.

He sent out other slaves saying, tell those who have been called. Behold. I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fon livestock are all butchered and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast. But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his farm, another to his business, and the rest seized the slaves and mistreated them and killed them.

But the king was enraged and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire. Then he said to his slaves, the wedding is ready, but those who were called were not worthy. Go, therefore, to the main highways and as many as you find there, call to the wedding feast. And those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found both evil and good, and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.

But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who is not dressed in wedding clothes, and he said to him, friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes? And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, bind him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness.

In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth for many are called, but few are chosen.

[00:07:50] Parable Context

[00:07:50] Jesse Schwamb: Wow. So what an incredible. Story, what an incredible foundation or rubric or context in which so many rich theological concepts and pastoral concepts, doctrinal concepts are given to us from Jesus. And you'll notice that of course, chronologically here, this parable is following the parable of the two sons and the parable of the wicked tenants.

Those are the vine growers that we were talking about over the last several episodes. And this one rounds everything out. It forms like a triptych of rejection parables directed against these chief priests and the Pharisees who keep coming after Jesus and his authority. And Matthew signals this kind of escalating tension.

The Jewish leaders are now explicitly seeking to arrest Jesus. And Jesus responds not by treating their, not by retreating, of course, but by intensifying his indictment in this parabolic form. And here's where we arrive in Matthew 22. It's interesting to me, of course, that this is the approach that Jesus takes.

He has already conveyed these two great stories, and at the end of the last one, Tony and I spoke about how this was where at least Matthew explains to us very directly that the, the Pharisees and the scribes, they understood, they discerned that Jesus was speaking about them, and yet Jesus says, I'm not done yet.

I've got one more. And this is the culmination of all the things that he's been saying. And it starts again in verse one with Jesus saying, and again, he spoke to them in a parable. You know, it signals that the parable itself is still a reply. Not to a verbal question at this immediate moment, but to this ongoing posture of rejection exhibited by the religious leaders.

You notice that what Matthew says here is very, I think, theologically significant in light of where Jesus explains that the parables both reveal and they conceal their instruments of divine judgment upon heart and hearts, even as they illuminate those with ears to hear. This is why I think it's just so important that as Christians.

Even as we study God's word, as we participate in it, so to speak, as we let it read us, that we come with this posture of prayer, that we desperately need God's Holy, holy, holy Spirit to illuminate for us what the scriptures say, to lead us into the paths of righteousness and judgment, which are present in the scriptures, so that we may understand them with these spirit-filled eyes, with a spirit enabled brain with ears that have been unstopped by the spirit.

So these parables are the mode by which Christ simultaneously honors and judges his audience. He shows indirectly what it would've been of no use to state plainly. And so the parable form itself is really part of the message here. I think that's something hopefully you picked up as we've been processing them all together, that Jesus opponents cannot arrest what they cannot fully comprehend, yet their incomprehension is itself their condemnation, right?

This is, this is the mystery. Of the gospel of what God does, where there is this outward and full unbiased external call, and yet there is something that is efficacious by the power of the Holy Spirit for those whom God has chosen and called to himself so reformed to eus. Are attentive to the authorial intent in historical situatedness of each thing that Jesus says.

That's one of the things I think is great about the way in which we kind of have organized our theological perspective and these parables function as a prophetic oracle of judgment. And certainly that's like in an Old Testament accent. I mean, that's the Old Testament jam. It's an Old Testament lawsuit kind of John.

It's like law and order. If law and order were Moses, were doing it right. So notice that again, as Tony and I've said so many times before, what I kind of always find so phenomenal about these parables is that often we think of parables as having the main object of being a noun of some kind. It's a person, it's a place.

It's a thing that is sometimes the case, but more often than not, it's one of those nouns associated with a verb.

[00:11:59] Kingdom And The King

[00:11:59] Jesse Schwamb: And so we get that in verse two. The kingdom of heaven may be compared to what? To a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. And so it implies that the kingdom is being revealed and likened in a definitive act.

We got verbs, loved ones. This is the classic. The ultimate, God does all the verbs because you're gonna hear her over and over again. God is going out. God is giving. God is seeking. God is going after, and these verbs are really the center of the parable itself. It's not just that it's the wedding banquet as maybe the title in your scripture gives you, but it's more about this giving of this event and it's preparing of this grand feast.

And so the recurrence of this allegory seemed, I think, pretty straightforward to us. The the king is God, the Father, the Son is Christ, and the wedding banquet, which by the way in the Greek here is plural, is really emphasizing that it's a totality of an occasion. This is the Messianic feast. This is the eschatological consummation of the Covenant of Grace.

And that image imagery draws like so deep from this Old Testament well and background of God as the husband and the bridegroom of Israel. Again, how lovely and amazing for Jesus and his thorough knowledge of the scriptures to draw in something that the audience would've been like, yes, I know what you're talking about.

I'm totally down with that. And so the son's wedding is therefore not some kind of like incidental entertainment. It is the central event of all history, the installation of the Messianic king and the gathering of his bride. And of course, the people hearing this would've immediately gravitated toward that.

I think they would've leaned in maybe even like smiled or smirked at one another, knowing that this was now all that veiled. What Christ was drawing on here was the classic presentation. Of the family of God represented in the children of Israel itself, being drawn back into consummate harmony with God the Father, where there was peace and unitedness, and a celebration of this fact that all things were now made and brought together, that God was restoring and bringing all those back to himself in his true and true kingdom that could not be thwarted.

So the fact that the king gives the banquet, prepares it, sends servants, selects the guests, underscores this incredible modernistic character of salvation. I think it's impossible to miss here that God is literally doing all the verbs. The initiative at every point is divine. There's no hint here of synergism.

The guests do not arrange their own invitations, literally. And so that's why in verse three, we see God, he sending out his servants. And of course that's a familiar theme. It should be to us. If you've been tracking with us the last several parables we've been speaking of because the servants represent the prophets of the Old Testament and subsequently the apostles and the ministers of the word.

The invitation had already gone out to quote those who were invited. So it's this perfect passive parable in the Greek, it's, it's indicating a prior and standing invitation. This is the external or general call of the gospel going out through the preaching of the word. And notice that there is always a response.

Even here, Jesus moves directly and quickly to here's what the response was. In other words, as the scripture has told us that God's word never goes out in returns void, there's always, as it were, a response here, that's illustrated for us very directly because the response is not so good.

[00:15:32] Invitation Refused

[00:15:32] Jesse Schwamb: I mean, this is what would, this is horrible like wedding etiquette.

They were not willing to come. And this verb I think is critical because it's volitional refusal. It's not mere ignorance. And reformed theology is insistent here against any kind of constellation that makes man's rejection of the gospel. A matter of insufficient information or circumstances we know better, right?

We as people should know that we as Christians who have been changed, know that the natural man here is not natural, merely because he lacks the certain kind of information as if he could be restored or regenerated or reformed if we just knew more things. The will is in bondage to sin. And so as the Westminster Confession, faith says, man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.

This is classic Jonathan Edwards, like, you don't bring anything to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary. For some reason in my head, I said that with kind of a, a weird, almost like southern attitude, which I did not mean to convey. But the point is that this refusal is total, it's willing, it's culpable, it's damnable, it's precisely that, which makes it all the more grievous.

The invitation is genuine, the refusal is genuine, and the guilt here is entirely real. So the invited in verse three, represent all of Israel. I, I would say like particularly the leaders here, Tony and I have been talking about the responsibility of these, these leaders in particular to, of course, lead Shepherd, grow these people in faith and a love toward God in a way that is toward freedom and now toward more conviction around extraneous rules or heavy burdens that they set up for them that they cannot perform.

And so we have these leaders who had received the covenantal promises and the prophetic witness. I mean, that's like classic Romans nine. The rejection of the servants echoes the pattern of prophetic persecution throughout all of Israel's history. So this is sad stuff. It's a sad beginning to have this grand wedding feast prepared by this king for his son set in motion with the invitations already gone out.

And essentially all of those who have been invited have Ally refused.

[00:17:49] Feast Is Ready

[00:17:49] Jesse Schwamb: But what's so incredible about God and his loving kindness is still represented here in verse four. The king does not relent after the first refusal, which is remarkable. I mean, this is, again, going back to our proper understanding that we love because God first loved us.

That love always leads to giving. And so therefore, God so loved the world that he gave his only son. And when did he give his son? At the fullness of time when we were still at enmity, when we were enemies with him still, he sent his son for us and he sends, therefore a second embassy with an even more urgent and elaborate message that he gives them.

He puts into their mouth. And the feast, again, is not merely planned. It's prepared. It's ready. The oxen and fat and calves are images of this lavish like sacrificial celebration. Everything's all slaughtered. Everything is ready to go. Now, I don't know the last time you've been to like an epic feast. I do mean like epic over the top feast.

I want you to look up something for me. When you have a chance, look up, just go to your browser of choice and type in shady maples smorgasbord. Now, I don't know if you know what a smorgasbord is, but it's like a, I guess it's like a buffet, but like if you took a buffet and multiply it by a million and then only serve like rich, decadent food and more food than you could possibly really imagine and close to where I live, there's a very famous Amish style.

Buffet called Shady Maple Smoker Sport. Just go look it up. 'cause it's gonna be possible for you to describe, but all I can say to you is this isn't just like your standard buffet, it's not just like a potluck where it's like, Hey, we got ham. And, um, we've got some salads and, uh, we've got that, uh, what's that?

That weird stuff. You can I, the ambrosia, like we, we've got your hydrox cookies for dessert. This is the last time I was there and uh, actually I was there with my parents and my wife and they treated us. And because this was at a part of my life where my gallbladder was trying to attack me and kill me, I remember just being so ill while I was there feeling so ill, and yet just being so disappointed and bummed out that I couldn't eat all this glorious food because there was filet mignon and lobsters.

And shrimp and fish and ham like glazed ham and like carving stations. And then for desserts there was like custards and pies and ice cream and cookies and whoopee pies. And it was this over the top celebration of food. And you couldn't help but just feel like, wow, this thing that we're doing right now is like incredible.

I've also, I don't think ever seen my father sample so many different desserts because it was special. This was a, a lavish and incredible celebration for us, and it was prepared, it was ready to go. And we find the same thing here. And so the second sending corresponds to this ministry of the Apostles and the early churches proclamation to Israel.

The urgency of the messages come now. It reflects this eschatological pressure of the gospel. A good kind of pressure as if like there's a tea kettle on the stove and it's heating up, and now it's starting to whistle and then to boil over. The kingdom has arrived. Loved ones, the feast is set, delay is inexcusable, and, and so the language of readiness, I think is this glorious language of the gospel.

The atonement has accomplished. Christ has been crucified, risen, and exalted, and the feast of salvation is prepared. And what I love is that the reformed tradition consistently insists on the sufficiency of Christ's work for all and the genuine freeness of that gospel offer. I like this is what I usually go back to, is that the cannons of dort affirm this in this way.

This is the quote. The promise of the gospel is that whosoever believes in Christ, crucified shall not perish, but of everlasting life. This promise together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be declared and proclaimed to all the nations. The invitation is genuine and urgent. The feast is truly ready.

[00:22:01] Mission To All

[00:22:01] Jesse Schwamb: The church that I attend is part of the Christian Missionary Alliance denomination, and one of the many things I love about my church is that outward and continual focus on this very thing. That the invitation is genuine. It is urgent, and the feast is truly ready, and it is for all peoples. This freeness to, as we talked about before, scatter the seed of the gospel message unreservedly and without bias to all, all in your sphere of influence.

All nations, all people, all tongues, all tribe. And my church is very serious about this. In fact, one of the things our pastor loves to do is oftentimes when he's giving it this kind of proclamation, in fact, just this Lord's day, he was speaking from Matthew 28 and about the Great Commission and the essential nature of that great commission is every Christian's promise to participate in that.

It is something you and I are commissioned for and we ought to regularly evaluate our, what our prayers look like. What our finances look like and what our time looks like with respect to whether we are taking seriously that commission, which God has given to us. And so in reminding us of that very fact, one of the things he'll often say from the pulpit is he'll ask out to the congregation, he'll say, what is our middle name?

And everybody will respond, missionary. And, and while it's a little bit trite, it reminds us that as part of like the essential ethos in DNA of who we are as Christians, and in fact in this particular year. One of the themes that the whole Christian Missionary Alliance nomination has been focusing on is all of Jesus for All the World takes all of us.

I love that all of Jesus for all the world takes all of us. And so we have embedded in this parable here, so much of this intentionality of the gospel, of going out for all people, making this, this message and this mission available. Going out and speaking and preaching and witnessing and testifying of how great God is and what he has done in setting and preparing this gospel message for all people.

But in verse five, we find out that even still with all of this, they paid no attention. They went off one to his farm and another to his business. In other words, the word here suggests this kind of contemptuous indifference rather than this active hatred that that actually comes a little bit later. But worldly affairs, a farm, some converse.

All this displaces the invitation. And these are not wicked activities, of course, in themselves. Their wickedness consists in their displacement of what is the ultimate. And that I think is actually like very penetrating diagnosis of the human condition. The great enemy of the gospel, at least it seems to me, is not always, as you talk to people, like some kind of dramatic philosophical rejection, some well articulated hatred toward God.

It's instead like a quiet absorption in the ordinary pursuits of life. It's like what I think Augustine called being curved inward upon oneself. The world is a great enchant. It be witches our souls, it distracts us. There are so many things that can pull us away from not only meditating on this gospel message, but coming alongside and appreciating.

In participating in that great commission. There's so many things to distract us. It's, it's not as if we need a list. I think if I asked each one of you or you asked me, what are some things that you find distracting that pull you away from time and prayer time, studying God's word, time spent with my wife, time spent serving in my local church.

I'm not gonna be hard pressed to find those things to say to you. So this idea that we have, whether it's the farm or this business pursuit here, I suppose it could be representative to at least great earthly loves. You have the land, kind of a agrarian rooted life, and then there's trade mercantile and acquisitive life.

I mean, maybe these just suggests that the rejection spans all of our social and economic classes, both within Israel at the time and for us today. And so we move both from like this kind of cold indifference, this we'll have other things to do. I'm, I'm just too busy. And, uh, how many times do we really convince ourselves that we can justify our busyness when we feel the pull of the spirit that there is a need?

We feel the pull of the gospel message because there's the gospel pressure to ensure that we are speaking truth and love to those around us. That we ourselves are responding to this invitation with our wholeheartedness, our mind, soul, and spirit, everything that we are, and we convince ourselves. Well, I just, you know, I have a lot going on right now.

God, there's just so much that I need to do.

[00:26:34] Indifference Turns Violent

[00:26:34] Jesse Schwamb: Now we get to verse six and things shift a little bit. Verse six reads, while the rest sees the servants and treated them shamefully and killed them. Now, what's interesting to me is the indifference, kinda just that cold lackadaisical ness of verse five escalates somehow into violence.

In verse six, some of them invited not only ignore the servants, but actively persecute them. And so here we have them, basically are being told they treated them outrageously, shamelessly, they killed them, and, and that's really the language of the entire prophetic tradition, the killing of the prophets.

In fact, this Greek word here is ris. It's a word for arrogance. Honor, violating, assault, a sin against the honor of both the messenger and the one who sent him both. Like the one who is the emissary and the one who grants power or vouch saves authority to that emissary. And so to assault the king's servant is of course, to come against the king, and this is an act of high treason.

It's against the sovereign God of the entire universe. I, I like here something that Calvin notes about this kind of inexcusable aggregation of aggravation of Israel's sin. He writes, they not only rejected the grace, which was offered to them, but added cruelty to their contempt. That's incredible. Right?

That's exactly what we do. We reject God. It's, it's of course like not only just taking all the gifts he gives us and pretending as if they're under our own authority or. Have been the result of our own talents or abilities. But instead, when we do this, we add cruelty to all of our contempt. And the reformed doctrine, of course, of total depravity is not merely the claim that humans are bad.

It's the claim that following humanity left to itself moves progressively from the indifference. That we saw in the previous verse, verse five, two, hostility toward the living God in his gospel messengers, which we see in verse six. In other words, unless God constrain us, loved ones, that is the natural end of man to move from this place where I do not care about God till I hate him, and then I hate all those who represent him, all those who speak on his behalf.

[00:28:46] Judgment On The City

[00:28:46] Jesse Schwamb: And so the king's response here, as you might imagine, is one of anger. He's angry. He sends his troops and he destroys the scriptures, say those are murderers, and he burns their city. I mean, the verse is almost certainly this kind of pro prophecy filled in its intent and its content. It's I think, probably a transparent reference to the destruction of Jerusalem by Roman armies in 80, 70.

And Matthew, even if we say he's writing after that event, or in like a conservative dating with prophetic anticipation, presents Christ as foreseeing and pronouncing the divine judgment upon the city. And this King's anger, of course, is not just, it's not anger that's looking for reciprocity. It's not just anger that's saying, this has made me upset and I'm responding viscerally and emotionally.

It's not petulant rage. It is holy and righteous wrath of the sovereign whose grace has been despised and whose servants have been murdered. The destruction is complete. The murderers are destroyed, the city is burned to the ground, and there are foreign tradition kind of following. A covenantal hermeneutic, I think reads 80, 70 as this terminus of the old Covenant administration in many ways, and the judgment upon Nashville Israel for his rejection, for her rejection, rather of the Messiah, you know?

While all of that is true, I think what this presents for us is a reminder of how serious our God's Holiness is. And that again, every time we sin, every time that we come against God and someone would challenge his authority as it were, either directly or indirectly, we put ourselves in the place of those who reject the gospel message.

And in so doing, we ought to fall on our knees and ask for the kind of repentance that is necessary because we ourselves are putting our place, we're extending among. The murderers, and in this case, the, the message that Jesus has for those is only anger and again, is a righteous kind of anger. So one might imagine as we read in like the previous parables, that Jesus could have just entirely ended there.

It almost sounds like we've drawn to a close.

[00:31:04] Invitation Rejected

[00:31:04] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, there's a king. He has a wedding banquet for his son. He sent out last invitations. Nobody came. He goes to confronts the guests and not only do they say we're not interested, some of them are like, yeah, we burned all the invitations. And then the people that you sent to remind us, we killed those people.

And it'll be right for the king to say. That's it. Everybody's done here. I'm shutting the whole thing down. And honestly, that could have happened in the garden. That could happen at the cross. Instead, we find something totally different. The parable goes on.

[00:31:33] Feast Still Happens

[00:31:33] Jesse Schwamb: In fact, verse eight reads, then he said to his servants, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy.

Notice loved ones that the feast does not get canceled. I mean, Christmas doesn't get canceled. It's just redirected. The king's purposes will not, cannot be frustrated, and this is a critical sociological and eschatological claim to me, at least. What we're seeing here is the refusal of the invited guests does not leave the wedding hall empty.

Praise the Lord. It occasions the wider extension of the invitation.

[00:32:07] Gospel Offer Explained

[00:32:07] Jesse Schwamb: And this idea of not worthy does not introduce a prior standard of merit by which the guests were found deficient. But instead, as you know, their unworthiness consists in their refusal To refuse the gospel is to demonstrate one's unworthiness of it.

And so worthiness in this context is not some kinda like moral achievement, but it's a covenantal responsiveness. It's the openness of the creature to receive what the king graciously provides. It's why when we stand before God in the kind of judgment that we rightfully deserve, and he says something to the extent of, why should I let you into my heaven?

Why should I let you enjoy eternal life with me? We should rightly say, because you promised. And because by the power of your Holy Spirit, through the faith you have given and instilled in me by this imputed righteousness, I can trust you at your promise. And so I think this verse is like so critical for understanding the well meant offer of the gospel.

Again, we should together affirm that the gospel is offered to all without distinction, and that those who do not come are inexcusable. God does not will. The damnation of those who reject the gospel as a bare first intention, their damnation follows from their own culpable refusal.

[00:33:31] Mission To All Roads

[00:33:31] Jesse Schwamb: And so the king says, listen guys, go out everywhere.

Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding piece. As many as you find. I don't know how you're envisioning. If you were listening to this story and you were like setting the actual scene, but I don't know, to me, I just find them, the, the servants or the slaves that they look at it one another and they're just like s go time and they just turn around and start going everywhere to all the places, uh, to anyone who will listen to all the like, stops that there were on the byways.

All the highways, all the roads. They're just going through all the places. Wherever the road takes 'em, that's where they're going. And all along the way they're spreading this mission, this invitation, and the mission now. Is universal in scope. The main roads, literally the, the exits, the outlets of all these places.

The thoroughfares, where the roads branch out of the city and the highways diverge in the countryside. This is representing, of course, like the ends of the earth, the places where any and all may be found. And the command here to as many as you find to go to those is of course, like a command of universal scope.

It's for you and me, loved ones there. There's no prior qualification, rich or poor, Jewish, gentile, moral or immoral. This is the missio day, breaking through all ethnic and social boundaries, and in this loving way, in this pastoral way, it underpins the free and indiscriminate offer of the gospel. Again, like going back to the Westminster Confession and the shorter catechism, affirming this covenant of grace that is administered by the preaching of the word.

And no matter where you work, like reform theology from like William Cur, David Bernard, like to the modern missionary movement, we're drawing from this mandate of precisely this kind of universal commission. You know, it's like Spurgeon, I think once said something effect of like, Christ has done more than give a general invitation.

He has given an urgent, pressing, commanding invitation to all something like that. And I always remember that because when I think about what it means to step into this role of fulfilling the great commission of understanding what Jesus is saying here, it's not just as if we're saying, listen, the world is in a dire place.

This is an emergency situation. And so for all of us in our sphere of influence. To bring forward this message of the indiscriminate offer of the gospel is to take God at his word and then to deliver that word to all of those, all the highways, all the byways, all the outplace, every tribe, Tong, nation.

What a glorious thing that our God has given us and put us on mission in this way so that no matter who we meet, we know we might say Jesus loves you, that Jesus has died for you. This is, I think, one of the things that those who maybe are new to the reformed tradition and the theological perspective.

Find a little bit interesting to parse out, or maybe sometimes if you've had conversations like I have people think that we're parsing the words too much, but there's something to be said for the death of Jesus being sufficient for all and efficacious for the elect, that we're not simply splitting words.

There we're describing very discreetly, very cogently, very crisply. This indiscriminate gospel message while at the same time recognizing that it's God's sovereign choice and will to draw those whom he will to himself. And so in verse 10.

[00:36:54] Good And Bad Gathered

[00:36:54] Jesse Schwamb: These servants go out to the roads and they gather all whom they found both good and bad.

And so the wedding hall, guess what was filled with guests, because this is God's sovereign prerogative because he can do all these things because even those who have denied him does not remove him from power. That he does all the verbs and so the servants obey and the results are comprehensive. They gather in all of these, and Matthew's quick to say both the good and the bad, and I think like the good and the bad pairing is significant.

I don't think this is necessarily meaning that there's the morally virtuous and the morally depraved, though that probably is included somewhere. But I think this, this more, this reflection that, once again, it's all kinds of people. For God's to love the world that whomsoever, all of those who believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

The wedding hall is filled, it was filled, and it's filled by God's sovereign action through human instrumentality.

[00:37:53] Visible And Invisible Church

[00:37:53] Jesse Schwamb: And there is, like I'd say, if you're tracking with this, you should notice that there is a, a kinda a tension here. It sits between verses 10 and 11, and it's going to resolve the banquet hall is full.

But you'll notice that it's not all within, well, not everybody who's within it are truly saved. And we'll get to why that isn't just a second. But the filling of the hall through the universal gospel summons does produce a mixed company. We've already talked about the parable of the terrors in the wheat before, so this, this should be news if you've been listening to us for a little while, but it's precisely the condition of the visible church in this age.

Again, I just think it's fantastic that when we go to the scriptures, one of the reasons we know it's true is because God tells us the truth about the way things are. And we know that this is the way that the church is today. We would call this the visible versus the invisible church. And of course there's a distinguishing between the visible church, which consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion from the invisible church, which is the totality of the elect, those who God has actually called to himself.

So the hole is full. But not all in the hall are clothed. And this is fascinating how Jesus brings in this idea of dressing of not, I mean, not what you put on your salad, a smorgasbord, but like what you're actually wearing.

[00:39:07] Wedding Garment Meaning

[00:39:07] Jesse Schwamb: So in verse 11, but the king came in to look at the guests and he saw there a man who had no wedding garment.

So notice that the parable scene here kind of shifts dramatically all of a sudden because the king arrives suddenly. He's present. He was speaking, he was giving instructions, he was preparing, he was a character, kind of chilling in the background. But now there's this eschatological moment the king's coming to inspect.

The guests corresponds to this final judgment, and what he finds is there's a man without a wedding garment. He's at the center, I think of this parables, theological climax. So what, what is this wedding garment? I would put it to you like, as you're thinking through this and maybe interpreting listening for yourself, what do you think the wedding garment is?

And I would say like what most reformed interpreters have been unified on is that this really represents that imputed righteousness, the the righteousness of Christ that's credited to the believer and received by faith alone. And so by a wedding garment, I would understand this to mean the purity and the holiness of that transforms and regenerated life, which is required of all those who are brought inside the true and invisible church.

And though he immediately qualifies this as like righteousness, that is inseparable from justification. It is not earned, but it is received. In fact, I think, uh, I have my Logos Bible software up as I'm talking to you, and I see that Matthew Henry comments on this by saying, the righteousness of Christ is the robe of righteousness, the garment of salvation in which true believers are closed.

I mean. That's a great turn of phrase, brothers and sisters. I love this idea of what the scriptures tell us elsewhere of putting on these garments of praise or worship, the garments of Christ, of being exchanged out as it were, for what is dirty and unsuitable for something that suits the occasion that is given to you to wear by faith alone.

And of course, this wedding garment is not a work that the guest has produced, but it's a garment provided, uh, presumably like the king's servants actually supplied it. Uh, I, I think that's like a detail implied by the ancient custom and the severity of the guest condemnation for lacking it. It's almost as if the king is saying.

Uh, like you were, should have been provided. Why did you not put this on? Why did by faith you not accept this? And this underscores the so gratia and so fide. The righteousness by which we stand before God on the last day is not our own, but Christ, it's received through faith. And the man without the garment represents those who presume to stand before God on the basis of their own righteousness.

Whether that's religious profession. Moral achievement, charitable giving, mere church membership rather. And instead of. That alien and beautiful righteousness of Christ. So the fact that this man is inside the hall, you know, he's come in through the general call confirms that the parable addresses not only those outside the church, but those within it who lack genuine saving faith.

It's almost, to me, kind of like an intra ecclesial warning. It's, it's not merely a missional observation. I think that is for all of us. It's why Paul elsewhere says. Check test, confirm to see whether you yourselves are in this faith because it is by faith that we put on these wedding garments which are appropriate and suitable for this great eschatological Messianic wedding feast with the lamb.

[00:42:48] Speechless Before Judgment

[00:42:48] Jesse Schwamb: So in verse 12, the king says to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And notice the man's response. I, I almost find this kind of funny because he just says, and he was speechless. Like there was, there was nothing for him, uh, to, to say it all. And of course, like this question that's posed here, this, how did you get in here without the winning government?

It's not a real question, right? It's not a question of genuine puzzlement. It's the same way in which when we find God walking in the cool of the day, in the garden after the sin of Adam and E, where he says, Adam, where are you? It's not a genuine question of a quizzical nature. It's instead, this rhetorical structure is God questions through judgments.

And when he says to Cain, where is Abel your brother, where is Abel, your brother? He's exposing and he's condemning. He's not merely inquiring. And so this man in response, sensing this condemnation, discerning this condemnation, this judgment that's been brought against him, I think this is why the Greek says he was muzzled.

He was silenced, his mouth was shut up. He had no answer. Uh, it's not because the question was unfair. But because there was just no legitimate words that he could bring there, there was no argumentation. In other words, there's no poll mic. There was no great debate that he could have. In this moment. Every mouth will be stopped before God.

I mean, that's like Romans three. The silence of the ungodly before the Divine Tribunal is a consistent biblical theme, and we find it here. Again, this is the eschatological end to those who are condemned. No one loved ones is gonna stand before God on the last day and successfully argue their case on the ground of personal merit.

I love William Perkins on this topic. He was apparently really moved. I learned by this verse and by what he saw in the silence as a profound warning against false assurance. So he actually wrote many a man in this world. Silence is his own conscience. With many fair excuse. Do you hear that? I, I love that turn of phrase.

So we're talking about silence. It's about being silence, but I love how he says it's very easy to, to silence, not yourself, not like somebody coming against you with debate, but your own conscience. So he writes, again, many a man in this world will silence his own conscience with many a fair excuse. But in that day, there will be no excuse, no plea, no delay.

So that time of plea is now, it's in this life. It's by faith and repentance, which is why there's an urgency to this gospel message. And so the king.

[00:45:17] Outer Darkness Warning

[00:45:17] Jesse Schwamb: In hearing this and knowing that this man has no excuse for his outer attire, he says to him, listen to the servants. Bind him hand and foot, cast him into outer darkness.

In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The sentence is severe. It's total. Of the command is given to the servants and attendance maybe in this parable and parabolic form, likely the angelic executors of divine judgment and it is binding. It renders the condemned utterly helpless.

It's a picture of total divine control over the destiny of the ate. He has cast into this outer darkness, outside the light and warmth of the banquet hall entirely. And I think it's incumbent upon us to take a second and to grieve the repercussions of what is being said here. That the death and destruction of the ATE should make us grieve.

It should compel us to go out into the highways, the byways, and to share this message. Unreservedly. One of the ways we know really the full anguish of what this entails is this phrase, weeping and gnashing of teeth, actually occurs seven times in Matthew, and it functions as this refrain, this chorus, this common language of this eschatological condemnation, it combines interestingly in this wordplay here, both the anguish of grief with the rage of frustrated pride.

It's a portrait, not of this just like regret, but continuing imp penitent, hostility against God and eternal punishment. And I think if Tony were here, he would agree with me that we have consistently affirmed the doctrine of eternal conscience punishment. You know, the Westminster Confession says, the wicked who know not God and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ shall be cast into eternal torments.

In other words, this outer darkness is not annihilation. The weeping and the gnashing continues. It implies an ongoing conscious existence. It's the image of a binding stands against the notion of this kind of postmortem repentance or universalism. The severity of that verse, I think, really must be allowed to stand in its canonical context without mitigation.

The, the severity of this judgment ought to fill us with fear, not theological domestication. We, we shouldn't set this aside and be saying, well, this implies that there is nothing after that time. No, there continues to be only time with God in his presence, in eternal, consummate joy and harmony and peacefulness and celebration.

Or there is literally. A weeping and a gnashing of teeth, an unresolved rage and anger where that is punished by God because he's absent where there's unmitigated pain and suffering because it is absent the presence and the mediation of God himself, who even now in this world, holds us back so that while we are sinful and we are not as bad as we could or ought to be because of his great kindness, all of us, even those.

Who are not believers.

[00:48:37] Called Yet Chosen

[00:48:37] Jesse Schwamb: And so because of that, it ends with these very famous in stock words in in verse 14, for many are called, but few are chosen. And that concluding aphorism is, I think, the theological linchpin of this entire thing. The contrast between this idea of called and chosen, you know, this is the vocabulary that is deliberately covenantal and elective, and we shouldn't shy away from that.

Of course, it's referring to this external call, the universal proclamation of the gospel to all the hearers. The call is genuine, it's earnest, it's gentile, it's sufficient as an offer. It is the call that goes to all the highways, all who hear the gospel are truly called to repentance and faith. And for me, in my own journey of understanding what this means as God has allowed me to, that has been critical.

This idea that this universal call means that it is sufficient as a call to repentance and faith for all those who hear it. And then it does become the responsibility of all those who hear it to respond to it. And so this idea then of this pairing then with the chosen and the elect is referring of course to those whom God has chosen from before the foundation of the world.

The elect are those who not only receive the external call, but are effectually drawn by the eternal efficacious call of the Holy Spirit. We can look to Romans eight 30, those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified. And I say, because this is a Reformed Theological podcast, and this is what you came here for, I presume, brothers and sisters.

Then it behooves us to at least mention again that the reformed tradition has classically distinguished between that external or general call, the sincere well meant proclamation of the gospel to all without distinction, inviting everybody to faith and repentance. That call is genuine on God's part and God's doing the verbs in that as well.

And then again, we, we set that over in next two, the internal, what we call like effectual efficacious call. It's sovereign. It's irresistible work of the Holy Spirit by which the elect regenerated, have their will renewed and are infallibly brought to saving faith. All those whom God has predestined unto life and those only he's pleased in his appointed and accepted time to affectionately call by His word and his spirit out of the state of sin and death to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ.

I was thinking recently of this idea of the narrow path and somewhere between like the scriptures there and pilgrim's progress, and paths and journeys. I had this image in my mind of the road on which we walk. And in this life, the natural man on that road encounters all these like intractable boulders, these things that cannot be traversed.

These just great mountainous pieces of rock, which block the path. And so prevent us from at least accomplishing the thing that we would like. Like to live forever, to have peace with God, to be at peace with ourselves, to love our brothers and our sisters as much as we love ourselves to honor something that is greater than us.

And those boulders are things like sin, death in the devil, which constantly invade us, which constantly thwart us, which constantly block us. And in Christ, what he has accomplished in salvation is not just, I think to remove those boulders, though that would've been good enough of course to just get them outta the way.

Instead, it's as if he's taken them and he's crushed them, and now to the softest sand between our toes and we walk over them in victory by the power of his name through the Holy Spirit into eternal life. Into that grand wedding feast spoil, which we have been invited because he has done this because he loves us.

And so verse 14 places these two realities side by side without resolving the tension. Philosophically, this is one of the great mysteries of theology. Uh, reformed theology does not collapse the distinction by limiting the external call to the elect alone as like maybe kind of a hyper Calvinist model, but it doesn't make the internal call dependent on a human decision.

As like Armenian theology would instead, you know, the tension is, is biblical. This is here for us. It's here for us, because I believe that God wishes for us to submit our knowledge and our reasoning to him knowing that he is far and above us. And because this tension is biblical, it has to be maintained.

The invitation is genuinely universal. The effectual drawing is sovereignly particular. How great is our God loved ones? There is no one like him. And so there's so much in this that I think we could spend all of the rest of our life thinking about, and that would be a noble, I was just thinking today that, um, you know, unless the Lord Terrys like, maybe this will be the last series me and Tony ever do, because there's so much that's rich and deep in these parables and there's so many of them, and the teaching of Christ is, is so complete of course, for us because it gives us everything that we need for life and salvation and godliness that.

We find that the more that we look into them, the more that we ask the Holy Spirit to bathe us in a realization that comes from the spirit of God, the more that we will find. They challenge us. They encourage us. They equip us. So I'm thinking and praying for you all as I hope that you are for Tony and I as we continue to wrestle with these things as we continue to talk them out, because I'm asking God that he would equip us as we look at the teaching of his son in these parables with a firm understanding of the truth and equip us with his promises and with his encouragement so that.

As he grows us in our faith, our faith for us would be like a thousand eyes and a thousand wings that we would find ourselves moving from glory to glory. Because we see in these parables the great work of God for us. What he has accomplished through his son and how he continues to be for us and the son who is given for us is with us.

That we have his Holy Spirit within us and who discerns the mind of God, accept the spirits of God. So love us. Let's continue to get after what's being said in these parables here because there's so much for us here.

[00:55:14] Living The Commission

[00:55:14] Jesse Schwamb: And might I add, just to tack onto the end, there's also so much for the world. I know that we're quick to say, or like colloquially Christians have said in the past like, Jesus is the answer, but you I think cannot necessarily fault the world for sometimes asking, well, what is the question?

And unless we go forward with this proper understanding that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That all are in need of this savior and that this gospel message is for, in fact, for all people without reservation. Full stop. I guess I ask for you and I and Tony who's editing this episode, are we going out into the highways and byways?

What is the proof of the pudding in the eating look like when we examine our lives, but with specifically our finances and our time and our prayer closet and our service? Aren't we in fact concerned with the great commission that is reflected here? Are we concerned with the emergence and urgent need of this gospel message, which is for all people because God so loved the world that he gave his only forgotten son.

That whosoever shall believe in him will not per but have everlasting life.

[00:56:27] Community And Support

[00:56:27] Jesse Schwamb: So come hang out with us. Come talk about this parable. You know where to go. But I'm gonna tell you anyway because that's what we do. If you go to your browser, type in T Me Back slash Reform Brotherhood, t Me Back slash Reform Brotherhood, that link will take you to an app called Telegram.

Telegram is just a messaging app. It's like, I dunno, iMessages for Apple or whatever you Android people are using these days. And there's just a little community that we've sectioned off there. And it's a community of listeners to the Reform Brotherhood who are talking about all kinds of things. You, you wanna be in that group?

It is. It is a great group. Don't, don't reject the invitation. Don't reject it. Just, just come. I know you're thinking, listen, I got land. I got commerce I gotta deal with. That's fine. Come, come and join us. So go to t.me/reform brotherhood. One last thing. I would be remiss if I didn't thank all of those who make sure that this podcast still goes out to all the highways and the byways of the internet.

That there is no Jericho paywall around it because it does cost money to put out there all the subscriptions, all the distribution. It's surprising, but there are. Intense fees with a lot of that stuff, and so I wanna say thank you, thank you, thank you to those who have listened and said, you know what? I would like to make sure.

That this continues to go on. I've been blessed just by the conversation. God has done something here because again, he does all the verbs. Tony and I do zero verbs, and so because of that, they've gone to patreon.com Reform Brotherhood, and they've just decided to give a little bit of the kindness of their heart and generosity to the Lord.

So if you're thinking, you know what? I've been listening for a while, and I do appreciate that this just magically, as it were, pops up in my feed and I continue to listen to it. Would you please consider helping us? Uh, Tony and I and so many other listeners who give a little bit just to make sure that together we can keep this thing going strong.

And again, you can just go to patreon.com/reform brotherhood. There's also a website, uh, reform brother.com and all kinds of other fun stuff. But I will leave that to you. I, I didn't even bring it up. See, I'm just so glad that you mentioned it yourself 'cause it would've been awkward otherwise.

[00:58:31] Final Blessing

[00:58:31] Jesse Schwamb: So loved ones.

There are still so many more parables to go. They're all so good. So I hope that you all come back and join us next time as we continue to move through these parables. But until then, there's something that you should definitely do honor everyone. Love the brotherhood.

In this profound exploration of Matthew 21:40-46, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb unpack the Parable of the Wicked Tenants and its devastating indictment of Israel's religious leadership. The hosts navigate the complex theological terrain of kingdom transfer, covenant faithfulness, and the identity of God's people across redemptive history. With careful attention to the text's original context and its implications for the church today, they examine how Christ presents himself as the rejected cornerstone—the one upon whom people either fall in repentance or are crushed in judgment. This episode offers rich insights into supersessionism, the remnant theology of Romans 11, and the practical call for Christians to examine whether they're submitting to Christ as the true cornerstone or attempting to usurp his rightful place.

Key Takeaways

• The Self-Condemning Verdict: The chief priests and Pharisees unknowingly pronounce judgment upon themselves when they declare the wicked tenants deserve destruction, demonstrating how the natural conscience can discern God's justice even when blind to personal complicity.
• Kingdom Transfer as Covenant Transition: The "taking away" of the kingdom represents not the abandonment of God's elect remnant but the historical-redemptive transition from the typological Old Covenant administration to the New Covenant church gathered from all nations.
• The Cornerstone's Double Judgment: Christ as the cornerstone presents two modes of encounter—those who fall upon him in repentance are broken but healed; those upon whom he falls in final judgment are ground to powder with no remedy.
• Visible vs. Invisible Church Distinction: The visible identification of God's people shifted from the geopolitical nation of Israel to the universal church, while the invisible elect have always been saved by grace through faith in the coming Messiah.
• Fear of Man vs. Fear of God: The Pharisees' restraint from seizing Jesus due to fear of the crowds (rather than fear of God) exemplifies how the wicked are dominated by human opinion rather than divine accountability.
• Infant Baptism and Covenant Community: The joyful inclusion of children in the visible covenant community through baptism reflects God's gracious promise sealed to those who contribute nothing to their own covenant status.
• Fruit-Bearing as Evidence: The "new tenants" are characterized not by works-righteousness but by evidential fruit—the genuine works that flow from "true and lively faith" worked by the Holy Spirit.

Key Concepts The Irony of Self-Condemnation

The theological and pastoral power of this parable reaches its climax when the religious leaders, failing to perceive themselves as the wicked tenants in Jesus's story, pronounce harsh judgment upon the hypothetical villains: "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end." This moment mirrors Nathan's confrontation of David after the Bathsheba affair, yet with a tragic difference—these leaders never experience David's repentance. Calvin observes that the natural conscience, even when blind to personal guilt, retains an "hidden impulse to identify with justice." The Pharisees demonstrate total depravity in high definition: they possess enough moral clarity to recognize egregious covenant-breaking in the abstract, yet remain entirely blind to their own embodiment of that very wickedness. This irony serves as both judgment and warning—we all possess an uncanny ability to see sin clearly everywhere except in the mirror.

Kingdom Transfer: Covenant Continuity and Discontinuity

The phrase "the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing its fruit" requires careful theological handling to avoid both replacement theology (in its pejorative sense) and dispensational fragmentation. The Reformed understanding maintains covenant continuity: there has always been one people of God, defined not ethnically but by faith in the Messiah. What changes is the visible administration of the covenant. Under the Old Covenant, the visible church was largely coterminous with ethnic Israel—a geopolitical reality with boundaries, a zip code, and national identity. Under the New Covenant, the visible church explodes these ethnic and geographic boundaries, fulfilling God's promise to Abraham that "in your seed all nations will be blessed." This is not Plan B; it's the eschatological unveiling of what was always intended. The "breaking off of natural branches" (Romans 11) refers to covenant unfaithfulness resulting in exclusion from visible covenant privileges, while the faithful Jewish remnant—the apostles, early believers, and the ongoing elect from Israel—remain fully incorporated into the church. The vineyard hasn't been abandoned; it's been opened to "other tenants" who will render the proper fruit: Gentiles grafted in alongside believing Jews into the one olive tree of God's redemptive purposes.

The Cornerstone: Salvation or Destruction

Christ's invocation of Psalm 118:22—"the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone"—followed by his dual judgment ("whoever falls on this stone will be broken...on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust") presents two exhaustive options for relating to Jesus. The cornerstone in ancient construction was the foundational stone by which all other stones found their proper alignment and orientation. To fall upon this stone willingly—in repentance, faith, and self-abandonment—is painful. It shatters pride, self-righteousness, and autonomy. But this breaking leads to healing, to being properly "squared" and aligned with reality as God has constructed it. The alternative is catastrophic: to have the cornerstone fall upon you in final eschatological judgment is to experience irreversible, total destruction—being "ground to powder" with no possibility of remedy. The practical application is urgent: we must examine ourselves continually to ensure we're not attempting to be our own cornerstone, measuring righteousness by our own standards, aligning the universe to ourselves rather than submitting to Christ as the measure of all things.

Memorable Quotes

"There's never a time where that righteousness is removed or unapplied, but we are constantly faced with a choice as to whether we want to be the kind of people who render our fruit unto the Lord, as the faithful tenants when the unfaithful tenants are replaced. Or do we wanna be the people that reap wicked fruit and keep for ourselves?" — Tony Arsenal

"The vineyard of God is still let out, the fruit is still demanded, the cornerstone is still laid. Blessed are they who receive him—and also get those babies into church." — Jesse Schwamb

"This is not a wall you're gonna run through. Like you're gonna smash into this wall and it's gonna crush you. And if you are not properly assigning the cornerstone its place... the whole thing is gonna crush you." — Tony Arsenal

Full Episode Transcript

[00:01:05] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 492 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.

[00:01:14] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.

[00:01:18] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.

[00:01:19] Parable Recap

[00:01:19] Jesse Schwamb: Well, the time has finally come for us to close out our discussion in Matthew 21. This is the Parable of the Vine growers, and everybody should just go back and list everything we said so far, but I think here's how we could sum it up.

Jesus's authority gets challenged and he sets a trap so beautiful that we should put it into a museum. He tells basically the religious bigwigs, this whole story where tenants speed up servants, they kill the air. They generally behave like it's an HOA literally run by the devil. And then he asks them this question, so what should the owner of the vineyard do And the chief priest.

Chest puffed up. Basically shout out the answers to their own indictment. Smoke 'em. Give the vineyard to somebody who isn't garbage. Listen fellas, you just preached your own funeral. So in this we get to see this total depravity in 4K. Sovereign grace skips the credential gatekeepers and it lands on the tax collectors and the gentiles.

They elect the vineyard, the self-righteous, get the rock. And we're gonna close out what all of that means, including probably not a small amount of talk about the kingdom being transferred, whatever that means, and maybe a little engrafting. Aah, Romans 11 style. It's all there for us. And that is what is coming up.

[00:02:34] Affirmations Setup

[00:02:34] Jesse Schwamb: Of course before we can do any of that, we can't even get there. Tony, before we do affirmations, denials, you and I both know it's our contractual obligation. It's what the people want all over the world. If we skip this, there will be some kind of riot revolt. So we gotta start there. Let's not get too excited yet.

So I'm curious as always, are you affirming with something or you not against something for this episode?

[00:02:58] Tony Arsenal: I am, I'm affirming, uh, this is gonna be like people are gonna grow and roll their eyes a little bit.

[00:03:04] Infant Baptism Joy

[00:03:04] Tony Arsenal: I'm affirming infant baptism today. We had a lovely infant baptism at church, um, and a couple recently had a child.

Um, there's been, this was a kind of a particularly, um, poignant baptism. Um, the, the mother was in the hospital for several weeks before the baby was born, um, with some medical challenges, so was in. In the hospital. In the hospital for like, I want to say probably four weeks, which is a long time. Um, they have several other children, which makes it even harder.

Um, and then, uh, then the baby was in the hospital for quite some time. He came a little early and then had some other issues. Um, and so this family was out of church for quite some time dealing with these health issues, and we, we all miss them very much. So it was a very sweet moment. Um, and it's just a, a good reminder, right?

And, and the way our church does it is, you know, the pastor, the family comes up, they do vows, they do the baptism, but he calls all the children forward and the children come and sit, uh, right in the front row and they watch this all happen. Um. Which is, is very sweet. And you know, I, I went up there with Augie, and Augie was sitting on my lap and he was very, he was like super locked into this, this whole thing, which is, uh, which was nice to see.

So I'm affirming infant baptism. It's a beautiful, beautiful picture of the gospel. Um, it's, it's God's promise being sealed to someone who contributes nothing to, um, to that promise contributes nothing to, uh, their own, um, position in the church or status in the church. They contribute nothing. Um, in most cases they're not even aware of what's going on.

So I know not all of our listeners are, uh, are covenant infant Baptists, uh, type people. Um, so yes, I get it. You disagree, but there is something just sweet and beautiful, uh, even I think even for people who aren't quite sold on infant baptism. Um, and I think even sometimes for people who are kind of opposed to infant baptism, I think we've commented in the PA past that there's kind of this impulse that I think all Christian parents have that their children should be.

Treated in a certain way that's different than how a non-Christian family treats their children. Right. Um, so there is kind of this instinct that the, there's, whether it's a formal status or just sort of a, a way of thinking about things, there is this impulse that the children of believers are somehow set apart in different, and of course, the, the Presbyterian Covenant Baptist, um, position would, would formalize that through the rite of baptism, uh, at least in part.

So I'm affirming infant baptism, both theologically, but also just experimentally today. Like it was just, it was just a balm to my soul to see this, um. And like I said, the congregation has been praying for a long time for the health, uh, and the, the welfare of this family, um, and been, you know, doing meal trains and all the stuff that churches do.

But it was, it was a very sweet moment, um, to see the pastor scoop this little baby up in his arms and be able to sort of introduce him to the church as the newest covenant member of the congregation. Uh, it was just a very nice moment.

[00:05:59] Baptism Dedication Common Ground

[00:05:59] Jesse Schwamb: I think you're right. We can all agree that there's something really beautiful about God growing his church, at least the visible church, through just the multiplicative effect of. People having children, there's something beautiful about that, and then welcoming them in an official way into your congregation, into your midst.

Interestingly, in my church, there was a baby dedication today and I was also equally moved though like I would say the promises that were invoked during that time, the equipment's made are very different than what you might hear during kind of pedo infant baptism. You're right in that the spirit of this that is like a representation kind of bringing forward of the child to say he or she is part of us and we're making a commitment to raise them in admonition of the Lord is a really lovely thing.

It's like a public recognition that God is providing a manifest blessing in our midst, and that he is growing and working out his church and he's doing it by just bringing new people into it who are being, who are the subjects of procreation. Creation itself, but procreation and how can you not be like, just excited about that.

And, and also a little bit like it's also, and I'm not trying to denigrate any practice here, but also just on the face also super adorable. Like when you, when you see a pastor scoop up, like you said, a little child, whether that's to pray with them and dedication or to baptize them. Either way, it's super just like lovely and just pulls in your heartstrings.

Yeah. In like this very spiritual way, not just in kind of an emotional kind of way.

[00:07:26] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I don't, I think, um, when I think back, you know, Augie's, obviously you know this, but Augie was dedicated, um, Addie was not. Um, but when I think back to the vows we took, when we dedicated Augie, there are some differences, but there's also a lot that's not different like the sure close to like, raise up your child in the church and to like, pray for them and set a good example.

And then, and then the sort of reciprocal vows that the congregation typically takes, that the congregation will do what they can to support the family as they, they raise this child and the Lord. Um, you know, even in, even in a lot of contexts, like in the Presbyterian church, I'm in like prayers that this, this child would come to know Jesus and would, would come to confess the faith for themselves and become a full, you know, full communicate member of the church.

Like, those things are all present. So as much as I think, um. As much as I wanna acknowledge that infant baptism or, or covenant, I, I say covenant baptism versus, um, sort of like baptist theology writ, large credo Baptist theology, which is covenantal, but differently covenantal in most cases. Right. Um, even though that is a dividing line, and I think like it's a real dividing line.

There's a real division that exists and that there's good theological historical reasons why those divisions exist. There still is so much that is the same. Um, in terms of how Baptists and, and Presbyterians or however formed, you know, PR Christians, um, re reflect on and think about their children.

There's some differences, but in terms of like. We all want our children to come to know Jesus. We all want their first memory to be worshiping in the church and loving the Lord. We, we don't want them to ever remember a time where the name of Christ was not on their lips as their savior. Um, all those things are the same and even the, the way we promise before God and, and primarily before God, but before others, even the way we promise to nourish them in, in right doctrine and nourish them in good teaching and bring them into the church and, and set a faithful example.

All of those things are the same. So I I I, I never want to diminish the fact that there are differences 'cause there are real differences and there are important differences. But I also think we often sort of like. I think because we've talked about this before, like Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians are so close that we have to bicker over the things that are different.

It's like you're, it's like when you fight with your brother on whose side of the room it's on. Like you're so close that you have to find the little things to really bicker about and then you really, really bicker about them. And I think that kind of like describes the, the Presbyterian Baptist divide in a lot of ways.

I know there's a lot of people that would say like, Lutherans are closer to Presbyterians and those people are just, I dunno, they're just wrong. Um, on, on, maybe on baptism, they're, they're not wrong. But in terms of general theological principles, like, you know, Westminster Confession, London Baptists, confession, like, it, it's 95% the same content.

Sure. Um, and 95% like the same confession, not just the same like words, but the same meaning of the words. And, um, so yeah. Anyway, that's my affirmation. Infant baptism. It was a joy. I was happy to see it. Um, uh, we have a ton of little, little babies in the, the church. It's funny 'cause another, another, um. A couple announced today that they were expecting, and we've, we've had basically pregnant women in the church for, you know, obviously like at least nine months if someone is still pregnant.

But like we've had, we've had this like rotation of, of women delivering babies for like, at least, probably, at least 16, 18 months of, of constantly having people who are, are expecting, which is really a great joy to see. So I, I love it. I love the church. I love the Presbyterian church. Um, and this was just another great example of, of the beauty of, uh, a robust confessionalism and a robust presbyterianism.

[00:11:08] Jesse Schwamb: The way in which you said that made it sound like you're about to make like a grand historical statement. Like, we've had pregnant people in the church since the first century.

[00:11:18] Tony Arsenal: Well, I mean that's probably true, but

[00:11:19] Jesse Schwamb: yeah, it definitely

[00:11:20] Tony Arsenal: true. Not, not our church. Our church has only been around, our particular church has only been around for like 10 years, so I'm sure there have been times during that period where there were not pregnant people

[00:11:29] Jesse Schwamb: pregnant.

It just sounded like we were going all the way back as if like to, again emphasize and maybe this isn't, this is as fair statement, like how faithful God has been like from the beginning. There's always been. Pregnant lady Church. Look, look at how faithful God is.

[00:11:42] Mic Grabbing Babies

[00:11:42] Jesse Schwamb: And, and this is true, I like to play this game when there is a baby dedication.

I'm not sure what the sound system is like in your church, but often our, our pastors wear like the tiny little like Backstreet Boys style. It's probably outdated reference, but microphone that comes over the ear and to the mouth and it's very discreet. But the game I like to play is like once, once he takes the child for a time of dedication or specifically prayer, the, the goal is to see like how long before that baby goes for the mic.

Because as soon as like a baby sees a mic right there, it's like, oh yeah, this is the best thing that's happened to me in my tiny little life.

[00:12:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, it's like an angler fish is really what it is. Yes. It's like that glowing bulb that just sits in front of its face and it's, the baby's just gotta grab it.

[00:12:27] Jesse Schwamb: It's just too tempting. It's just too tempting. And I, and I love, you can tell like our pastors are really adept at being able to keep the prayer going and like discreetly maneuver the child, keep the child happy. It's, it's really an amazing thing. So altogether, I'm totally with you on so many levels.

It's so good to see that happen in the church. And I'm with you on that. We gotta take joy in that For sure.

[00:12:48] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse, what do you got for us tonight?

[00:12:50] Book Breath Pick

[00:12:50] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, something that's entirely unlike everything you just said. Certainly. Well, maybe, I guess there is a large spiritual component to this, but it's, I would say, for me, totally unexpected book recommendation and I came across this 'cause it was recommended to me and a while back, the keen or the listener who's been with us for a really long time, or a member that we talked about the book or why we sleep, this book became for me, like the equivalent of that in a totally different kind of topic or genre.

It's called breath. The New Signs of a Lost Art by James Nestor and it explores how the way that humans breathe profoundly affects our health, our performance, our longevity. It's a book that is filled with both science and pseudoscience, which the author is really good at distinguishing and calling you to think about those things.

But it's really totally changed how I understand like this little pattern in Habits of breathing. And it's a really interesting book of course. Like he draws from a lot of like religious influences, including of course the Judeo-Christian one. And I think that it even drew me back to understanding how God created us.

And he did in a very specific way that text's giving some great description to the breadth that he gives us and how he gives us that breath. So if you're looking, I guess, for a little bit of a read, so that might surprise you about something that you might thought was automatic and simple in life and also that might.

Be able to bring you some recommendations on how to better your health. Again, we're not doctors, but we are routinely considered among the top 50 healthcare podcasts. Then I would say this would be an interesting book for you to check out.

[00:14:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I haven't read it, but it's been recommended to me and one of the, one of the takeaways, actually, I think it might have been my doctor, my my PCP who mentioned this to me is like, if you wanna improve your health drastically, like just make it a practice of breathing through your nose.

Yes. Like something that simple and straightforward has pretty significant health impacts of like. Like the way that your brain processes breath when it comes through your nose, the way that like, there's more filtering that happens with breath, so the air that gets to your lungs is cleaner. There's just a lot of, um, I haven't read it.

I've, I think I actually have it somewhere, but I have not read it yet. Um, I, I should, I should take a look at it. I, I've heard good things about it.

[00:15:01] Jesse Schwamb: At the very least, if you're a Christian, it'll cause you to marvel again. That's how beautifully complex God has made the human body and how it seems entirely impossible that anyone could even logically reasonably conclude that somehow we are just time plus matter, plus chance, and that all these things got worked out.

I don't wanna spoil some of the punchline. A part of the book is about this. Breathe through your nose, which you might think was just kind of an innocuous decision. Breathe through your nose, breathe your mouth. How, how different could it be? They actually do an experiment where they plug their noses, the author and somebody else for, uh, several, like 10 days straight.

And do all these these things under medical supervision to see what the impact is. And I'll leave you to read it so you can hear that. There's also something fascinating, absolutely fascinating about carbon dioxide and a study that's done where they actually have people inhale a little bit of carbon dioxide and what it does to the body.

In other words, like the system that God has put into play to ensure that the body gets the kind of right amount of oxygen that it needs and how it functions when it's given the warning side of carbon dioxide, even when. Your lung capacity and your oxygen, your blood doesn't change. There's a fascinating section on that.

So I didn't expect to be this interested in the book and generally I take a little time before I recommend a book. I finished this a couple weeks ago and I'm still thinking about it. So, and I'm trying to put some things into practice, including I try to do some running and for the longest time I just thought, well, when you run, like even at any like moderate speed, like you have to breathe through your mouth, this book challenges some of that.

So lo and behold, I went out and started to try just a little bit to see if I could just breathe through my nose. It turns out it's totally possible, like all this time I just thought that was impossible, like God didn't make us that way, and it's actually improving how I feel when I run and the running that I'm able to do.

So I am surprised, I, I'm shocked by all this, and it's just as simple as understanding breath. Who would've guessed.

[00:16:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. I mean, I've heard it's a great book. I, I, I. It never ceases to amaze that the, the more we look at the human body, the more we look at God's creation, the more we see the fingerprints of our creators.

So not, not

[00:17:07] Jesse Schwamb: right.

[00:17:07] Tony Arsenal: Sounds like a great book. I can't recommend it from personal experience, uh, although I've heard very good things.

[00:17:12] Reading Matthew 21

[00:17:12] Tony Arsenal: So, Jesse, I think we should probably just get into it because this is now week three of, uh, one week episode and, uh, we want to wanna dig in and we wanna wrap it up so we can move on to the next best thing out there, which is of course, the parables of Christ.

[00:17:26] Jesse Schwamb: Let's get some. So I'm gonna read for us starting in verse 40 because if you've been tracking then you've already been with us through the first part of this parable, and it's notoriously or variously called parable the vine growers, or I kinda like the husband men, just because that's fun to say, and you don't get to drop husband men like very often.

But vine dressers, vine growers, vine workers, it's all the same. But here's starting in verse 40. This is after Jesus has already explained the parable. He set it up for them and he's gonna bring for the indictment. So Jesus says, and therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to these vine growers?

They said to him, he will bring those wretches to a wretched end and he will rent out the vineyard to other vine growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons. Jesus said to them, did you never read in the scriptures the stone, which the builders rejected? This has become the chief cornerstone.

This came about from the Lord in his, marvelous in our eyes. Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruit of it. And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they understood that he was speaking about them.

And although they were seeking to seize him, they feared the crowds because they were guarding him to be a prophet.

[00:18:48] Irony Blind Leaders

[00:18:48] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, that, that last little section here is just such, it's like dripping with such irony,

[00:18:53] Jesse Schwamb: so good

[00:18:54] Tony Arsenal: that like they, they are so blinded by their own, um, I dunno, ambition isn't, maybe isn't even the right word, but something in that, that neighborhood, they're so blinded by their desire to.

Maintain their own status quo, their own uh, their own status. That they fear the crowds because the crowds hold them to be a prophet,

[00:19:15] Jesse Schwamb: right?

[00:19:16] Tony Arsenal: When in reality, like there is a prophet in their midst and much more than a prophet, uh, and they can't see it because of their own blindness. So I'm stoked to get into it.

This is such, like we said, this is such a, like on the nose, paril, it's crazy. This is so much like, you know, Nathan's, you are the man kind of parable. Like yes, that's right, except there never is a, you are the man moment for them. They never get it, which is. Stunning. Like I, I, it just sort of is like, I don't even know what to make of that.

[00:19:41] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. There is like a wild blindness. I've been thinking about that a lot in our past conversations, but it culminates here. These chief priests and elders, I would say strangely, but I think that this is probably true of all of us, and maybe especially me, perhaps not yet, like perceiving themselves to be the vine growers here in view, they render this verdict of severe justice.

It seems like you, you wanna say to them? Like, guys, guys, pull up, hold up a second. Yeah. Take a step back before you overreact here, because you're about to condemn yourselves and in the Greek here, this expression like, miserably destroy these wicked men. Or it gets like this double wretched in our translations.

Mostly he will bring those wretches to a wretched end. It's this rhetorical intensification. It's incredible. And I, I think there's at least like two truths here. That come to my mind. One is, we've talked about before, but is in line with what you're saying, that the natural conscience, when not even aware of its own complicity, can still discern the justice of God's judgments.

So here are these men who are so prone almost, I think what Calvin says elsewhere, like that we have this hidden impulse to identify with justice. Even when we can't see that we are the ones perpetrating something of injustice, still we can't help but cry out. We can't even help but identify it. And here they.

Accurately identify it. And even though they're putting themselves exactly in the cross here, they cannot help but basically cry out that how egregious this behavior is of these vine growers that Jesus has basically, you know, created in this hypothetical environment, even still there, they're filled with rage and the rage gets turned on them.

So the Pharisees here, of course, function as this unwitting witness to the righteousness of God's wrath against covenant breakers, even though they, they don't see it.

[00:21:29] Kingdom Transfer Talk

[00:21:29] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, the second thing I think that comes to my mind, and maybe this is like more to the point, is that. The verse foreshadows this transfer of the kingdom from the Jewish nation to a new people that would bring forth its fruits, which I realize if I bring that up right now, that we've just committed to like six episodes just on that topic probably.

But yeah, but like, we're gonna have to come to it because there's so much here. And the phrase of this, like, let out his vineyard unto other vine growers or husbandman, it does to me like anticipate this calling of the Gentiles and the formation of the Christian Church and in, in this way. It's not to me.

The abandonment of the elect, remnant of Israel, but it is like the breaking off of the natural branches and then this engrafting of the wild olive shoots that come through like Allah, Romans 11. So it's, it's not like from one nation to another simply, but from like the carnal seed to a spiritual seed gathered out of all the nations, that that's wild.

Right? I, I think that's all in view here. And it's like a kind of a crazy thing to say. It's certainly like a wild thing to say, no pun intended. And I imagine like, unexpected thing to say.

[00:22:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:40] Supersessionism Clarified

[00:22:40] Tony Arsenal: Let's think about that a little bit because I think too, there's, there's almost an element of, um. Man, I'm gonna get a lot of flack for saying this.

You're, there's almost like a legitimate replacement theology here, right? Like replacement theology. I got covenant theology, you know, reformed, um, reformed theology often gets slandered as, you know, supersessionism or replacement theology, uh, with this idea that like, it's, it's interest. Uh, you have to have dispensational presuppositions for that phrase to even make sense because like the reformed paradigm is that there is one people of God full stop.

And yes, like the identity of the one people of God seems to sort of like morph from the Jewish national people to now like Jews and Gentiles and actually predominantly Gentiles in the scope of like the whole history of the church. But what I mean by this is like, there's a visible church in the Old Testament, in the old, under the old Covenant, and the visible church under the old covenant is the national people of, of Israel.

Right. By and large. Right. Um, and there are, there are sort of like Gentile, um, Clingons, not like the Star Trek people, but like gentile, like attachments to that throughout the history of, of Old Testament, um, theology. Um. That visible, that visible identification of this is the people of God being the Jewish people.

Uh, these are the people that are the vineyard, the, they're the, the owner or the tenants of the vineyard or the, the visible Jewish people of the geopolitical nation of Israel under the old covenant that does sort of like get superseded by the church in the church age, in the new covenant,

right?

[00:24:24] Tony Arsenal: But where, where Supersessionism or the accusation of Supersessionism goes wrong is that there is this distinction between the visible and invisible church.

And that distinction is what prevents us from being like, sort of like true replacement theologians in the way that the, the dispensationalist wanna paint us. So I, I think you're right that there is a lot to say here about the fact that, um, and, and this is where it gets, um. We have to be careful systematically.

Right. God, God doesn't have to pivot. He doesn't have like a plan B. It's not like the Gentiles are the plan B, but there is a sense in almost in which the way that this is presented, the way that it appears in the scriptures is actually, yeah, there is almost like this plan B, like there is the geopolitical ethnic people of, of Israel, the Jewish people under the old covenant.

And, and they don't do what they're supposed to do. They don't follow the terms of their covenant. They don't accept the kingdom that is bequeathed to them under the terms of the old covenant. And they, they reject that kingdom because of a disobedience. And, and I think what Christ here is narrowing in on is it's not just disobedience, right?

It's not sort of like, um, accidental ancillary disobedience. It's not generalized disobedience. It is this sort of like usurpation of God's rightful status as the ruler and king of the nation. That's right. The the people, the, the Pharisees. And the chief priests and the scribes and the Sadducees, they want to be the rulers of the nation.

They want to, they, they seem to wanna take the place of God, at least as far as Christ is presenting it. In this, they wanna usurp the kingdom. They want to take the heirs, uh, rightful inheritance, and they want to claim it for themselves. That is not a generalized disobedience, it's a special t type of covenant unfaithfulness that causes God to causes and kind of air quotes that causes God to hand over the kingdom to another people.

Right. Partially, I think, uh, we don't need to get into Romans, the Romans 11 stuff, but partially I think because that's actually the way that he's going to ultimately save the Jewish people, right, is by sort of making, making them jealous of the Gentiles. Like there's a, there's a real element of that, that the salvation of the Gentiles is actually for, in some sense is for or unto the salvation of the Jewish people or the, the faithful Jewish remnant that's all here.

And, and you can't really get past that in this parable. Um, this is why I think a, a lot of dispensationalist, um, uh, some of the classic dispensational sources would actually see like this, this is not for the Jewish church. This, this is for the Gentiles. This is actually part of the parentheses, um. You know, and, and again, dispensationalist divide all that stuff up differently, but this is a really interesting section for us to talk about that we can't, we can't just gloss over that.

[00:27:11] Jesse Schwamb: I certainly don't mean to imply that it's wild because it's unexpected. I think it's wild because interestingly, the Pharisees, the teachers here, they challenge Jesus authority and his response to that is to challenge their covenant faithfulness.

[00:27:24] Tony Arsenal: Right?

[00:27:25] Jesse Schwamb: So it's not just if he turns it around, he uses this opportunity to explain what's going to happen to them as those who are, like you said, were supposed to be representative.

And I think critically like the qualifying phrase. That that's using the text here, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. That's like really important because these new vine growers are characterized by their fruitfulness. So this is not like a doctrine of works righteousness, but it's evidential fruit.

And that's why, and I had to look this up and the Westminster Confession confession, chapter 16, good works are quote the fruits and evidences of true and lively faith, which I love. I was trying to find that language true and lively faith. So the visible church under that new administration is identified by the fruits of repentance, faith, and obedience worked out by the Holy Spirit.

Again, I think that's all that is in view here, that that's a lot to say. But you know, famously, like you've kind of intimated, when we go back to the Old Testament, even we find when the Israelites leave triumphantly from Egypt, that they're accompanied by those outside of Israel. We find that other characters like Grh who continually want to identify with a Yahweh whom God is saving and drawing onto himself and here is kind.

Him, Jesus, at least representing as the son of God. That kind of cli climactic view. Speaking from the prophet register again saying, this is what I was saying to Abraham. I said, like from your seed, all these nations in this spiritual sense will be gathered out. So there'll be a single nation as it were in Christ.

And even now, I'm telling you, I'm breaking down those boundaries. But I think to your point, importantly Tony, in part because you have failed in the covenant promises and you who were to represent and to heed and to lead, have fallen down. And so now you're gonna trip over this stone and it's going to crush you.

And as a result of that, the vine, the vine growers will be, or the vineyard itself will be turned over to those who bear this true and lively fruit.

[00:29:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:23] Israel Failure Remnant

[00:29:23] Tony Arsenal: There's an interesting, um. There's an interesting dynamic here that actually strikes me as kind of similar. It's a little bit more opaque, but similar to, uh, like Joseph in, uh, in Egypt, right when his brothers come and he says, you meant this for evil, but God meant it for good.

Mm-hmm. There's a, there's an element of here, we've talked about the parables. That's sort of like systematic theology in story form. Um, there's a reality here that it's both true, that God always intended for the kingdom to be expansive and, and to expand beyond the nation of Israel. To be this universal, global lowercase c Catholic, universal church universal in the sense that it's not bound by any particular nation, by any particular geopolitical reality.

Um. That's true, but it's also true that the reason, uh, on a sort of like horizontal level that that's true is that Israel failed. Right? It so God always intended for Israel to fail, yet Israel is responsible for the fact that they failed. Yes, that's right. Um, and, and, and again, we, we, we sort of commented on this before, like there are some in our broader reformed circles that turn this into a sort of antisemitism, like a sort of hatred for the Jewish people.

And I don't think, I don't think that there's any warrant in scripture for that. In fact, I think scripture speaks strongly against that. Is that, um. Not necessarily because there's any particular unique special affection that God has for Israel, like, like the modern Jewish people, but, but that, like racism in general is prohibited by the Bible.

But I think where we do need to be clear though, is that there is a real failure. It's a true, genuine failure on the part of the first century Jewish. Leaders and people, um, with a faithful remnant. Right? There was, um, we're, we're getting, you know, we're in the springtime and we've already had, uh, we've already had discussions about this.

We've already done Easter, but like there is always conversations around Palm Sunday of like, are the crowds that are following Jesus into, into town screaming, you know, yelling, Hosanna? Is that the same crowds that are yelling crucify him a couple days later? Um, I tend to think like, no, like actually, like the people who are saying crucified, crucify Christ are probably like the Jews who live in Jerusalem or like the, primarily the religious leaders.

There's a whole host of Jewish believers and kind of the hoy pallo, the, the people out in the country that absolutely follow Jesus. Like they follow him as the Messiah. They, they confess him in many cases. They convince him to be, um, they confess him to be God, to to be the savior, to be the, the figure from Daniel seven, the son of man.

Um. There's a reality in which the Jewish remnant absolutely recognize Christ and they persist in the church, right? The earliest Christians were all Jews, and you know, there was a few Gentiles along the way, you know, and maybe not even Gentiles like Samaritans. I don't even know if you would call them gentiles.

They're kind of this midway point, but in Jewish gentil. But there are people throughout Christ's ministry, right? Cornelius or not Cornelius, the Centurion recognizes that this is the son of God. Like there are people, the s Phoenician woman, there are people who are not part of Israel proper, who even in the, in the midst of Christ's ministry are recognizing him as God and as Messiah and as the savior of the world.

But, but by and large, the earliest Christian movement was Jewish people. It was the faithful remnant of, of Israel who recognized that their Messiah had come. That is true. And at the same time. The, probably the majority, and especially the rulers and the leaders of the Israel, you know, the Jewish faith in the first century absolutely rejected him.

And this is what I, this is what I think is wild, is I think sometimes we think that, um, the prophecies and the understanding of Christ and what the messiah, who the Messiah was to be and what to expect, we think of those as like super obscured and super hidden until Christ comes and then all of a sudden they're really obvious.

Christ doesn't seem to treat them that way. Right? Right. He tells this parable and they rightly identify that, and this is a, this is such a thinly veiled parable. Like this is like, you killed the prophets. You're going to kill me. And there's going to be consequences. Like he practically says that outright.

Um. He treats that as like they should obviously know this, right? The, have you never read in the scriptures, the stone, the builder rejected has become the cornerstone, right? This was the lord's doing. It is, and it is marvelous in their eyes that have you never read?

[00:34:06] Decree in Rejection

[00:34:06] Tony Arsenal: That is a, that's a rhetorical question with the implied answer of, of course, you've read exactly like he's not, he's not teaching them something that he anticipated is new to them.

He maybe is teaching them something that he anticipated they maybe you didn't recognize. But actually I think probably like, uh, there probably were many among them that were like, oh yeah, we are doing this. But then almost like we're powerless to stop themselves from moving forward in that.

[00:34:32] Jesse Schwamb: Right.

[00:34:32] Tony Arsenal: Sort of like wicked plan.

[00:34:34] Jesse Schwamb: Right. Yeah. And I think we could extend that as well to say that this rejection of Christ by this Jewish leadership, which of course was a incredible failure, like you're saying, it wasn't an accident, it wasn't an unforeseen tragedy. So just like interestingly in Acts four in his sermon where Peter quotes from the same Old Testament passage about Christ being the cornerstone, you know, it was prophesied long before.

And so the doctrine of God's eternal decree, I think finds v vivid illustration even here. This is all the Lord's doing. Yeah. And even the wicked rejection of the Messiah is serving this purpose, this sovereign purpose of God's great exaltation. And so it's fascinating, and we should marvel at the fact that, again, like God means what he says when he says like He uses what is weak to overcome that which is strong, or to embarrass the strong, he uses that which seems foolish.

To make the wise themselves, the ones who are actually foolish in the same way.

[00:35:29] Cornerstone Unites Church

[00:35:29] Jesse Schwamb: This very stone, which men in their malice cast aside on that day. God is in his wisdom setting as this chief cornerstone. And I love like that idea of this phrase, this head of the corner denoting that amazing preeminence of Christ, that Christ is not merely included in the building of the new Covenant church.

He is its chief and constituent stone that joining together both like the Jew and the Gentile, finally into one structure. And that's really, I think to your point, that's the great mystery of the hidden ages from the past. That that's the thing which Christ is bringing to like this grand display, like out on the stage in the open, in front of everybody.

He's drawing it up, he's calling it to account. And so in that way, the same Jesus that was rejected by men is in God's account of inestimable value. And that should be like, I think, familiar to most of us because like there a form tradition has always insisted that. The true theology always issues in doxology and the cross and exaltation of Christ are not merely these facts, which we give these intellectual ascent, but we, we confess them as mysteries which provoke us to adoration of who God is.

It's the excellency of Christ expounding at length, like the wondrous conjunction of Christ's humiliation and his exaltation, which finds its pattern here, rejected by men, glorified by God.

[00:36:50] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:52] Works Covenant Failures

[00:36:52] Tony Arsenal: And, and this is, um, we, we commented in our first, uh, episode on this par ball. This is not isolated to just the rulers of Israel at the time of Christ, right?

This is in reality, kind of like a reflection of every failure of the covenant of works. In some sense, every failure to hold the covenant of works boils down to an attempt to make oneself, God. Right. This was Adam's failure in the garden. Um, Eve, Eve was the first person to eat the fruit, but Adam, Adam was responsible for that and he, he also ate the fruit and they, they did so in part because they thought it was useful to make them like God and, and in an illegitimate fashion.

And they knew it was an illegitimate fashion. It's not as though Adam and Eve suddenly were like, maybe we can eat the fruit. Maybe like we actually are fine to do it. Like they knew it was still forbidden. Right. They did it anyways. And the Pharisees here, um, are in a real attempt. Um, they are trying to take the role of Messiah for the people.

They're trying to be the savior of the people in sort of shepherding and guiding them into this like. Ultra legalistic Puritan, like puritanical in the worst sense, um, kind of approach to the law. Um, this is the, the story of Old Testament Israel, right? What is the first thing that the Israelites do? Um, at Mount Sinai?

The first thing they do is try to fashion gods so that they have a tame God that they can control and that they can actually be God's over. So I think this is really key and, and this is where it becomes practical for us, is that. I think we always are faced with a choice, right? There's, there's obviously those who are Christ, who the son is set free.

He's set free indeed, and they will never not be his people. Like you never become not justified. If you were justified, you always forever more are justified. Justified is a final. It's, it's the future judgment of God's people dragged and dropped into the present and applied. It's the righteousness of Christ applied.

So there, there's never a time where that righteousness is like removed or unapplied, but we are constantly faced with a choice as to whether we want to be the kind of people who render our fruit unto the Lord, uh, as the faithful, the sort of the implied faithful tenants that are going to be brought forward when the, the unfaithful tenants are replaced.

Or do we wanna be the people that reap wicked fruit and keep for ourselves? And I think that's, that's really the thing. Like we're either gonna rep. Fruit of wickedness, or we're gonna reap fruit of righteousness. And the only thing to do with fruit of righteousness is surrender it to the Lord. But we often are faced with that choice, like, are we gonna reap our own wicked fruit and keep it all to ourselves right, uh, to our own detriment?

Or are we gonna go ahead and be the faithful tenants that give the Lord what he deserves?

[00:39:46] Kingdom Transfer Explained

[00:39:46] Jesse Schwamb: We're seeing so much of the simplicity of God here that like you and I have said so many times before that his loving kindness, his long suffering ness is his righteousness, is his justice, is his wrath. And so I think it's helpful, again, to remind ourselves that we're, we are talking, or he specifically is speaking of the kingdom of God here.

And again referring to this visible administration of the covenant of grace, not to the inward and invisible kingdom of saving grace, which as you just said, can never be lost from those who possess it, which by the way is a really important distinctive of reform theology. There are many that would disagree with that statement, and I think really much to their harm in, in disagreement with the scriptures themselves, this one in particular, but it is this external administration, the privileges, the ordinances, the oracles of God.

That is being transferred from the Jewish nation as a corporate body to a new and broader people of God. And because I know that sounds very extreme, I did look up Calvin and his commentary on this and let me read what he says because this is interesting. I think even this could possibly mis be misunderstood.

But here's Calvin who can say it better than I. He says, quote by these words, he means that God would deprive the Jews of the honor and the privilege of being his peculiar people and would call the Gentiles that out of them he might form a church end quote. And going back to what you said earlier, I'm with you.

I, I. I mean, this is not, I think as some have wrongly concluded, like replacement theology in like a wooden sense. I, I see this still as like this historical redemptive transition from the typological administration of the old covenant to the eschatological fulfillment of the new. And the elect remnant of Israel is not cast off, but the national like typological privileges are being transferred to the Catholic church, gathered from all nations.

And in that, I really do see this wonderful confluence of God's loving kindness, his, his fidelity to the promises that he's made and his wrath being manifested all at once. And somehow Jesus, of course, in complete perfection, can bring that all to bear in this tiny little story.

[00:41:51] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And and isn't it just like the master teacher to like, put all of this baked into this?

I mean, that's right. We think of this as like a long parable, like I think,

[00:42:02] Jesse Schwamb: right?

[00:42:02] Tony Arsenal: I think like it's, it's amazing how we think of parables as, you know, like this is a short one. A short one is a couple sentences, a long one is like a half a dozen sentences. Like, and of course like Christ is teaching broader than this.

He's teaching more than this. Just, this is what's recorded by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This is what Matthews preserved for us.

[00:42:22] Stone Breaks or Crushes

[00:42:22] Tony Arsenal: But you're right, there's so much baked into this little parable and I think, um, there's something to be said about this idea of like. Not only do those who smash against the, the rock, the, the cornerstone, those who smash against the rock, like those who who fall on the rock are broken to pieces, but also the rock falls on others and smashes them to pieces.

Right? And, and there's something to be said about the fact that, and I'm not exactly sure how I wanna articulate this, but it's only those who like recognize the proper place of the rock and don't either let it fall on them or don't smash themselves against it. You know, we always joke about like running through a wall.

Like this is not a wall you're gonna run through. Like you're gonna smash into this wall and it's gonna crush you. And if you are, if you're not properly assigning the cornerstone it's placed, right? The cornerstone is, is the stone that's placed in the foundation of a building that all the other stones find their orientation and their proper alignment based on.

[00:43:26] Jesse Schwamb: Right.

[00:43:26] Tony Arsenal: You might think of this sometimes. I've heard this articulated as like the, the arch stone. I think it's a little bit different than that. Um, but it, the, the idea is the same, right? Like there's a stone in an arch. If you think of like a classic Roman arch, you have these piles of stones until you put the final arch stone in.

That, in that stone is what makes the arch stable. Until that point, either side can fall, but if you don't properly set that arch stone where it's supposed to be, then the whole thing is gonna crush you. It's gonna fall down on top of you at some point. I think this is a little different. This is the cornerstone of a, this is more like the cornerstone of a building.

This is the stone that the rest of the building, building is oriented against and is aligned with. If you get that wrong, then you have a, you have like a crooked wall, a wall that's not set, that's not straight. It's not stable. What this is saying and what this, this prophecy right from, from Psalm one 10, I think I should probably look it up, but I haven't yet.

But this prophecy that Christ is referring to this, this prophetic statement in the Psalms that he's assuming the audience is familiar with, right? I think that's a really important point. Like he's not only assuming that they're familiar with it, there's rhetorical force of kind of like, of course you understand this principle that there is a cornerstone coming.

There is something or someone who is coming that all other things will be measured against. And if you're either in alignment with this, with this person who is coming or you're out of alignment with reality, this thing is understood by them. It just is so critical and I think like the, the, a lot of the parables don't have explanations built into them.

Some of them do. We've talked about some of them. A lot of them don't, this one does, but it's kind of like a really surprising way to explain it. And there's so much, um, the more that I look at this, the more we talk about it, this really is so similar to David and Nathan, right? Right. When with the, the affair with Bathsheba, he is saying to the Pharisees, look, you're the man.

Like, you're the one here. You're the guy. You guys are the wicked tenants that are gonna, you've killed the prophets. Right? Um, I'm losing my, my timeline a little bit, but John the Baptist either had been executed or would be executed shortly at this point, right? So like the, the most recent prophet either was already killed or, or Christ knew of course he was going to be killed.

Um, he's saying, look, you guys are the ones that are doing this and you're going to kill me. Right. And this is obviously what the prophecy is, that you think you're going to come against the cornerstone, but in reality you're going to shatter yourself upon me. You think you're gonna come against me, I'm going to crush you.

And rather than say, you know, as ba, you know, as David does, where he repents, he, he fasts and he, he refuses to eat. He's, he's in mourning over both the loss of his infant, but, but more so over his own sin, I think is the picture the text gives us. Um, he's mourning trying to uh, sort of like reverse God's decision, but there's a genuine repentance to it, right?

That's where we get Psalm 51, like creating, clean me a clean heart, oh God, renew a right spirit in me. There's none of that for the Pharisees, there's none of that for the sadist of the chief priests. They just continue to smash themselves against this rock, not recognizing that it's actually the rock that is crushing them.

[00:47:05] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it's, it's a bit like, I'm gonna speak like a little maybe beyond my depth here, but there's a little bit of like that Nathan, like Strategem, and then this is where I'm outside my own experience. And then a little bit like maybe like WWE the rock in terms of like. If you want some come and get some, right?

It's a little of both. And of course the passage ends very tragically, well ends humorously by them, you know, saying that at some point they were like, they understood in these parables, again, this is one of three of the same kind of topic of variety, but that Jesus was referring to them, which is funny.

You wanna be like, yeah, it took a, took a long enough, I guess, guys, but you finally got it. But then that last sentence of like, they still sought to kill him. So to your point, even after all of this, there wasn't repentance. And we do get these, I think, two very distinct judgements that are depicted here, which you've already kinda led us into this first, like, whoever shall fall on the stone shall be broken.

You know, to me, I think that's invoking this idea that in this life, there we are, we can be brought to brokenness through the gospel and to fall upon Christ. And repentance. And faith is to be broken in self, in pride and self-righteous. It's a breaking that does lead to healing. But this second judgment, you know the one, but on whomever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder, grind him to dust, I mean.

Man, think about what a vivid image that is. I mean, that's like the more terrible of the two. That that's like the, yeah. Final Es logical judgment of those who persist in unbelief and it, it admits there's like no remedy. So there are only two ways to relate to Christ. You either fall upon him willingly in faith and repentance, which is painful, but it is saving, you know, to have him fall upon us in judgment is final in damning, and so that's what Christ presents here.

[00:48:48] Psalm 118 in Context

[00:48:48] Jesse Schwamb: It's, it's both of these things and you're right, it is brilliant that he goes to Psalm one 18 even that as a setup, because as you've kind of already said, I love to think, of course that's, can you manner the tone in which this was said to these scribes and Pharisees? Because of course the, the secondary indictment here is like, listen, you guys who like your great pride is that, you know, the scriptures really well.

Have you read this part is familiar to you. Yeah. Can you tell me where that is? So like, we, we should go there just, just quickly. This is Psalm one 18 because I think that here again is, as I'm hearing it in context. There are some verses surrounding this that I think we might be surprised that they come right on the heels of this idea of the stone.

So just a couple verses. In Psalm one 18 being in verse 22, the stone, which the builders rejected, has become the chief cornerstone. This is from Yahweh. It is marvelous in our eyes. Here's the verses that we might not recognize. Come right after it. This is the day which Yahweh has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Oh, Yahweh, save. Oh, Yahweh, succeed. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of Yahweh. We have blessed you from the house of Yahweh. Yahweh is God, and he has given us light by the festival sacrifice with corns to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I give thanks to you. You are my God, and I exalt you.

Give thanks to Yahweh for his good, for his loving kindness endures forever. And so this idea that there's rejoicing in which day, I mean, usually we kinda say that it's like, well, it's a beautiful day out. It's the Lord's day. This is the day that Yahweh is like that. That's true. But also here in particular, it is this blessed day of Yahweh giving the stone, which the builders reject and which has become the chief cornerstone.

And that stone is some will run headlong into and shipwreck their lives and others will be crushed underneath it. And guess what? This is the day which Yahweh has made and we're gonna rejoice and be glad in that.

[00:50:41] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:50:43] Mark's Angle on Fear

[00:50:43] Tony Arsenal: The other thing I think, you know, we. Should, um, maybe not spend any time on, 'cause we're at like, out, like minute 50 of a 60 minute podcast.

But just going to, to Mark's version of this parable real quick. Um, starting in verse, uh, this is chapter 12, verse 12. It says, 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. And the, the main difference here, the reason I'm reading this is Mark chooses a d.

Concerning them. The verb is, or the preposition is Perry. So it's kind of like this idea that he was, he was sort of speaking around them. He was talking about them. Mark uses the, the preposition, proce, which is not, um, not against, in like the same, uh, direct sense. We might use the word against. That would be something like Kada.

Um, but he's, he's speaking this parable towards them or to them, um, against them. He's, he's directing the parable at them. And this is, this is, we, we commented on this a little bit in the, the first episode here. Um, he is speaking to the crowds. But he's telling the parable about or against or concerning the Pharisees and the scribes, and they perceive this, right.

The, the gospels here don't say that the crowds perceive this. Right. And I think that's key. Like the Pharisees basically look at this and say, uh, we better get this under control because he's talking about us. Right, right. Like, I'm just picturing Paul Washer's. I'm not trying to say Paul Washer is a Pharisee, although some people would probably make that connection.

But like I'm, I'm just hearing Paul Washer's voice saying like, I don't know why you're clapping. I'm talking about you. He's speaking to the Pharisees here. And it's interesting because Matthew associates the, the, uh, Pharisees. Cowardice in acting against Christ, uh, because they fear the crowds and because the crowds believe Christ is a parable or is a prophet Mark associates.

And again, both of these things are true, right? This is holy scripture. This is inspired, these are not contradictory accounts. This is facets of the same diamond. Mark associates this with, they fear the crowds. Um, because they had taken him. They, they understood that the parable was being spoken against them, right?

So there's this element that the Pharisees are not only understanding that the, the parable is about them, they feared them because the crowds believe that Christ is a prophet and that prophet is speaking this parable against them, right? So like they're, they're recognizing full on that it's only a matter of time before the, the general population, the general people that are listening to Christ recognize that he's overturning.

Not only the Pharisees, the entire geopolitical nation of Israel, he's overturning the ethnic based reality, the geopolitical based reality, that God's people have a zip code and that zip code is Jerusalem. That zip code is this little si, this little tract of land the size of like Vermont and New Hampshire in the Mediterranean, like off the Mediterranean Sea.

He's overturning that. And the, the Pharisees, the educated people, the, the Sadducees, the chief priests, the rulers, they recognize it's only a matter of time before the people understand what Christ is doing. They, they follow him as a prophet and this is what he's prophesying. And rather than, rather than, um.

You know, I think of like Nicodemus or Joseph Ram that are like part of this class of people that actually seem to get it rather than go, okay, he's doing it, he's doing the thing. We better get on board. They just continue to smash their heads against this wall.

[00:54:51] Jesse Schwamb: Yes,

[00:54:52] Tony Arsenal: they just continue to bash themselves against the rock of ages and rather than learn, rather than submit to this, they shatter themselves and they crush themselves.

[00:55:01] Submitting as Cornerstone

[00:55:01] Tony Arsenal: And I guess this is where, I don't know, maybe this is like the Puritan turn in me, like I guess this is where I want to say like, how often are we smashing ourselves against Christ, right? Instead of submitting to him that I think if, if we want to take a, a practical turn here, that's really what we need to look at.

Again, no one who is truly justified. No one who is truly. Uh, converted who, who has true faith and trust in Christ. I am not in the business of stealing away the insur, the assurance of Christians. That is not my thing. Assurance is the right and privilege and inheritance of every Christian full stop.

Right

[00:55:35] Jesse Schwamb: on.

[00:55:35] Tony Arsenal: Right. It is of the essence of faith. It's just not so of the essence of faith that it can't be shaken. That's what the Westminster Confession teaches, right? But the reality is that we can continue to smash our heads against that rock. We can continue to, to look at the cornerstone and say like, ah, maybe I'm the cornerstone.

Maybe I'm the measure of, of righteousness. Maybe I'm the one that measures whether or not God's law applies here. Eh, I don't know. Like Christ seems to say that if you're gonna set yourself up as the cornerstone, if you're gonna try to take the inheritance for your own, that's not gonna go well for you.

And even as c, even as Christians who are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and have faith in Christ, and who ultimately will be saved from our own foolishness and folly, ah, we still, that still is not gonna go well for us if we are not gonna be able to submit to, to Christ as the cornerstone and the, the, the stone that aligns all things and makes all, every, all other things straight, all other things, regular, all other things, right?

That, that's what the cornerstone does. So this is not only just a parable, but what would happen, uh, or I should say the parable is about what happens when this particular group of people tries to set themselves up as the cornerstone, the application and where Christ takes this application is like, I think it's broader than that.

It is applied to this particular people. But when we look at it, we go, well man, I really don't want to be like those Pharisees when, when they do this.

[00:56:59] Jesse Schwamb: Right.

[00:57:00] Fear of Man Exposed

[00:57:00] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, practically speaking, I think those concluding verses, they definitely demonstrate again this profound sovereignty of God, at least the doctrine of God's providential restraint of evil.

Until this sour was come, no man could lay a hand on Christ, and it was the fear of the people, which was the means by which God preserved his son until they appointed time of his sacrificial death. That's fascinating because the Pharisees were free agents in their wickedness. They were bound by sovereign decree until the father's hour arrived for his own son, and so I would say as well, maybe one of the profound things I've been thinking about that we can draw out of this for a practical application is that it seems to me demonstrated here and elsewhere that the fear of man, rather than the fear of God is shown to dominate.

Wicked. That's always the way it is. Yeah. So this idea of not submitting ourselves to Christ, I think one of the ways that we can find that we can move ourselves by God's grace, by the power of the Holy Spirit into increasing levels of submission is to understand where our fear lies. If our fear is in God himself, we're trusting ourselves completely to him, then I think we know that we're more aligned.

If we tend to find ourselves fearing man on various ways, which we're gonna be prone to do because we're sinful, I think that is a wake up call to understand that that is what dominates the perspective and the worldview and the purview of the wicked. In the same way. To go back to you bringing up Joseph again, this reminds me of, you know, when Joseph brothers, they go and visit him, they take the green back, and I, I, for some reason, I find this scene funny.

I'm sure it's not funny, but they open up the sacks in the head of the sacks, they find all of their money returned, and I, I guess I would be the same way, but instead of like being like, well that is weird. That seems like a really innocent and weird mistake. How do they react? They're like I told you, it's because now what's being paid back to us is because we sold Joseph to slavery.

Yeah. Like the wicked always looks over their shoulder. They're always fearful of man. And so the multitudes recognition of Jesus as a prophet while. Inadequate because of, certainly he's more than a prophet, is yet a witness to the testimony of the spirit working through the works in the words of Christ here.

But that is not enough. Like we said before, the drawing that Jesus was doing was to the common people who hurt him gladly. It was to the sinners who recognize that he spoke with authority and who are willing to submit themselves because they perhaps were the ones that understood what it meant to be broken, that they needed healing and that they recognized that they were already broken, but that they wanted to come before the rock who could break them wide open, as it were, to do the complete and full restorative healing that only he could provide.

And so, you're right, it is like the blessing and the promise and the right of God's children to call out to God in humility for this kind of healing. That only he can do. And by healing really, I mean like the giving of eternal life, the, the true saving of the inner man, that selfish part of ourselves, which wants to rebel just like the Pharisees, which is willing to condemn ourselves with that Nathan, like Strategem, and yet to refuse to see that it is in fact ourselves.

Who are we speaking about? It is that kind of Christ and Savior that we need so that we can then get to Romans eight and say there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because he is the rock of ages, the cleft for me. So I, I agree with you. This is that we've said it before in other ways.

This is the one wall you cannot run through. When you come up against this stone, you're not just gonna bounce off. You're gonna be pulverized, and you don't want this stone coming against you and crushing you and grinding you into powder, as it were in that final ESOL judgment. So the call, the clearing call, loved ones, as you've said, Tony, is to examine yourself to see whether or not you are into faith to test and see what you're doing with this one who has been laid as the cornerstone.

[01:00:51] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.

[01:00:53] Wrap Up and Next Parable

[01:00:53] Tony Arsenal: Well, I think that's a good place for us to wrap it up. Uh, although we're not really wrapping it up, because next week when we come back in, we're gonna be talking about, uh, the parable of the wedding feast in, uh, chapter 22.

[01:01:07] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.

[01:01:07] Tony Arsenal: Which, uh, is in many ways the same parable with a slightly different angle.

And, and I think this is, this is part of, like, I initially wanted to say, like, this is a, this is a softer version of the parable, but as you were speaking, I was kind of like glancing through it, kind of getting ready to jump in here. And it's not really all that much softer. It's a different angle, right.

It's a different perspective on the same basic truth. So th this is just like Christ as the master teacher, right? He doesn't just leave the Pharisees with his one, uh. It's obviously not ambiguous what he's saying, but he gives them no excuse because he tells them the same basic parable three times in a row just to make sure that they get it just so that their condemnation is just, so we will put a pin in that and we will come back to that next week.

And Jesse, this is such a great series that I've just really enjoyed working through. And you know, it's funny because when we talk offline, we're kind of like, why don't we just talk about the Bible more? Um, I love systematic theology. I love doing church history stuff. Me too. And I think those are all really, really important and valuable.

But there's something very sweet and, and something about like the episodes planned themselves and write themselves and do themselves, like when we're just talking about the scriptures. So I've really enjoyed working through the parables. I've really enjoyed the feedback that we're getting. Um, I do some Google Analytics stuff on our podcast episodes.

We don't use the.

Uh, I'll toss our episode statistics into Google or into to Google Gemini and ask it to analyze it. This parable series has been easily our most, uh, our most downloaded and most, um, accessed series in all time. Um, when you look at the way that podcast statistics are calculated, there's a, there's a weird little thing that happens that coincides both with COVID, uh, and also with some changes in the ways podcast statistics are calculated, um, that everybody saw a huge drop in their statistics, um, around, you know, 20 22, 20 23.

But when you account for that blip, this, this series has been well received, better. Received than any other, uh, content we've ever provided, which is saying a lot. 'cause we've had some really popular series, some really, uh, really widespread series. So this one has hit a nerve and I'm really, really, really feeling it.

I'm really, really here for it.

[01:03:29] Community and Support

[01:03:29] Tony Arsenal: So if Jesse, if other people are here and they're feeling it and they wanna let us know about that, how would they do that?

[01:03:35] Jesse Schwamb: Well, we know they're feeling it. So really what you need to do is come hang out with us. And the best way to do that is we have a little corner of the internet through an app called Telegram, where there's a bunch of listeners, brothers and sisters from all around the globe who are dialoguing with each other, with us, about the episodes, about all kinds of topics.

So you've heard it enough from us. So we're just saying to you, why not now? Why not now? Why not you? So if you wanna come find that place, all you have to do is go to your favorite browser and go to t Me Reform Brotherhood, t me slash reform brotherhood. One more time. For those of you Baptist, in the back, in the pew still t me slash reform brotherhoodhood.

[01:04:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and it's a great little place to come hang out, um, per constantly. Actually, I think one of the most. Busy. The most frequented channels in our group is the prayer request channel, which I love. Right on. Um, people are constantly bringing requests. People are genuinely praying for those requests, often typing out their prayers that they're praying for their brothers and sisters.

Um, there's a. Section four charitable baptism discussions, which is actually a charitable discussion that's going on as an ongoing discussion's, a place for memes. There's a place like if you wanna taste an interesting food and take a video of your face when you do it, uh, you can do that. Um, so please do join us.

And one last thing, you know, Jesse and I are. Veteran podcasters who do everything wrong. If you're still listening to this, then you're already a faithful listener and we're doing all of the stuff in the wrong order. That's right. Um, there is a small, relatively small group of people who make this podcast possible in a very real sense.

Um, you know, there's not a ton of overhead to run a podcast, but there's some, and it's getting more because everything is getting more expensive. And there is a group of people who, um, who faithfully donate each month to allow us to continue podcasting. Um, we had. Some, you know, some technical issues. A while back we had to make a switch to a different, uh, different way for Jesse and I to connect.

Uh, there's hosting fees that are getting more expensive If a microphone or a laptop breaks, we need to have funds to cover that. Uh, and so there's a group of people who, who contribute to allow us to be able to do that without having to tap into our personal finances, which is, is a huge blessing. I think we would probably still figure out how to make it work if we had to, but the fact that we don't is a huge blessing.

So thank you to those who are contributing financially, and please do consider it if you, if that's something that, you know, you're listening to this and you're going, you know, I benefit from the podcast and I fulfilled my obligations to my local church and my family, and all my bills are paid, and I'd like to do something about it.

What you can do is go to patreon.com/reform brotherhood. Uh, you can sign up to do a monthly, uh, donation of any amount. We don't have tears. We're not giving away any special swag at this time. Um, you're not gonna get special access to early podcasts or anything. There's lots of podcasts that do that, and that's great, but that's just not us.

Um, but what we're doing is we're making sure that, uh, we're able to continue producing the podcast. If that's something you're interested in, go to patreon.com/reform brotherhood and uh, join the team.

[01:06:37] Final Gospel Warning

[01:06:37] Jesse Schwamb: So what have we learned in this whole conversation, and maybe to wrap up this entire parable? Well, it seems clear that the Lordship of Christ established in his threefold role, he's the rejected stone.

He's the cornerstone, he's the consuming stone, and the call of the gospel is pressed home in this passage with double urgency. Either we fall upon Christ now and be saved through brokenness, or he will fall upon us then and grind us into everlasting powder. So there's no neutral ground. The vineyard of God is still let out, the fruit is still demanded, loved ones, the cornerstones still laid.

Blessed are they who receive him and also get those babies into church.

[01:07:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. Amen to that, Jesse. So until next time, until we come back and continue on this sort of parable trilogy, Jesse, honor everyone

[01:07:26] Jesse Schwamb: Love the brotherhood.

In this powerful episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse dive deep into Matthew 21:33-46, examining Jesus's parable of the wicked tenants. The hosts unpack how Christ masterfully draws the Pharisees into pronouncing their own condemnation, revealing not merely theological error but intentional usurpation of God's authority. Through careful exegesis, they explore the shocking setup of the parable—where the landowner does all the work while the tenants contribute nothing—and how this mirrors God's sovereign initiative in salvation. The discussion touches on confession, the value of full-time ministry, and the scandal of rejecting the Messiah despite recognizing His authority. This episode challenges listeners to examine whether they, like the Pharisees, attempt to claim God's work as their own.

Key Takeaways

• God Does All the Verbs: The parable emphasizes that the landowner planted, built, protected, and prepared everything—the tenants contributed nothing yet claimed ownership of the fruit.
• Self-Pronounced Condemnation: Jesus draws the Pharisees into declaring their own judgment, demonstrating that even the unregenerate conscience bears witness to divine justice (Romans 2).
• Intentional Usurpation, Not Mere Error: The Pharisees weren't well-intentioned but misguided; they recognized Christ's authority as the heir and deliberately murdered Him to seize His inheritance.
• The Scandal of Grace: The parable's shocking element is that the landowner prepared everything before leasing the land—far exceeding normal agricultural arrangements and illustrating God's unmerited favor.
• Ecclesial Support for Ministry: The OPC presbytery's decision to fund a full-time call demonstrates how church structure can honor the ministry of Word and sacrament by freeing ministers from worldly distractions.
• Particular Repentance Matters: Westminster Confession 15.5 teaches that believers should not content themselves with general repentance but "endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly."
• The Stone Rejected Becomes Chief: Christ's citation of Psalm 118 reveals that the very rejection by the builders (religious leaders) was God's plan to establish the cornerstone of salvation.

Key Concepts God Does All the Verbs

The concentration of action verbs attributed solely to the landowner in Matthew 21:33 is theologically significant. The landowner plants, builds, digs, and rents—creating a fully functional, productive vineyard before the tenants ever arrive. This arrangement differs radically from typical first-century agricultural practices, where tenants would lease raw land and develop it themselves, sharing profits with the landowner. Jesus deliberately presents an extraordinary scenario where the tenants receive everything prepared and ready, requiring only stewardship of what already exists. This parallels God's sovereign initiative in election and salvation: believers contribute nothing to their standing before God, receiving instead a fully accomplished redemption. The Pharisees' rebellion wasn't against burdensome requirements but against simply acknowledging God's rightful ownership of what He alone created.

Intentional Usurpation, Not Mere Error

The hosts challenge the common sympathetic reading of the Pharisees as well-intentioned legalists who simply got sidetracked. Instead, verse 38 reveals the tenants explicitly recognize the son as heir and plot to murder him to "seize his inheritance." This isn't accidental rejection but calculated rebellion. The Pharisees weren't confused about Jesus's identity or authority—they understood precisely who He claimed to be and deliberately chose to destroy Him rather than submit. This interpretation carries significant weight for understanding the nature of unbelief: it's not primarily intellectual confusion but volitional rebellion. The religious leaders didn't need more evidence or clearer teaching; they needed transformed hearts. This same dynamic appears whenever humans recognize divine truth yet choose self-sovereignty over submission to God's rightful claim on their lives.

The Scandal of Grace

The parable begins with a scandalous premise that would have startled Jesus's original audience. Unlike normal tenant farming arrangements where landowners simply provided land in exchange for a share of whatever the tenants produced through their own labor, this landowner invests everything. He doesn't just own the property—he plants the vineyard, constructs the protective wall, digs the wine press for production, and builds the watchtower for defense. The tenants receive a turnkey operation requiring minimal effort. This extravagant preparation mirrors God's unmerited favor toward Israel and, by extension, the church. God didn't merely create humanity and wait to see what we would produce; He established covenants, sent prophets, preserved His Word, and ultimately sent His Son—all before requiring any response. The only "payment" demanded is acknowledging His ownership of what He created. The parable thus exposes the absurdity and ingratitude of claiming God's work as our own achievement.

Memorable Quotes

God does all the verbs. All of the verbs are done by the landowner. There is nothing expected of these tenants—they really add nothing to the landowner's land.

Christ is not painting the Pharisees as well-intentioned but ultimately wrong. He's painting them as usurpers who recognize the proper authority and rather than submitting to it, they're going to reject that authority and try to take it for their own.

Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man's duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly. (Westminster Confession 15.5)

Transcript

Welcome to episode 491 of the Reformed Brotherhood.

I'm Jesse.

[00:01:12] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.

[00:01:17] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.

[00:01:18] Parable of Tenants

[00:01:18] Jesse Schwamb: So picture this, Tony, your landlord. You've built the perfect vineyard. We're talking wall watchtower, wine, press, the works like what everybody says. Everybody knows you need all those things. You've got it all set up, and then you hand the keys to some tenants.

You take a long trip, you go enjoy yourself. And when the harvest rolls around, you send your servants to collect the rent. And shockingly, your tenants, they beat. Stone. Another, the kill a third. So naturally you think, you know what? I'll fix this. Lemme just send more people. That's obviously the problem.

There's some kind of just profound misunderstanding about what's going on here and about our relationship in this business. And then when that doesn't work, you send your son now loved ones. If this were a business strategy, we would already be calling hr. But of course it's not a business strategy, it's a parable.

And Jesus is telling it to the very people about to prove the parable true. So welcome back to the Reformed Brotherhood because we're in Matthew Chapter 21 and we're gonna be actually getting all the way into the parable of the Vine growers where the patience of God looks, I would say, to almost anybody else, to humanize at least almost reckless until you realize that's exactly the point.

So yeah, grab your beverage of choice, grab your Bible, pull the car over, will you? Because this is gonna get real and we're going to reason together. But before we do all of that, let's do a little affirming with or denying against, what do you got?

[00:02:41] Inside Baseball Affirmation

[00:02:41] Tony Arsenal: So this is a sort of inside baseball, uh, affirmation. Um, I'm not sharing anything, although it may feel like I'm sharing something that is private and like, uh, like confidential.

It's not No, this is good. Um, so I had the opportunity to visit. Um, my presbytery, um, for those who are listeners of the show or people who like, have been with us a long time, um, I was part of a Baptist church. Uh, I've always kind of been a Presbyterian at heart, but, um, our church closed, uh, a little over a year and a half ago now.

And, um, uh, I've joined an OPC congregation in membership now. We've been members there for about a year. And, um, so I've been visiting Presbytery, which is the, the meeting of all of the leadership of all of the churches. So we won't do a polity breakdown here, but basically like, it's, it's the regional meeting.

It's the regional business meeting or church meeting for a group of churches in the OPC, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And so a lot of the meetings, you know, have the normal kind of business type stuff. You have reports from different committee committees and stuff. Um.

[00:03:48] Presbytery Call Debate

[00:03:48] Tony Arsenal: Where this is affirmation is coming in here is at this most recent presbytery meeting, um, was pretty heavy on, um, licensing or, or, uh, not licensing on approving men who had received a call to formal ministry within the presbytery.

And so in the OPC, and I would imagine that other Presbyterian bodies are not like super different, although I'm sure there's some variation in the OPC. Um, when a church intends to extend a call to a pastor, to a teaching elder, um, to a minister, they must have the call, which is. Is both theological but is also eminently practical.

Like the call is a physical piece of paper that details, you know, what the pay is, how much vacation time. So it's kind of a combination between like a theological call and also a contract. Um, the presbytery has to approve that call. And so at this most recent one, there was a couple calls that were more or less uncontroversial.

There was no question about them, and they were approved pretty quickly. But there was one call, um, one call to ministry that took, I, I, I didn't time it, but it was probably like four or five hours of debate and discussion in various fashion in order to get to a point where the presbytery could approve the call.

So this was a call to a minister who is being called part-time, which is unusual in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Um, the OPC uh, acknowledges the fact that bivocational tent making ministry is sometimes a necessity, but really views the ministry of the word in sacrament as something that should not have.

Distractions. And actually our book of church order talks about, doesn't use the word distraction, I think, but it talks about a, a properly ordered call to a full-time minister includes phrasing that the congregation promises to compensate them in a way that allows them to be free of worldly burdens and cares.

And I might have not, not have gotten that wording exactly right. But that's the idea. And so this call was. Explicitly, um, not a full-time call it, they actually took the language out of promising to pay him in a way that he's able to ignore or to not be distracted by worldly care. And that was intentional, but there was a lot of question in discussion at presbytery level about the fact that the call did not include the phrase or the wording of part-time or bivocational.

So the conversation started out of like, can this call be modified to include that? So it's explicitly known in this man's call that his calling is part-time, which is both theological, to make sure that the call is properly formatted, but also like very practical that the congregation should acknowledge explicitly that they recognize that this person is not, not going to be putting, you know, 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week towards this position.

[00:06:34] Jesse Schwamb: Right.

[00:06:34] Tony Arsenal: Um. What I'm affirming is where it got to, right? So there was lots of discussion about that. There was some finagling about the retirement package. The OPC recommends that a, a minister be given a retirement contribution of no less than 5% a year of his salaried package. Um, which there's a couple line items that go into that, but 5%, and this was a little bit less than that.

And this is what I'm affirming and this, I, I don't know that this is a super widespread thing that would happen all across the, um, the OPC, but it happened in the presbytery of New York and New England this past week, and it's just amazing. And I just, I just want to lay it out there and then I want to hear your reaction.

[00:07:13] Funding Full Time Ministry

[00:07:13] Tony Arsenal: And I, I wanna hear your reaction as the son of a minister who labored his entire adult, more or less, his entire adult career in ministry, working two or three additional jobs on top of his ministry, the presbytery decided. That because it did not like the idea of a part-time minister. They didn't think that was appropriate.

They didn't think that that was good or that that was really the right goal. The presbytery allocated, I'm not gonna say the figures 'cause they're not super germane, but allocated a significant amount of money to be dis to be dispersed to the church for the next three years in order to take what was a part-time call and enable it to become a full-time call.

[00:07:54] Jesse Schwamb: Wow.

[00:07:54] Tony Arsenal: And so there are a lot of, there are a lot of church bodies that would say, yeah, we don't love the idea of bi-vocational ministry. You know, we really think it's ideal that a minister could be full-time. Um, they may even put some, some theological freight behind that. Um, I have never encountered a body, um.

That was willing to put a sizable amount of money towards essentially supplementing a part-time call to make it full-time. Um, this was just amazing to me, and the candidate was there. I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but I would love to talk to him about what he felt. I, I can just imagine the phone call to his wife who was not, not at presbytery, but to his wife, following the outcome of this to be like, you are never gonna believe what just happened.

Right? This is a family who was intending to move across country. Right. He's currently a student at Westminster, California in seminary, uh, California, Westminster Seminary in California, finishing his M Div. They're planning a cross country move into a part-time position where she's probably gonna have to find a job, and then also he's gonna have to find a part-time job.

He had the ability to call her on the break and be like, you're never gonna guess what just happened? You're never gonna,

[00:09:09] Jesse Schwamb: it's wild.

[00:09:09] Tony Arsenal: Uh, sorry, I'm getting a little emotional here. You're never going to. Believe how faithful God is in this. Right. So I'm interested to hear your reaction to that as the son of a, of a try and quad at times Quad vocational.

Yeah,

[00:09:23] Jesse Schwamb: for sure.

[00:09:23] Tony Arsenal: Minister who labored his entire, more or less, his entire adult career, um, working full-time in a call as a part-time, part-time minister. You know, like that's a, that's a crazy situation. So I'm just affirming that again, I don't know how common that kind of thing is in the OPC. I don't wanna make it seem like that's the norm.

Um, I actually get the sense that this is probably not the norm, but it was amazing to see and it made me in intensely like. Proud in the right way of being a part of this broader body that would, would so emphasize and so value the ministry of the word and the sacrament, and the importance of a man being able to dedicate himself to that without distraction.

That they would put forward this amount of money and this kind of money. They had no reason to do so. And there's no real direct benefit to the presbytery for doing this. I mean, there's an indirect benefit of like not having a church with a part-time minister, but like there's no direct benefit to this.

There's no direct return on investments that's gonna come out of this. Um, it was pretty amazing to see. It was, it was, it was super encouraging.

[00:10:28] Jesse Schwamb: That is really encouraging. I, I think it's, there's no doubt that for the called pastor, their heart is in the ministry of the word. That's what they want to be doing.

They wanna be doing it all the time and as much time as they possibly can, and they wanna be able to have all of their intentional focus on it. So I. I'm excited for that guy. I mean, that's just an incredible blessing to go in hoping for funding, essentially for a part-time role and to basically be told, no, no, no, no, that's, that's not enough.

We want you to be committed to this fully as we know your heart is committed. As we validated that call.

[00:11:00] Why Structure Matters

[00:11:00] Jesse Schwamb: I do love being a part of churches, well, lemme say it this way. There is, I think, a benefit of being part of congregations that have like a wide resource network that has like appropriate hierarchy and structure and that can be one of them.

I've seen something similar in the Christian Missionary Alliance, which is the church that I'm in, not exactly the same, but I've seen some surprising allocations of resources where they basically said, you know, this is important. Like, it even trumps we're, we're gonna. Allocate or resource something so that this can move forward because it is important in a way that was like better than the person who was bringing it before them could have hoped for.

Yeah. And uh, suddenly it's as if everything aligned. And it was really in part because there was this structure to come alongside, to validate as you're saying, and then to authenticate and then again to resource assets that could be used. There's, there's something to be said for that interdependency where there is kind of this hierarchical structure in which all that's happening at a level where things are codified.

And again, like there's a structure and a way in which we move through those decisions to make sure that they suit the objective of the entire movement. So I guess there's nothing I'll say, but that's a beautiful thing, isn't it?

[00:12:14] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:15] Generosity in Action

[00:12:15] Tony Arsenal: It was, it was, it was cool because it was like this, it was like this real.

Actualization of the principle of outdoing one another and showing honor. Yeah, sure. Because you know, like the initial debate was like, Hey, you know, I'm not sure we can approve this call because the, the OPCs guidelines tell us not to approve a call that has less than 5% of the retirement benefit. And there was a lot of discussion of like, well, the presbytery can't modify the call, but we don't wanna delay this guy coming in and like, we don't wanna delay his ordination, his installation.

And so the initial proposal was a, a. What feels like a large amount of money to me. But after I understood more about the, the budget of what's going on in, in the presbytery was actually a very small amount of money. Started with a very tiny, very modest proposal of basically like supplementing the retirement fund to make sure that like we could, they, I say we, like, I was part of this, I was just observing, but to supplement the retirement fund in a way that allowed the church to still proceed with the call as written, but still also make sure that this person had the appropriate retirement fund.

And then that just basically was like, there would be some instruction given to the church that like, you've gotta bump this up in the next budget cycle. Like you've gotta get to the 5%. That's, that's the expectation. It went from that. And like I said, I won't give you the specific numbers, but one of the presbyters and I, I'm, I, um, I, I've known this presbyter from a distance for quite a long time and, and I have an immense amount of respect for him.

He stood up and he's like, well, if we're gonna give X, why don't we just give 10 times X instead? And then actually, like the discussion was like, well, is, are we sure that 10 times X is even the right amount? Why don't we have this particular group meet over the lunch break and figure out whether that's the right number and then come back after lunch and we'll vote on it.

And then they came back after lunch and it was actually a number that was even greater than 10 times X. So it was like this exercise in like. This very small proposal that was still imminently generous, right? The presbytery has no obligation to do this. There's no obligation from any of the presbyters to stand up and say like, we should.

We should supplement this fund. They would've been well within their right, and no one would've looked, I think. I think some people would've been frustrated by it, but I don't think anyone would've looked sideways at it or thought it was sinful. If the presbytery just said like, we can't approve this call.

You guys are gonna have to come back with it and we'll vote on it at the next presbytery. Like that would've been problematic. This, this kind of poor guy who's coming outta seminary, his call and his beginning of employment would've been delayed, but like. That would've been good and orderly, but instead they were like, one, we don't want this pulpit to stay empty longer.

We don't wanna disadvantage this guy who's just getting done with seminary. We want him to get started. We don't wanna discourage him. So here's a small proposal, a very modest amount of money that we can put forward for this purpose. And then it was like, let's just keep seeing how much closer to a real full-time call we can get.

And they finally came back and said like, we're gonna do this. We're gonna do this in a wise fashion. They structured it. So like the first year he gets more, the second year he gets a little bit less. The third year the church gets a little bit less with the idea that like each year the church should be adjusting their budget to compensate and get this guy to that with the, the hope that like with a full-time minister, they're able to grow their congregation to the point where they can support a full-time minister.

So it was just this really cool, super encouraging exercise. And what I loved about it is the only real debate that was going on was about do we need to do more? There was no one being like, wait a second, why are we, why are we putting more money to this? The whole thing was like, is this actually enough to accomplish what we think God wants to do with this person's call?

Because if, if God is truly calling this man to this, this particular church, and we believe that he is. Then what do we as a, as a people of God need to do to enable that call to look like what we actually believe calls to ministry are supposed to look like, which is a full-time call to ministry that is undistracted by the cares of the world.

What do we need to do? The answer in this case was like, I think we need to put a sizable amount of money to it. Um, it's a, I mean, and again. I'm not gonna say it on the air. It was not a small chunk of change. Um, it was, it was a, it was a large amount of money that was devoted to this cause and that just goes to show how much this body values the importance of a full-time minister of the word, so.

[00:16:50] Jesse Schwamb: Right.

[00:16:51] OPC Love and Recommendation

[00:16:51] Tony Arsenal: That's enough about that. I, I could gush about how proud I am to be a part of this body and how encouraged I am and how amazing it was and how awesome this, this guy, how, how much this guy must be thanking God for the providence and like, this is the last thing. I'll say this, this young man younger than me, I think he's graduating seminary.

I saw him across the room. He looks like he's probably in his mid twenties, right? Young guy. He's got a wife doesn't have kids yet coming into this ministry, not only is he coming into this ministry, but as a Presbyterian minister, when he's installed as the minister of this church. He will be joining this body of presbyters as the, as his brothers like.

He is not a member of the local church. He's a member of the presbytery, which is the regional church. So now he's coming into this fully supported by his brothers in the presbytery that he saw go to the mat to make sure he was properly taken care of, that the congregation was not unintentionally taking advantage of his labor, but also that he knows that all of these men are willing to do what they need to do to make sure that his ministry is successful and edifies the church like that is.

Uh, I don't want to gush on Presbyterianism too much, but like that is Presbyterianism at peak form, right? This is the body of elders making sure that every church in the region, even the ones they're not directly ministering in, has what it needs to succeed and to honor God and to do what needs to happen.

So I'm affirming the presbytery of New York and New England and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Um, I have been so blessed by knowing many of these presbyters. I've been so blessed by being a part of the congregation that I am. There are lots of really great churches and really great denominations out there.

If you are looking for a church and there is an OPC congregation in your area, absolutely go check it out. I know it feels stuffy sometimes, and I will admit, like sometimes it feels a little bit overly traditional in terms of like just the vibe of the congregation,

[00:18:52] Jesse Schwamb: right?

[00:18:52] Tony Arsenal: But press past that because I don't think, I don't think you will find, um.

You may find lots of congregations that are as faithful. I don't think you're gonna find many that are more faithful than your average OPC congregation. So I could be wrong. I just, I just love the OPC. I just really, really love it. So that's my affirmation. What do you got for us, Jesse?

[00:19:18] Denial Catholic Confession Math

[00:19:18] Jesse Schwamb: I think I got denial, which is maybe a little bit unusual for me.

[00:19:21] Tony Arsenal: As long as you're not denying the OPCI think we're fine.

[00:19:23] Jesse Schwamb: No, it's, it's not, it is church related and I, I'll try to keep it short 'cause I think I can make this way longer than it, it probably should be, but lemme think how to phrase this. So, I don't know with a devil negative, I guess when I'm a denying against is maybe not enough confession by your own standard.

So the, I'm gonna try to make this so brief. I, I just happened to be out with my wife this afternoon and we had to run errands. We got stuck in traffic and this gave me longer than usual to sit in front of our. Very local and very large Catholic church. So I happen to be looking at their sign. It's a very large congregation.

I've been actually been in this one on a couple of occasions for funerals. So not only do I know its size and scope, but again, if you get, if you get on this road at the wrong time on the Lord's day, you're gonna be stuck for a long time because there are so many people that attend. I say that because I noticed on the sign that there were three times for mass on the Lord's Day.

So that also says something about the number of people coming through. And then on the sign though, underneath it said for confessions, go to our website. Mm-hmm. So I was like, man, I gotta lick this up because I can't tell if they're telling me I can confess on the website or if it's go to the website for the times.

And I said to my wife, only half jokingly, if I can confess online, I'm gonna confess something. So I went to, I went to the website and, and sure enough it was almost disappointingly. It was just the times.

[00:20:45] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:20:46] Jesse Schwamb: Here's what I've found interesting, which just launched me into this like deep rabbit hole.

There were three times for confession. Two of those times were just a half an hour, and the third time was an hour. So, uh, what I did was I went through, actually, I think what they had on there was, was three full hours a week. It was a little bit confusing, but I think it was three full hours. Now I think about it.

So I went back, I just couldn't help myself, Tony. So I started to think, alright, let's say. I think it's fair to assume

[00:21:15] Tony Arsenal: math, Jesse is kicking in right now. Yes. You're gonna calculate how many minutes per, per person is what you're doing. I'm thinking, ah,

[00:21:22] Jesse Schwamb: yeah, it's something like that. So what I thought was, I don't think it's, uh, I was gonna be conservative.

I wanna be fair. I wanna be fair. So, and now we should say like, I think most people realize that the Catholic understanding of confession and the Protestant one is, is very different. The Catholic sacrament of confession is the right through which Catholics are gonna confess their sins to a priest receive absolution, and it's gonna restore the relationship with God in the church.

And, and they're gonna believe that the priest acts as a person of Christ and is bound by the seal of confession and an absolute kind of obligation. Uh, of course never to reveal what was disclosed during that process. So, by the way, the website that I went to, lovely instructions. I mean, I was like, wow. I was reading it to my wife who was, uh, not familiar with this at all, and she was like, they can make you do stuff.

And I was like, well, yeah. I mean, obviously like there's, there's a portion of this where there's contrition or penant penance. It could be a prayer, it could be act of charity, like all kinds of stuff. So I went back and I thought. I don't think it's unreasonable that there's 350 persons that would say, let's say an average, uh, that would wanna take part of confession.

Now, let's say that they did that at, at least monthly, just once a month. And, and I don't know how people's conviction is on that, but I'm gonna say conservatively once a month. Let's say that, and I don't think this is unreasonable, Tony, but you tell me. Let's say you're, you're trucking, you're moving through confession.

Let's say it's five minutes a piece. So we're up to 1,750 minutes, uh, per month. That's the demand on the priest because I was, I was looking at this time and I was thinking something is strange here to me, so. That was the demand then, and I'll spare you the other math, which could be very long and un uninteresting.

I'm coming up with, you'd need 2.24, two and a quarter priests, which of course you can't have a quarter priests or a quarter person for any reason. So you'd hire, you'd hire three priests, which satisfy the demand if, and the major assumptions here, that is like everybody can't show up at the same time.

Obviously, I'm assuming that like everybody has their own time, they're spreading it out. So everybody gets the confession, but it's just five minutes. And I, I have no idea. I mean, if you're a Luther, that's certainly not sufficient time.

[00:23:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:23:20] Jesse Schwamb: And you would need three priests. Now here's the thing that I just kind of backed into that, besides like three being like, okay, that, that's, you would need three priests just to satisfy this congregation.

If they're confessing for five minutes, once per month. Uh, by the way, if you said, well, half the congregation is going to go weekly, uh, then you, you would double the number of priests you need to 5.98 or six. But here's, here's the bottom line for me. This is why the denial comes in about maybe not enough, is.

If you were just to distill that down to like, if you could have one priest cover that time, that there's a demand for like 779.4 hours, or excuse me, minutes of confession, that priest would only be allocating approximately like seven and a half percent of their working hours, their work toward handling confession.

This seems like not enough confession given the standards of confession in the Catholic church. And again, I know that I'm, I'm now allocating that to one priest and I just told everybody you need three. That's true. So if you had these three now, if you hired three just to meet the demand, that would only be about like three and a half or a little under three and a half percent of their combined time.

So the denial is Catholics, I think, unless I'm way off in some of my assumptions here, you might not be confessing enough by your own standards because

[00:24:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:24:34] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, that seems like not enough time.

[00:24:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:39] Ritual Faithfulness Explained

[00:24:39] Tony Arsenal: I mean, I think, um. I don't want to be too bombastic here, but I think,

[00:24:46] Jesse Schwamb: I think I already started this on this

[00:24:48] Tony Arsenal: path.

Maybe this, maybe this isn't all that bombastic. Um, because this is so much about ritual and actually I say this is gonna sound really, we, we go, but trying to think from the Roman Catholic perspective, it's actually not, and I'll I'll tell you a brief story, uh, to explain it. Um, a lot of Roman Catholics are just going through the motions.

[00:25:13] Jesse Schwamb: That's true.

[00:25:14] Tony Arsenal: But the point, the, the, the point of contention actually is that going through the motions is valuable for the Roman Catholic, right? So I, I knew this, uh, this young woman when I was in college who was a Roman Catholic, and we had many discussions about, about the differences between Protestantism and and Roman Catholicism.

And what I came to understand is that going to mass for her. Itself was an act of faith. And so for the Roman Catholic, the concept of, of faith is different than the concept that Protestants operate under. So for the Roman Catholic who, um, goes to mass, even when they feel like they're, like, when they think they're just going through the motions, going through the motions is itself the act of faith.

And that's because for most of Roman Catholics, most of Roman Catholicism, faith really equals faithfulness, right? So, so doing the act is the act of faithfulness. Doing the act is faith. Where for the Protestant, like faith is about belief and trust and knowledge. Like it's, it's an. Not entirely intellectual, but it's, it's an inward thing for the Roman Catholic faith is an out is primarily an outward thing.

It's what you do, it's how you act. It's faith formed in love. It's faith formed in charity.

[00:26:36] Jesse Schwamb: Right.

[00:26:37] Tony Arsenal: So I think most Roman Catholics going to obligatory confession first. I think once a month is probably like, probably more frequent than most Roman Catholics go to mass or go to confession. Um, I thought I read a stat that it was like every six months is, is pretty average and I think that's what's required by the church maybe even once a year is, is required by the church.

Um, I think like most Roman Catholics go into the, the confessional booth and like father forgive me for I've sinned. It's been such and such a number of days since my last confession. Right. And they may bring up a couple particular things that they've done and, and then I think the priest commonly absolves them of all of their sins.

Like, almost like in an omnibus fashion and then prescribes their acts of penance, which is it, it like, honestly, it's probably things they should already be doing as a faithful Catholic saying Hail Marys and doing our fathers and acts of charity and things like that. So I think your math is probably right.

[00:27:39] Protestant Repentance Particular

[00:27:39] Tony Arsenal: I think your, your theory that more confession is probably like, I'm gonna read this from, uh, the Westminster confession, just to, just to say it here, is, this is chapter 15, which is titled of Repentance Under Life. And this is, uh, this is section five or paragraph five. It says, men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but is every man's duty to endeavor, to repent of his particular sins, particularly.

And I think that's just such a beautifully phrased sentence like. Not only is it like potent theologically, but like, it just, it just feels good, like in terms of like the English language to repent of your particular sins, particularly. And like the idea is yes, Protestant reform, Christians affirm a general repentance from sin, right?

We repent of our sin before the father, uh, as a result of our, of our coming to faith in Christ. And as part of our sanctification, we mortify our sin and we, Viv we are vivified by the spirit and repentance falls in that ongoing sanctification process. And there is this general repentance of like, I repent of the fact that I'm a sinner and that I commit sins, but there is this element in the reformed faith of like, I should be confessing to God.

And I think by extension, like we should be confessing to our fellow Christians, our particular sins, our individual sins, and we should be doing that on particular occasion. And I think like. The Luther style confession of like going into the confessor and confessing like every particular sin.

Particularly I think most Roman Catholic priests would, priests. Priests would probably have the same reaction Tobits did where he was like, get outta here. Like, come on dude. Like just go live your life and like deal with it. I think that's probably the reaction most Catholic priests would have. But yeah, I think you're right.

Like if we're really talking about like. Five, five minutes of confession once a month and that somehow having some sort of spiritual efficacy. I'm not sure I buy that math. Like I think you're, you're probably spot on.

[00:29:47] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.

[00:29:47] Confession Hours Oddities

[00:29:47] Jesse Schwamb: I just was curious about how many priests would be required and then the allocation of the duties.

By the way, you are right. So I, because I had to check on this, the, the fourth letter in council of 1215 does say that the church requires confession of any grave or mortal sins at least once a year. But the church, yeah, strongly encourages more frequent confession as a spiritual practice, even for, of course, like the venial or the less serious sins in their eyes.

So yeah, my thought here was just that. I think it's actually undervalued by way of the math. Like the, as the kids say, the math just isn't math thing for me on this one. But I was more curious about, since this is one of the seven sacraments, even if you just said like, well, it should have at least one seven of the allocation.

That's like, what? Like something like 14%. And so this is, um, almost half of that. I just found it a little bit, a little bit odd and yeah, I think you'd have to be, uh, so in other words, when I looked at the, basically, here's the bottom line. When I looked at the hours for confession one, there were weird times and uh, two, I was like, that doesn't seem like enough hours.

Like, it was just more like that. Like how that's like saying like, Hey, the post office is open three hours a week, and by the way, one of those hours is from seven to eight o'clock on Friday. Like they had some hours. One hour just on Friday was like, I guess that's the way you wanna start your weekend is like, let's get all of this off my chest.

Yeah. And, and do it. Right. And the last thing I'll say by the way, is you're correct. When you look at the instruction they give you, and this is common of course, toward the end, when they say like, here's how you like wrap up your part. Actually everybody should go read, go to the local, local Catholic church website and read the instructions.

'cause in some ways they're just interesting and kind of, um, I don't wanna say funny 'cause I'm not making fun. I'm just saying like, they have to give you instruction if you've never done it before. And so most of us are not really probably familiar with the process and they give you explicit instruction and toward the end it's like, here's how you kinda like hang up the call with the priest.

And it's like you said, you know, these are my sins and all others, would you be willing to forgive? So you're right. Right. They just kinda wrap them all up because it's sins of omission, sense of commission, it's all to be together. But I, I wonder, you gotta think there's people in there that are like. The priests are like, okay, man, just yeah.

Wrap, come on, wrap, wrap it up.

[00:31:55] Confession Timing Talk

[00:31:55] Jesse Schwamb: And other people that come in are just like, you know, forgive me father. And uh, lastly to your point, when they give you instruction about how you should start, of course you're always to signify how long it's been since your last confession. Right. Confession. And they say parenthetically, like, reference the days, weeks, months, or years.

So you're right. There are gonna be people that probably do it very frequently and probably people who do it infrequently still, I would say I just couldn't believe for a church this large, that there was just three hours a week.

[00:32:21] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:32:21] Jesse Schwamb: For everybody else.

[00:32:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:32:23] Vance and Papal Authority

[00:32:23] Tony Arsenal: This leads me to two very brief sub, uh, denials slash affirmations.

Uh, I don't know if you saw this, um, this is not a political statement, right? I, I have lots of feelings and thoughts about the current administration and I think most of my feelings and thoughts would surprise. Everybody. But I thought it was hilarious because JD Vance, who is a Roman Catholic, uh, confessed Roman Catholic part of the Roman Catholic Church, uh, he ha I, I'm not sure if I'm affirming or denying this, there was this funny, uh, funny exchange.

I think he was at doing like a, doing like a TPU, I don't know, speech. He was doing a speech at some conservative event and he said something like, I think that the Pope should be more careful when he makes theological statements. I'm wanna be like, do you understand what the pope is in your religion?

That was one of my sub denials. Uh, I don't remember what the other one is, so it must not have been that important. It'll come back to me at the worst possible moment and I will try very hard not to interrupt our show for it, but I probably will fail.

[00:33:25] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.

[00:33:25] Reading Matthew 21

[00:33:25] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, we, we gotta get to some scripture because.

We're, we're doing this old school style where we take like half the time and just talk about affirmations. It's true in house. It's true. Which is great fun. But let's, let's get back to Matthew 21. And I, I know we did this last time, but I am gonna rock through the passage 'cause of course, that's the best part of any of our discussion, is actually hearing from, from the Holy Spirit through the scripture, uh, which he's given to us.

So this is, uh, Matthew 21, starting in verse 33. And you're gonna hear the, the whole thing right here. Uh, this is Jesus speaking. Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and rented it out to vine growers and went on a journey.

Now, when the high risk time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit, and the vine growers took his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Again, he sent another group of slaves larger than the first, and they did the same thing to them. But afterward he sent his son to them saying they will respect my son.

But when the vine growers saw the sun, they said among themselves, this is the heir. Come let us kill him and seize his inheritance, and they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine growers? They said to him, he will bring those wretches to a wretched end and will rent out the vineyard to other vine growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.

Jesus said to them, did you ever read in the scriptures the stone, which the builders rejected? This has become the chief cornerstone. This came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruit of it.

And he who falls in the stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they understood that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to seize him, they feared the crowds because they're regarding him to be a prophet.

[00:35:28] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:35:30] Pharisees Condemn Themselves

[00:35:30] Tony Arsenal: This is like a super heavy parable. Right. And we talked a lot last week about how like the point of this parable is not necessarily to try to instruct the Pharisees or the Sadducees. Like it's not to instruct the people who were going to reject Christ, uh, the, the builders who would reject the cornerstone.

It's really a parable to teach those. Who are observing this process happening. But I think it's, I, I think it's really interesting just listening to you read this and reading through it, and I guess this is a question I haven't asked and I, I need to study a little bit more. It's crazy to me in verse 41, um, Christ seems the, the, the, um, Matthew seems to say here, and maybe I need to do a little bit more Greek study, so bear with me and, and have grace if I'm wrong here.

Matthew seems to say that like Christ asks the people he's speaking to, the Pharisees he's speaking to, what is he gonna do to these people? And the Pharisees answer, he's gonna put those wretches to a miserable death.

[00:36:36] Jesse Schwamb: Right?

[00:36:37] Tony Arsenal: Like the people listening to this parable understand the outcome, like they understand the.

The consequence that the, the, the vineyard owner or the vineyard tenant tenants are facing based on their lack of faithfulness to the covenant. To me, that is like a really striking part of this parable. And, and it's not even like the parable proper, but like the striking element of the context of this is that nobody listening to this parable, including the Pharisees that this parable has basically spoken against, nobody fails to see the gravity of the consequence of rejecting God's emissary, like rejecting the Messiah.

That to me is like a really, I dunno, paradigmatic. Portion of this that I think we need to grapple with. This is not an unclear, an unclear outcome. This is not, this is not masked or vague or OPA opaque. Like everybody understands, the people who reject the Messiah are going to face dire and eternal consequences for that act.

[00:37:48] Jesse Schwamb: That does make this really interesting, doesn't it? Because it's not just entirely like Romans one adventures or even Romans two. It's that this is what Jesus does and he does it in a profound way that's not trickery like I think kinda like you're saying like the lead up to this isn't as if he's even leading the witness.

He's making it very clear, all like the parameters of the story and the characters involved and what should be the proper judgment. And it's not as if like they start saying, they're like, oh, we shouldn't say anything more like we, we plead the fifth because it's gonna condemn ourselves. He draws his audience in to producing and pronouncing like their own sentence.

It's very much like, I think I mentioned this last time, the prophet Nathan and David, isn't it? It's the exact same. Yeah. And the verdict is unanswerable, like even in its own terms. These other, like these other vine growers, prefigures of course like the inclusion of the Gentiles and the apostolic office.

But I like that what Jesus does here, even before he gets to that point, is he extorts from them an acknowledgement of the punishment which awaited them. And so in this way there's like, I think the Puritans use this passage a lot actually to demonstrate that the natural conscience even of like the unregenerate, still bears witness to divine justice.

That's Romans two. Like they, they can't get out from underneath it and Jesus isn't using any trickery on them to get them to say this thing. They are compelled in their own way, even being unregenerate to, like you said, even as they're rejecting the Messiah to recognize that punishment is due these characters in the story, even as they perceive at the end that they are those characters.

[00:39:21] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:39:22] Jesse Schwamb: Saying we'll receive the judgment.

[00:39:24] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:39:25] Usurpers Not Misguided

[00:39:25] Tony Arsenal: And I think too, like, um, this is kind of one of those chicken or the egg scenarios, right? Like Christ is both recognizing the intention of their heart as well as prophesying. And, and not just prophesying, but like inception level prophesying the, the outcome of the intention of their heart.

And so like, again, like we've, we spent a whole week kind of like leading into the parable and now we spent a whole week, we're gonna spend a whole week again kind of leading into the parable. This is such a deep parable, and that like Christ is not just laying bare. The fact that the, the people who were going to reject him were doing so out of this sort of like attempt and intention of usurping the kingdom of God for their own purposes.

I think that brings a layer to this that we don't often appreciate in. Christ's interaction with the Pharisees. I think sometimes, and maybe this is because I just listened to an episode of where Matt Whitman on the 10 minute Bible hour talked about this. I think sometimes we actually have a tendency to sort of be sympathetic to the Pharisees where we think, you know, they were, they were just trying to obey God's law and they got a little sideways on it and you know, they were putting these boundaries in place, but they were doing it in this sort of like misguided attempt to protect the people.

Christ actually here seems to contradict that in that the comparison he's making is not to a, a well-intentioned group of people who just get it wrong, but he's painting the Pharisees, the, the religious leaders, the Sadducees, the chief priests. He's painting them as these usurpers who recognize the proper authority of right.

The master and his emissaries and ultimately of his son, they recognize this proper authority and rather than submitting to it and submitting to the covenant obligations that they, they already actually agreed to, instead of doing that, they're going to reject that authority and try to take it for their own right.

It's not just that they do the wrong thing, it's that they recognize the heir, which is Christ. They recognize this heir and they kill him to try to take his place. That is a really heavy element of this parable. Christ is not painting. Um, the, the, the Pharisees here, the, the religious leaders. He's not painting them as um, well-intentioned, but ultimately wrong, which is I think a lot of times, and I think there's reason to do this right.

I'm not being overly critical and I've done this, I've actually done this myself, and I think there's some. Space for it. Like the Pharisees were wrong, but they were wrong, kind of in the right direction sometimes. Um, Christ is not really on board with that, at least in this parable. Right. This isn't about them thinking that the heir was a threat, and so killing the threat in, you know, inadvertently this is them absolutely seeing who the hair, who the heir is, and intentionally deciding to reject that heir and to murder him and to try to take his inheritance.

Mm-hmm. That's an affront to not only the heir who they murder, but an affront to the owner of the vineyard himself, which of course in this parable is figured to be God the father primarily. But God in sort of general terms, like the whole Godhead, um, with Christ as the second Adam has, as his representative, as his heir.

This is a really heavy parable and I think where this comes into play for us in our own Christian life is. Are there times where we. Sort of do the same thing in refusing to, maybe it's tie into your denial a little bit. Like refusing to acknowledge our own sinfulness, refusing to acknowledge the ways that God has provided for us.

Um, do we at times look at what we have and lay claim to it as though it is our own inheritance that we've taken? Um, right. Do we kind of crucify the son of God anew in, in refusing to repent of our sins particularly? I dunno. I think those are some open questions for us to kind of explore as we dig into this a bit more.

[00:43:54] Jesse Schwamb: And that may relate as well to, well eventually at some point, I dunno, like 2040, get to like the parable of the talents. There's some similarity there with a little bit, right? You're saying? I think you're right.

[00:44:06] God Does All the Verbs

[00:44:06] Jesse Schwamb: And where I think we can anchor some of that is in those first couple of verses. I'm really always impressed by really the number of action verbs that are packed within, like that just initial statement of Jesus explaining the situation.

[00:44:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:44:19] Jesse Schwamb: So he sets it all up and he's saying there's a planting that goes on, this landowner puts up a wall, digs a wine press. Builds a tower and then RINs it. So there's all these like amazing things being done, all this action verb. And I, I think in part why he comes against the Pharisees so hard in the same way that we're looking at like the parable that, uh, the, uh, talents for instance of saying like, what did you do with that was entrusted to you was like this great treasure which Christ has entrusted or God has entrusted to his people, which is, is the gospel essentially is, is all a prophetic witness, is like the truth of who God is and his revelation of himself.

And so I think. The first thing we gotta see in those verbs is that there's this emphasis that the vineyard was God's sovereign creation. You know, he plants it, he chose it, he established it. Israel didn't plant herself. She was planted. And that sovereign initiative is foundational, I think in, like you're saying, the parables indictment, because these vine growers, they don't possess anything that they did not receive.

Right. You know, they did not find a vineyard already planted, but God himself made it from the wilderness that all his glory, all the glory might be his. So. I think it's helpful for us to observe that the church is always the planting of the Lord and that no congregation flourishes that is not first planted by God.

And so there is a major offense here when those who are to care for it, who know, like you're saying, that they ought to care for it, who understand something about the hierarchy and the way it has been entrusted to them. Not to only break that covenant, but then seek to try to usurp the power in the roles of those whom they should be, quite frankly, in our own language, like under shepherds too.

And so it starts with all, all those verbs. Like I think we could probably spend a. A lot of times just speaking about what does it mean? Why? Why is there all this explicit in particular language about the fact that there's a hedge and there's a press besides just these are part in piece mail or part and parcel of what it means to have a vineyard, apparently, but that they're all part of this narrative of God talking about how he protects and cares for his people and sets them in a place and chooses them and is particular about the construction and does so with great volition and authority and care and concern and creative ability.

And then again, you have those who are meant there to do the very job that he's entrusted them with. And not only are they not doing that, and of course you're right. Jesus elsewhere, comes in, comes in hot, right, with a Pharisees saying like, listen, you set burdens on people's backs that you yourselves cannot lift.

You're twice as in the hell as anybody else, and that's who you are. Yeah. It's not just hypocrisy, but you're literally setting people up to fail in this. So you can see how you're right. It's not just like, guys, I appreciate that. Like you wanted to set up some additional boundaries and maybe you took it a little bit too far.

This parable is just scorched earth. It's, it's nuclear. Yeah.

[00:47:10] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:47:11] Scandalous Vineyard Setup

[00:47:11] Tony Arsenal: And you know, I think, um, we are obviously gonna spend another week on this 'cause we still have not really addressed a single verse in this parable. I, I think like a lot of ink has been spilled on explaining sort of like the feal agricultural arrangements of this passage.

What it represents. M my understanding is. A typical arrangement would be that a, a landowner would basically just lease out land and the tenants would be responsible for the planting, for the development. Right. And the, the, the landowner would essentially just collect a portion of whatever they produce.

Right. This parable is actually taking this a step further. Exactly. That it's not as though the landowner just says like, all right, you can use this land. Right. And I own the land, so I get a portion of the pro, the profit. He's actually done all the work. Yes. And all that. The, all that the, the tenants need to do essentially is reap the harvest and then provide the portion of the harvest that belongs to the landowner, and so there is a greater investment.

Of the landowner into this land than would be expected. We've commented in the past about how a lot of times the, the parables start on sort of a premise of shock. Like there's a, there's an element of the setup of the, of the parable where the audience would kind of like sit back and gasp or kind of be like, wait a second.

Like that's not normal. Right. In the parable of the, the, um, lost son, it was the idea that like the son demanded his inheritance. And that wasn't the shocking part. The shocking part was that the father just granted it. Right. Or, um, the lost sheep, like the, there's actually a sort of a shocking element to the fact that like the, the land, the like sheep owner would just go get this other sheep.

So we've, we've commented on there's kind of like. There's sort of like a scandalous setup. The scandalous setup in this is not that the land has been leased to tenants, right? It's that the land has been prepared for the tenants before it was leased out in the first place. And I think that's something we might miss if we read over this too quickly, is.

The landowner has prepared everything for these, these tenants.

[00:49:30] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.

[00:49:31] Tony Arsenal: So the, the, at the, the punchline of the parable where they refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty of, um, sovereignty and maybe a lowercase s in the, in the context of the parable, they refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty and the rightful claim of the tenant or of the landowner on the, the profit of the land.

And sort of like highlighter emphasized by the fact that they actually didn't do any of the work. There's a certain kind of like Amer, like American rugged individualism where we're kind of like, yeah, like if I planted all the crops, then it's kind of lame that this guy's coming in expecting to take a portion of it, right?

Like, yeah, I guess he owns the land, so maybe he gets a little piece of it, but like, who does he think he is? All of that already is already short circuited. Like I. The, these tenants are not actually, um, portrayed as doing anything in this parable. That's right. Like they just lease the land. They, they, um, and leased is not really like the right.

The right word, the, the Greek word is omi, which is like he gave over the land to them. Um, when we say leased, we have this idea that like the tenants pay to use the land and then like part of their contract is that whatever profits they reap, uh, off the land goes back to the, to the landowner. This is really more like the landowner graciously allowed them to live on this land, and the only payment he required was that they would eventually provide him part of the profit back.

Like he's planted the land, he's put up the fence around it. He dug the wine press so that they could make a product out of it. He built the tower so it would be defended. Yes. And he gave it over to them essentially just to like live on until it was time for the harvest. And all he is asking for is basically like, alright, so this is my land.

I've planted the vineyards, the profit is mine to have. And so when the time came for him to come claim that that's where they have now rejected him. Yes. That's where they've now said like, I know you did all the work and really graciously allowed us to live in this land, but we're gonna keep all of it for ourselves.

That's the scandal of this. That's what I think like the original audience would've set up and like, wait a second here. Like, hold on. They didn't even plant the vineyards themselves. They didn't even build the tower themselves. That's really the force of this that I think we miss when we, when we overemphasize, trying to think through like what the original agricultural arrangements were.

'cause this is painted. Very different than what the original arrangements would've been typical for. Like this is a different scenario and I think intentionally so,

[00:52:09] Jesse Schwamb: and we need those words like rented, at least in English, to help us understand that it didn't belong to them. It wasn't a gift, right? It wasn't as if like it was just turned over in the sense that it belongs to you now do with it what you will.

And it's very clear in the passage one, like you said, that the landowner does all those things. So it was a, you know, he completely set it up. I mean, this is just such a beautiful, I think, depiction of the hold of prophetic, you know, understanding of God's word here, but it's very clear that says the, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit.

So you're right. The scandal is that they're like, well, obviously. They need to give him his fruits, like

[00:52:48] Tony Arsenal: right.

[00:52:48] Jesse Schwamb: It was all set up before he left on this long journey. He then turned it over to them to care for, and that was really all that they were supposed to do. They had no role in this. And so it does like lead us in into this weird space where it's like, well, well what, what did the Pharisees think they were trying to do themselves?

What does actually Jesus commenting on, on their own, like licit on their own initiative here, is he basically saying that not only are they not respecting his sovereignty, but they were trying to claim for themselves what only rightly belongs to God that even their position right. Society in culture as their representatives, God himself, they wanted to take that over for themselves, which he does bring that condemnation upon them in other parts of the scripture.

So again, this is really hot. I think it's a, it's both heat and light, but there's no doubt that there's fire to this, right? Because it's a direct indictment that God the father set all of this up. You yourselves are on rented property, but guess what? Even the property that you've rented, I'm not exacting a tax from you as if like you have put forward and grown or supplied or created some kind of profitable outcome here.

And I just want a piece of that. He's not even talking about tithing in that sense. What he's basically saying is, none of this belongs to you. Like how? Right? How dare you? None of this is yours. I set all of this up and in fact, because you've done so poor poorly at this, I'm gonna take it away from you and give it to those who actually produce fruit and guess what's gonna be the Gentiles?

So it's, there's a wild. Amounts of condemnation packed into a very small story.

[00:54:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. It really is.

[00:54:22] Tenants Add Nothing

[00:54:22] Tony Arsenal: Um, there is nothing expected of these tenants. Right. There's no contract, like there's no terms, they, they really add nothing to the, the landowner's land, except I guess maybe they're the ones harvesting these, this fruit.

Right. But even that's not explicit in the parable.

[00:54:43] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.

[00:54:43] Tony Arsenal: Right. Right. He, he does all just to steal your thunder, like he does all the verbs. Yes. All of the ves are done by the landowner.

[00:54:50] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. Right

[00:54:51] Tony Arsenal: on. There is an implication that the, the tenants are somehow like the ones harvesting this, or they're the ones producing the wine, I guess, in the wine vat or the wine press.

But at the end of the day. A normal tenant landowner agreement would be, I'm, you're, first of all, you're probably gonna pay me to use this land, right? You're paying me to use this land, and the way you pay me is you're gonna plant the, the gr the crop. You're gonna harvest it. You're gonna make the produce, and all I'm gonna do is let you live on this land.

I'm gonna take the pro, like the profit, you're gonna pay me outta that profit. There is nothing asked or expected of these, these landowners, except to give the fruit that is already hit.

[00:55:36] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, exactly.

[00:55:37] Tony Arsenal: And, and that's where like, I think our Christian life, John Piper, I won't get into too much, but like John Piper is all in the news again for the same like finance, final salvation stuff that he's, he's been controversial for, for years.

Right. And I think like this ties into that thi this is a, a direct parallel in many ways to the par, like the, the parable of the talents, which I'm, we we'll get into eventually is like. The, the landowner provides these talents or the, in this case, the land and the fruit. All of this is brought forth by his will and the fact that these, these worthless tenants do nothing and then still have the audacity to basically like refuse to.

Provide back to this landowner what he has produced.

[00:56:25] Jesse Schwamb: Right? Yes. That's

[00:56:26] Tony Arsenal: the key. That's, that's really the point of this parable.

[00:56:29] Jesse Schwamb: Yep.

[00:56:29] Tony Arsenal: Is somehow the Pharisees, and I think where the application of this is probably where we'll go next time, is like somehow the Pharisees have got in their mind that this thing that God has done in the people of Israel and is now doing in the Messiah, this ministry of the Messiah, in coming to claim the fruit, that somehow they have a right to lay claim to that and to withhold it from the Father.

[00:56:54] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.

[00:56:54] Tony Arsenal: Even though they had nothing to do with anything that brought about, its, its, uh, its occurrence. Right. The Pharisees didn't create the nation of Israel. They didn't create the gospel. They didn't create the Messiah, and somehow they think that they can withhold the fruit of that ministry from the father and take like lay claim to it for themselves.

And this is where I think. We have to trust the Holy Spirit and trust Jesus because there's really nothing in the gospels that explain what they were doing that sort of like showed them trying to like take over the Messiah's inheritance, right? But that's what this parable teaches, is that that's what they're being criticized for, that they were somehow trying to usurp the position of the Messiah.

They were trying to become the mediators. They were trying to become the sons of God or the son of God who interceded from God for God's people. They were the ones that were gonna do that. They were the ones that were gonna accomplish that. So I think what'll be interesting next week is when we come, come back to this parable and sort of try to talk about like what does that actually teach us as believers 2000 years later, who aren't Pharisees.

We're not trying to do that. What does this have to do with us? What does this have to say to us?

[00:58:07] Wrap Up and Next Week

[00:58:07] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I think you're entirely right and I'm looking forward to, uh, well, we'll wrap it up officially.

[00:58:13] Tony Arsenal: Yes.

[00:58:13] Jesse Schwamb: In, in that next episode, it's gonna be

[00:58:15] Tony Arsenal: probably

[00:58:16] Jesse Schwamb: totally, probably, it's like a 70% chance, honestly. Loved ones,

[00:58:21] Tony Arsenal: 70%, 50.

[00:58:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. There's definitely a meaningful material probability that that still won't be the last one once we get started, but we're gonna try. As always. I, I'm totally with you. I, I hope people take a little time to go read through this because I think the more we slow down and really try to set ourselves into the details and actually be particular about maybe envisioning the circumstances exactly as they're laid out for us and not as we sometimes try to fill out in our minds.

I think maybe the biggest challenge that we've learned in this particular conversation is that verse 34, what is meant when the scripture says Now, when the harvest time approached. He that is the landowner sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit. And I think what you've challenged here is this idea of, well, it doesn't say like he sent to go get them to harvest it.

Right. Just saying like, listen, it's my fruit. Like let's do this thing. Like you knew I would show up. I've left you to, to care for all these things which I put into place. So here I am, I've sent my people to come and receive the fruit. And, uh, they can't do it. They refuse to do it. They won't do it. Uh, they kill everybody whom he sends, including his own son.

And so, you're right, it's not even here. We gotta be careful about the actions and of presuming that they here, like the Pharisees were these people who were in charge somehow of even harvesting. There's, there's actually no mention of that except for it was just harvest time.

[00:59:40] Tony Arsenal: Right?

[00:59:40] Jesse Schwamb: And so it's even there, I think it's purposely ambiguous to remind us that God is doing all the things.

I'm a little embarrassed that I missed the phrase. God does all the verbs when I was literally saying. The landowner does all these verbs.

[00:59:53] Tony Arsenal: It's okay.

[00:59:54] Jesse Schwamb: The first sentence I, I've, I've fallen down on you loved ones. I'm so sorry I missed it,

[00:59:58] Tony Arsenal: Jesse. It's okay because God does all the verbs

[01:00:02] Jesse Schwamb: is factually. That is factually correct, so we'll give this one.

One more shot because at least there's so much for us. We could do a whole series just on this one, and I think if you're tracking with us, you're probably discovering that we also, sometimes in real time, as we really spend a little bit of effort kind of speaking about the particulars, find that these parables are more chock full than you think.

There isn't just one idea. There's often many ideas coalescing around. Yeah. The central theme and the setup in the context is important. The word choice is important, and I am as well, just as you were saying, blown away by the way in which Jesus really evokes from the audience here, their own condemnation, their own judicial decree, which is, yeah, he's gonna take those wretches and kick 'em out.

And they're saying it about themselves. This is what sin does, isn't it? This is what the natural man is like. Ken has to bow down to this great sovereign justice that comes from God while at the same time they think in their self-righteousness. They're proclaiming that in somebody else, and what they're really doing is they're putting it on their own head apart from God.

We are all like that. All of us are like this. So glory beats a God who through the Holy Spirit, opens our eyes to receive and to understand the gospel, to be changed by, to be transformed by it because he does all the verbs. I'm so grateful that that's in fact what he does, that that God has planted us, that he's pull a wall around us, that he stick out this wine press for us, that he's built a tower to protect us and that he has grown the fruit in us because of all the things that he has done.

[01:01:42] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, this is normally the part of the episode where we would do all of our announcements, uh, which just shows you we are not great podcasters. 'cause really we should do that at the beginning of, of the episode. Uh, but you know what, like if you wanna know what all of our announcements are, you're just gonna have to come back next week.

'cause we are out of time. We're not gonna do that. So I, I know that that's the most cliff of all cliffhangers is if you have listened this far and you want to hear about Oliver of our housekeeping assignment, an announcements and whatnot, you're just gonna have to come back next week and listen to it.

Uh, because as much as my brain is telling me I should tell you all about it now, I'm not going to. So, Jesse, until next time when people join us for our housekeeping announcements, honor everyone.

[01:02:31] Jesse Schwamb: Love the brotherhood.

In this powerful episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse dive deep into Matthew 21:33-46, examining Jesus's parable of the wicked tenants. The hosts unpack how Christ masterfully draws the Pharisees into pronouncing their own condemnation, revealing not merely theological error but intentional usurpation of God's authority. Through careful exegesis, they explore the shocking setup of the parable—where the landowner does all the work while the tenants contribute nothing—and how this mirrors God's sovereign initiative in salvation. The discussion touches on confession, the value of full-time ministry, and the scandal of rejecting the Messiah despite recognizing His authority. This episode challenges listeners to examine whether they, like the Pharisees, attempt to claim God's work as their own.

Key Takeaways

• God Does All the Verbs: The parable emphasizes that the landowner planted, built, protected, and prepared everything—the tenants contributed nothing yet claimed ownership of the fruit.
• Self-Pronounced Condemnation: Jesus draws the Pharisees into declaring their own judgment, demonstrating that even the unregenerate conscience bears witness to divine justice (Romans 2).
• Intentional Usurpation, Not Mere Error: The Pharisees weren't well-intentioned but misguided; they recognized Christ's authority as the heir and deliberately murdered Him to seize His inheritance.
• The Scandal of Grace: The parable's shocking element is that the landowner prepared everything before leasing the land—far exceeding normal agricultural arrangements and illustrating God's unmerited favor.
• Ecclesial Support for Ministry: The OPC presbytery's decision to fund a full-time call demonstrates how church structure can honor the ministry of Word and sacrament by freeing ministers from worldly distractions.
• Particular Repentance Matters: Westminster Confession 15.5 teaches that believers should not content themselves with general repentance but "endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly."
• The Stone Rejected Becomes Chief: Christ's citation of Psalm 118 reveals that the very rejection by the builders (religious leaders) was God's plan to establish the cornerstone of salvation.

Key Concepts God Does All the Verbs

The concentration of action verbs attributed solely to the landowner in Matthew 21:33 is theologically significant. The landowner plants, builds, digs, and rents—creating a fully functional, productive vineyard before the tenants ever arrive. This arrangement differs radically from typical first-century agricultural practices, where tenants would lease raw land and develop it themselves, sharing profits with the landowner. Jesus deliberately presents an extraordinary scenario where the tenants receive everything prepared and ready, requiring only stewardship of what already exists. This parallels God's sovereign initiative in election and salvation: believers contribute nothing to their standing before God, receiving instead a fully accomplished redemption. The Pharisees' rebellion wasn't against burdensome requirements but against simply acknowledging God's rightful ownership of what He alone created.

Intentional Usurpation, Not Mere Error

The hosts challenge the common sympathetic reading of the Pharisees as well-intentioned legalists who simply got sidetracked. Instead, verse 38 reveals the tenants explicitly recognize the son as heir and plot to murder him to "seize his inheritance." This isn't accidental rejection but calculated rebellion. The Pharisees weren't confused about Jesus's identity or authority—they understood precisely who He claimed to be and deliberately chose to destroy Him rather than submit. This interpretation carries significant weight for understanding the nature of unbelief: it's not primarily intellectual confusion but volitional rebellion. The religious leaders didn't need more evidence or clearer teaching; they needed transformed hearts. This same dynamic appears whenever humans recognize divine truth yet choose self-sovereignty over submission to God's rightful claim on their lives.

The Scandal of Grace

The parable begins with a scandalous premise that would have startled Jesus's original audience. Unlike normal tenant farming arrangements where landowners simply provided land in exchange for a share of whatever the tenants produced through their own labor, this landowner invests everything. He doesn't just own the property—he plants the vineyard, constructs the protective wall, digs the wine press for production, and builds the watchtower for defense. The tenants receive a turnkey operation requiring minimal effort. This extravagant preparation mirrors God's unmerited favor toward Israel and, by extension, the church. God didn't merely create humanity and wait to see what we would produce; He established covenants, sent prophets, preserved His Word, and ultimately sent His Son—all before requiring any response. The only "payment" demanded is acknowledging His ownership of what He created. The parable thus exposes the absurdity and ingratitude of claiming God's work as our own achievement.

Memorable Quotes

God does all the verbs. All of the verbs are done by the landowner. There is nothing expected of these tenants—they really add nothing to the landowner's land.

Christ is not painting the Pharisees as well-intentioned but ultimately wrong. He's painting them as usurpers who recognize the proper authority and rather than submitting to it, they're going to reject that authority and try to take it for their own.

Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man's duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly. (Westminster Confession 15.5)

Transcript

Welcome to episode 491 of the Reformed Brotherhood.

I'm Jesse.

[00:01:12] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.

[00:01:17] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.

[00:01:18] Parable of Tenants

[00:01:18] Jesse Schwamb: So picture this, Tony, your landlord. You've built the perfect vineyard. We're talking wall watchtower, wine, press, the works like what everybody says. Everybody knows you need all those things. You've got it all set up, and then you hand the keys to some tenants.

You take a long trip, you go enjoy yourself. And when the harvest rolls around, you send your servants to collect the rent. And shockingly, your tenants, they beat. Stone. Another, the kill a third. So naturally you think, you know what? I'll fix this. Lemme just send more people. That's obviously the problem.

There's some kind of just profound misunderstanding about what's going on here and about our relationship in this business. And then when that doesn't work, you send your son now loved ones. If this were a business strategy, we would already be calling hr. But of course it's not a business strategy, it's a parable.

And Jesus is telling it to the very people about to prove the parable true. So welcome back to the Reformed Brotherhood because we're in Matthew Chapter 21 and we're gonna be actually getting all the way into the parable of the Vine growers where the patience of God looks, I would say, to almost anybody else, to humanize at least almost reckless until you realize that's exactly the point.

So yeah, grab your beverage of choice, grab your Bible, pull the car over, will you? Because this is gonna get real and we're going to reason together. But before we do all of that, let's do a little affirming with or denying against, what do you got?

[00:02:41] Inside Baseball Affirmation

[00:02:41] Tony Arsenal: So this is a sort of inside baseball, uh, affirmation. Um, I'm not sharing anything, although it may feel like I'm sharing something that is private and like, uh, like confidential.

It's not No, this is good. Um, so I had the opportunity to visit. Um, my presbytery, um, for those who are listeners of the show or people who like, have been with us a long time, um, I was part of a Baptist church. Uh, I've always kind of been a Presbyterian at heart, but, um, our church closed, uh, a little over a year and a half ago now.

And, um, uh, I've joined an OPC congregation in membership now. We've been members there for about a year. And, um, so I've been visiting Presbytery, which is the, the meeting of all of the leadership of all of the churches. So we won't do a polity breakdown here, but basically like, it's, it's the regional meeting.

It's the regional business meeting or church meeting for a group of churches in the OPC, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And so a lot of the meetings, you know, have the normal kind of business type stuff. You have reports from different committee committees and stuff. Um.

[00:03:48] Presbytery Call Debate

[00:03:48] Tony Arsenal: Where this is affirmation is coming in here is at this most recent presbytery meeting, um, was pretty heavy on, um, licensing or, or, uh, not licensing on approving men who had received a call to formal ministry within the presbytery.

And so in the OPC, and I would imagine that other Presbyterian bodies are not like super different, although I'm sure there's some variation in the OPC. Um, when a church intends to extend a call to a pastor, to a teaching elder, um, to a minister, they must have the call, which is. Is both theological but is also eminently practical.

Like the call is a physical piece of paper that details, you know, what the pay is, how much vacation time. So it's kind of a combination between like a theological call and also a contract. Um, the presbytery has to approve that call. And so at this most recent one, there was a couple calls that were more or less uncontroversial.

There was no question about them, and they were approved pretty quickly. But there was one call, um, one call to ministry that took, I, I, I didn't time it, but it was probably like four or five hours of debate and discussion in various fashion in order to get to a point where the presbytery could approve the call.

So this was a call to a minister who is being called part-time, which is unusual in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Um, the OPC uh, acknowledges the fact that bivocational tent making ministry is sometimes a necessity, but really views the ministry of the word in sacrament as something that should not have.

Distractions. And actually our book of church order talks about, doesn't use the word distraction, I think, but it talks about a, a properly ordered call to a full-time minister includes phrasing that the congregation promises to compensate them in a way that allows them to be free of worldly burdens and cares.

And I might have not, not have gotten that wording exactly right. But that's the idea. And so this call was. Explicitly, um, not a full-time call it, they actually took the language out of promising to pay him in a way that he's able to ignore or to not be distracted by worldly care. And that was intentional, but there was a lot of question in discussion at presbytery level about the fact that the call did not include the phrase or the wording of part-time or bivocational.

So the conversation started out of like, can this call be modified to include that? So it's explicitly known in this man's call that his calling is part-time, which is both theological, to make sure that the call is properly formatted, but also like very practical that the congregation should acknowledge explicitly that they recognize that this person is not, not going to be putting, you know, 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week towards this position.

[00:06:34] Jesse Schwamb: Right.

[00:06:34] Tony Arsenal: Um. What I'm affirming is where it got to, right? So there was lots of discussion about that. There was some finagling about the retirement package. The OPC recommends that a, a minister be given a retirement contribution of no less than 5% a year of his salaried package. Um, which there's a couple line items that go into that, but 5%, and this was a little bit less than that.

And this is what I'm affirming and this, I, I don't know that this is a super widespread thing that would happen all across the, um, the OPC, but it happened in the presbytery of New York and New England this past week, and it's just amazing. And I just, I just want to lay it out there and then I want to hear your reaction.

[00:07:13] Funding Full Time Ministry

[00:07:13] Tony Arsenal: And I, I wanna hear your reaction as the son of a minister who labored his entire adult, more or less, his entire adult career in ministry, working two or three additional jobs on top of his ministry, the presbytery decided. That because it did not like the idea of a part-time minister. They didn't think that was appropriate.

They didn't think that that was good or that that was really the right goal. The presbytery allocated, I'm not gonna say the figures 'cause they're not super germane, but allocated a significant amount of money to be dis to be dispersed to the church for the next three years in order to take what was a part-time call and enable it to become a full-time call.

[00:07:54] Jesse Schwamb: Wow.

[00:07:54] Tony Arsenal: And so there are a lot of, there are a lot of church bodies that would say, yeah, we don't love the idea of bi-vocational ministry. You know, we really think it's ideal that a minister could be full-time. Um, they may even put some, some theological freight behind that. Um, I have never encountered a body, um.

That was willing to put a sizable amount of money towards essentially supplementing a part-time call to make it full-time. Um, this was just amazing to me, and the candidate was there. I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but I would love to talk to him about what he felt. I, I can just imagine the phone call to his wife who was not, not at presbytery, but to his wife, following the outcome of this to be like, you are never gonna believe what just happened.

Right? This is a family who was intending to move across country. Right. He's currently a student at Westminster, California in seminary, uh, California, Westminster Seminary in California, finishing his M Div. They're planning a cross country move into a part-time position where she's probably gonna have to find a job, and then also he's gonna have to find a part-time job.

He had the ability to call her on the break and be like, you're never gonna guess what just happened? You're never gonna,

[00:09:09] Jesse Schwamb: it's wild.

[00:09:09] Tony Arsenal: Uh, sorry, I'm getting a little emotional here. You're never going to. Believe how faithful God is in this. Right. So I'm interested to hear your reaction to that as the son of a, of a try and quad at times Quad vocational.

Yeah,

[00:09:23] Jesse Schwamb: for sure.

[00:09:23] Tony Arsenal: Minister who labored his entire, more or less, his entire adult career, um, working full-time in a call as a part-time, part-time minister. You know, like that's a, that's a crazy situation. So I'm just affirming that again, I don't know how common that kind of thing is in the OPC. I don't wanna make it seem like that's the norm.

Um, I actually get the sense that this is probably not the norm, but it was amazing to see and it made me in intensely like. Proud in the right way of being a part of this broader body that would, would so emphasize and so value the ministry of the word and the sacrament, and the importance of a man being able to dedicate himself to that without distraction.

That they would put forward this amount of money and this kind of money. They had no reason to do so. And there's no real direct benefit to the presbytery for doing this. I mean, there's an indirect benefit of like not having a church with a part-time minister, but like there's no direct benefit to this.

There's no direct return on investments that's gonna come out of this. Um, it was pretty amazing to see. It was, it was, it was super encouraging.

[00:10:28] Jesse Schwamb: That is really encouraging. I, I think it's, there's no doubt that for the called pastor, their heart is in the ministry of the word. That's what they want to be doing.

They wanna be doing it all the time and as much time as they possibly can, and they wanna be able to have all of their intentional focus on it. So I. I'm excited for that guy. I mean, that's just an incredible blessing to go in hoping for funding, essentially for a part-time role and to basically be told, no, no, no, no, that's, that's not enough.

We want you to be committed to this fully as we know your heart is committed. As we validated that call.

[00:11:00] Why Structure Matters

[00:11:00] Jesse Schwamb: I do love being a part of churches, well, lemme say it this way. There is, I think, a benefit of being part of congregations that have like a wide resource network that has like appropriate hierarchy and structure and that can be one of them.

I've seen something similar in the Christian Missionary Alliance, which is the church that I'm in, not exactly the same, but I've seen some surprising allocations of resources where they basically said, you know, this is important. Like, it even trumps we're, we're gonna. Allocate or resource something so that this can move forward because it is important in a way that was like better than the person who was bringing it before them could have hoped for.

Yeah. And uh, suddenly it's as if everything aligned. And it was really in part because there was this structure to come alongside, to validate as you're saying, and then to authenticate and then again to resource assets that could be used. There's, there's something to be said for that interdependency where there is kind of this hierarchical structure in which all that's happening at a level where things are codified.

And again, like there's a structure and a way in which we move through those decisions to make sure that they suit the objective of the entire movement. So I guess there's nothing I'll say, but that's a beautiful thing, isn't it?

[00:12:14] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:15] Generosity in Action

[00:12:15] Tony Arsenal: It was, it was, it was cool because it was like this, it was like this real.

Actualization of the principle of outdoing one another and showing honor. Yeah, sure. Because you know, like the initial debate was like, Hey, you know, I'm not sure we can approve this call because the, the OPCs guidelines tell us not to approve a call that has less than 5% of the retirement benefit. And there was a lot of discussion of like, well, the presbytery can't modify the call, but we don't wanna delay this guy coming in and like, we don't wanna delay his ordination, his installation.

And so the initial proposal was a, a. What feels like a large amount of money to me. But after I understood more about the, the budget of what's going on in, in the presbytery was actually a very small amount of money. Started with a very tiny, very modest proposal of basically like supplementing the retirement fund to make sure that like we could, they, I say we, like, I was part of this, I was just observing, but to supplement the retirement fund in a way that allowed the church to still proceed with the call as written, but still also make sure that this person had the appropriate retirement fund.

And then that just basically was like, there would be some instruction given to the church that like, you've gotta bump this up in the next budget cycle. Like you've gotta get to the 5%. That's, that's the expectation. It went from that. And like I said, I won't give you the specific numbers, but one of the presbyters and I, I'm, I, um, I, I've known this presbyter from a distance for quite a long time and, and I have an immense amount of respect for him.

He stood up and he's like, well, if we're gonna give X, why don't we just give 10 times X instead? And then actually, like the discussion was like, well, is, are we sure that 10 times X is even the right amount? Why don't we have this particular group meet over the lunch break and figure out whether that's the right number and then come back after lunch and we'll vote on it.

And then they came back after lunch and it was actually a number that was even greater than 10 times X. So it was like this exercise in like. This very small proposal that was still imminently generous, right? The presbytery has no obligation to do this. There's no obligation from any of the presbyters to stand up and say like, we should.

We should supplement this fund. They would've been well within their right, and no one would've looked, I think. I think some people would've been frustrated by it, but I don't think anyone would've looked sideways at it or thought it was sinful. If the presbytery just said like, we can't approve this call.

You guys are gonna have to come back with it and we'll vote on it at the next presbytery. Like that would've been problematic. This, this kind of poor guy who's coming outta seminary, his call and his beginning of employment would've been delayed, but like. That would've been good and orderly, but instead they were like, one, we don't want this pulpit to stay empty longer.

We don't wanna disadvantage this guy who's just getting done with seminary. We want him to get started. We don't wanna discourage him. So here's a small proposal, a very modest amount of money that we can put forward for this purpose. And then it was like, let's just keep seeing how much closer to a real full-time call we can get.

And they finally came back and said like, we're gonna do this. We're gonna do this in a wise fashion. They structured it. So like the first year he gets more, the second year he gets a little bit less. The third year the church gets a little bit less with the idea that like each year the church should be adjusting their budget to compensate and get this guy to that with the, the hope that like with a full-time minister, they're able to grow their congregation to the point where they can support a full-time minister.

So it was just this really cool, super encouraging exercise. And what I loved about it is the only real debate that was going on was about do we need to do more? There was no one being like, wait a second, why are we, why are we putting more money to this? The whole thing was like, is this actually enough to accomplish what we think God wants to do with this person's call?

Because if, if God is truly calling this man to this, this particular church, and we believe that he is. Then what do we as a, as a people of God need to do to enable that call to look like what we actually believe calls to ministry are supposed to look like, which is a full-time call to ministry that is undistracted by the cares of the world.

What do we need to do? The answer in this case was like, I think we need to put a sizable amount of money to it. Um, it's a, I mean, and again. I'm not gonna say it on the air. It was not a small chunk of change. Um, it was, it was a, it was a large amount of money that was devoted to this cause and that just goes to show how much this body values the importance of a full-time minister of the word, so.

[00:16:50] Jesse Schwamb: Right.

[00:16:51] OPC Love and Recommendation

[00:16:51] Tony Arsenal: That's enough about that. I, I could gush about how proud I am to be a part of this body and how encouraged I am and how amazing it was and how awesome this, this guy, how, how much this guy must be thanking God for the providence and like, this is the last thing. I'll say this, this young man younger than me, I think he's graduating seminary.

I saw him across the room. He looks like he's probably in his mid twenties, right? Young guy. He's got a wife doesn't have kids yet coming into this ministry, not only is he coming into this ministry, but as a Presbyterian minister, when he's installed as the minister of this church. He will be joining this body of presbyters as the, as his brothers like.

He is not a member of the local church. He's a member of the presbytery, which is the regional church. So now he's coming into this fully supported by his brothers in the presbytery that he saw go to the mat to make sure he was properly taken care of, that the congregation was not unintentionally taking advantage of his labor, but also that he knows that all of these men are willing to do what they need to do to make sure that his ministry is successful and edifies the church like that is.

Uh, I don't want to gush on Presbyterianism too much, but like that is Presbyterianism at peak form, right? This is the body of elders making sure that every church in the region, even the ones they're not directly ministering in, has what it needs to succeed and to honor God and to do what needs to happen.

So I'm affirming the presbytery of New York and New England and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Um, I have been so blessed by knowing many of these presbyters. I've been so blessed by being a part of the congregation that I am. There are lots of really great churches and really great denominations out there.

If you are looking for a church and there is an OPC congregation in your area, absolutely go check it out. I know it feels stuffy sometimes, and I will admit, like sometimes it feels a little bit overly traditional in terms of like just the vibe of the congregation,

[00:18:52] Jesse Schwamb: right?

[00:18:52] Tony Arsenal: But press past that because I don't think, I don't think you will find, um.

You may find lots of congregations that are as faithful. I don't think you're gonna find many that are more faithful than your average OPC congregation. So I could be wrong. I just, I just love the OPC. I just really, really love it. So that's my affirmation. What do you got for us, Jesse?

[00:19:18] Denial Catholic Confession Math

[00:19:18] Jesse Schwamb: I think I got denial, which is maybe a little bit unusual for me.

[00:19:21] Tony Arsenal: As long as you're not denying the OPCI think we're fine.

[00:19:23] Jesse Schwamb: No, it's, it's not, it is church related and I, I'll try to keep it short 'cause I think I can make this way longer than it, it probably should be, but lemme think how to phrase this. So, I don't know with a devil negative, I guess when I'm a denying against is maybe not enough confession by your own standard.

So the, I'm gonna try to make this so brief. I, I just happened to be out with my wife this afternoon and we had to run errands. We got stuck in traffic and this gave me longer than usual to sit in front of our. Very local and very large Catholic church. So I happen to be looking at their sign. It's a very large congregation.

I've been actually been in this one on a couple of occasions for funerals. So not only do I know its size and scope, but again, if you get, if you get on this road at the wrong time on the Lord's day, you're gonna be stuck for a long time because there are so many people that attend. I say that because I noticed on the sign that there were three times for mass on the Lord's Day.

So that also says something about the number of people coming through. And then on the sign though, underneath it said for confessions, go to our website. Mm-hmm. So I was like, man, I gotta lick this up because I can't tell if they're telling me I can confess on the website or if it's go to the website for the times.

And I said to my wife, only half jokingly, if I can confess online, I'm gonna confess something. So I went to, I went to the website and, and sure enough it was almost disappointingly. It was just the times.

[00:20:45] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:20:46] Jesse Schwamb: Here's what I've found interesting, which just launched me into this like deep rabbit hole.

There were three times for confession. Two of those times were just a half an hour, and the third time was an hour. So, uh, what I did was I went through, actually, I think what they had on there was, was three full hours a week. It was a little bit confusing, but I think it was three full hours. Now I think about it.

So I went back, I just couldn't help myself, Tony. So I started to think, alright, let's say. I think it's fair to assume

[00:21:15] Tony Arsenal: math, Jesse is kicking in right now. Yes. You're gonna calculate how many minutes per, per person is what you're doing. I'm thinking, ah,

[00:21:22] Jesse Schwamb: yeah, it's something like that. So what I thought was, I don't think it's, uh, I was gonna be conservative.

I wanna be fair. I wanna be fair. So, and now we should say like, I think most people realize that the Catholic understanding of confession and the Protestant one is, is very different. The Catholic sacrament of confession is the right through which Catholics are gonna confess their sins to a priest receive absolution, and it's gonna restore the relationship with God in the church.

And, and they're gonna believe that the priest acts as a person of Christ and is bound by the seal of confession and an absolute kind of obligation. Uh, of course never to reveal what was disclosed during that process. So, by the way, the website that I went to, lovely instructions. I mean, I was like, wow. I was reading it to my wife who was, uh, not familiar with this at all, and she was like, they can make you do stuff.

And I was like, well, yeah. I mean, obviously like there's, there's a portion of this where there's contrition or penant penance. It could be a prayer, it could be act of charity, like all kinds of stuff. So I went back and I thought. I don't think it's unreasonable that there's 350 persons that would say, let's say an average, uh, that would wanna take part of confession.

Now, let's say that they did that at, at least monthly, just once a month. And, and I don't know how people's conviction is on that, but I'm gonna say conservatively once a month. Let's say that, and I don't think this is unreasonable, Tony, but you tell me. Let's say you're, you're trucking, you're moving through confession.

Let's say it's five minutes a piece. So we're up to 1,750 minutes, uh, per month. That's the demand on the priest because I was, I was looking at this time and I was thinking something is strange here to me, so. That was the demand then, and I'll spare you the other math, which could be very long and un uninteresting.

I'm coming up with, you'd need 2.24, two and a quarter priests, which of course you can't have a quarter priests or a quarter person for any reason. So you'd hire, you'd hire three priests, which satisfy the demand if, and the major assumptions here, that is like everybody can't show up at the same time.

Obviously, I'm assuming that like everybody has their own time, they're spreading it out. So everybody gets the confession, but it's just five minutes. And I, I have no idea. I mean, if you're a Luther, that's certainly not sufficient time.

[00:23:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:23:20] Jesse Schwamb: And you would need three priests. Now here's the thing that I just kind of backed into that, besides like three being like, okay, that, that's, you would need three priests just to satisfy this congregation.

If they're confessing for five minutes, once per month. Uh, by the way, if you said, well, half the congregation is going to go weekly, uh, then you, you would double the number of priests you need to 5.98 or six. But here's, here's the bottom line for me. This is why the denial comes in about maybe not enough, is.

If you were just to distill that down to like, if you could have one priest cover that time, that there's a demand for like 779.4 hours, or excuse me, minutes of confession, that priest would only be allocating approximately like seven and a half percent of their working hours, their work toward handling confession.

This seems like not enough confession given the standards of confession in the Catholic church. And again, I know that I'm, I'm now allocating that to one priest and I just told everybody you need three. That's true. So if you had these three now, if you hired three just to meet the demand, that would only be about like three and a half or a little under three and a half percent of their combined time.

So the denial is Catholics, I think, unless I'm way off in some of my assumptions here, you might not be confessing enough by your own standards because

[00:24:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:24:34] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, that seems like not enough time.

[00:24:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:39] Ritual Faithfulness Explained

[00:24:39] Tony Arsenal: I mean, I think, um. I don't want to be too bombastic here, but I think,

[00:24:46] Jesse Schwamb: I think I already started this on this

[00:24:48] Tony Arsenal: path.

Maybe this, maybe this isn't all that bombastic. Um, because this is so much about ritual and actually I say this is gonna sound really, we, we go, but trying to think from the Roman Catholic perspective, it's actually not, and I'll I'll tell you a brief story, uh, to explain it. Um, a lot of Roman Catholics are just going through the motions.

[00:25:13] Jesse Schwamb: That's true.

[00:25:14] Tony Arsenal: But the point, the, the, the point of contention actually is that going through the motions is valuable for the Roman Catholic, right? So I, I knew this, uh, this young woman when I was in college who was a Roman Catholic, and we had many discussions about, about the differences between Protestantism and and Roman Catholicism.

And what I came to understand is that going to mass for her. Itself was an act of faith. And so for the Roman Catholic, the concept of, of faith is different than the concept that Protestants operate under. So for the Roman Catholic who, um, goes to mass, even when they feel like they're, like, when they think they're just going through the motions, going through the motions is itself the act of faith.

And that's because for most of Roman Catholics, most of Roman Catholicism, faith really equals faithfulness, right? So, so doing the act is the act of faithfulness. Doing the act is faith. Where for the Protestant, like faith is about belief and trust and knowledge. Like it's, it's an. Not entirely intellectual, but it's, it's an inward thing for the Roman Catholic faith is an out is primarily an outward thing.

It's what you do, it's how you act. It's faith formed in love. It's faith formed in charity.

[00:26:36] Jesse Schwamb: Right.

[00:26:37] Tony Arsenal: So I think most Roman Catholics going to obligatory confession first. I think once a month is probably like, probably more frequent than most Roman Catholics go to mass or go to confession. Um, I thought I read a stat that it was like every six months is, is pretty average and I think that's what's required by the church maybe even once a year is, is required by the church.

Um, I think like most Roman Catholics go into the, the confessional booth and like father forgive me for I've sinned. It's been such and such a number of days since my last confession. Right. And they may bring up a couple particular things that they've done and, and then I think the priest commonly absolves them of all of their sins.

Like, almost like in an omnibus fashion and then prescribes their acts of penance, which is it, it like, honestly, it's probably things they should already be doing as a faithful Catholic saying Hail Marys and doing our fathers and acts of charity and things like that. So I think your math is probably right.

[00:27:39] Protestant Repentance Particular

[00:27:39] Tony Arsenal: I think your, your theory that more confession is probably like, I'm gonna read this from, uh, the Westminster confession, just to, just to say it here, is, this is chapter 15, which is titled of Repentance Under Life. And this is, uh, this is section five or paragraph five. It says, men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but is every man's duty to endeavor, to repent of his particular sins, particularly.

And I think that's just such a beautifully phrased sentence like. Not only is it like potent theologically, but like, it just, it just feels good, like in terms of like the English language to repent of your particular sins, particularly. And like the idea is yes, Protestant reform, Christians affirm a general repentance from sin, right?

We repent of our sin before the father, uh, as a result of our, of our coming to faith in Christ. And as part of our sanctification, we mortify our sin and we, Viv we are vivified by the spirit and repentance falls in that ongoing sanctification process. And there is this general repentance of like, I repent of the fact that I'm a sinner and that I commit sins, but there is this element in the reformed faith of like, I should be confessing to God.

And I think by extension, like we should be confessing to our fellow Christians, our particular sins, our individual sins, and we should be doing that on particular occasion. And I think like. The Luther style confession of like going into the confessor and confessing like every particular sin.

Particularly I think most Roman Catholic priests would, priests. Priests would probably have the same reaction Tobits did where he was like, get outta here. Like, come on dude. Like just go live your life and like deal with it. I think that's probably the reaction most Catholic priests would have. But yeah, I think you're right.

Like if we're really talking about like. Five, five minutes of confession once a month and that somehow having some sort of spiritual efficacy. I'm not sure I buy that math. Like I think you're, you're probably spot on.

[00:29:47] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.

[00:29:47] Confession Hours Oddities

[00:29:47] Jesse Schwamb: I just was curious about how many priests would be required and then the allocation of the duties.

By the way, you are right. So I, because I had to check on this, the, the fourth letter in council of 1215 does say that the church requires confession of any grave or mortal sins at least once a year. But the church, yeah, strongly encourages more frequent confession as a spiritual practice, even for, of course, like the venial or the less serious sins in their eyes.

So yeah, my thought here was just that. I think it's actually undervalued by way of the math. Like the, as the kids say, the math just isn't math thing for me on this one. But I was more curious about, since this is one of the seven sacraments, even if you just said like, well, it should have at least one seven of the allocation.

That's like, what? Like something like 14%. And so this is, um, almost half of that. I just found it a little bit, a little bit odd and yeah, I think you'd have to be, uh, so in other words, when I looked at the, basically, here's the bottom line. When I looked at the hours for confession one, there were weird times and uh, two, I was like, that doesn't seem like enough hours.

Like, it was just more like that. Like how that's like saying like, Hey, the post office is open three hours a week, and by the way, one of those hours is from seven to eight o'clock on Friday. Like they had some hours. One hour just on Friday was like, I guess that's the way you wanna start your weekend is like, let's get all of this off my chest.

Yeah. And, and do it. Right. And the last thing I'll say by the way, is you're correct. When you look at the instruction they give you, and this is common of course, toward the end, when they say like, here's how you like wrap up your part. Actually everybody should go read, go to the local, local Catholic church website and read the instructions.

'cause in some ways they're just interesting and kind of, um, I don't wanna say funny 'cause I'm not making fun. I'm just saying like, they have to give you instruction if you've never done it before. And so most of us are not really probably familiar with the process and they give you explicit instruction and toward the end it's like, here's how you kinda like hang up the call with the priest.

And it's like you said, you know, these are my sins and all others, would you be willing to forgive? So you're right. Right. They just kinda wrap them all up because it's sins of omission, sense of commission, it's all to be together. But I, I wonder, you gotta think there's people in there that are like. The priests are like, okay, man, just yeah.

Wrap, come on, wrap, wrap it up.

[00:31:55] Confession Timing Talk

[00:31:55] Jesse Schwamb: And other people that come in are just like, you know, forgive me father. And uh, lastly to your point, when they give you instruction about how you should start, of course you're always to signify how long it's been since your last confession. Right. Confession. And they say parenthetically, like, reference the days, weeks, months, or years.

So you're right. There are gonna be people that probably do it very frequently and probably people who do it infrequently still, I would say I just couldn't believe for a church this large, that there was just three hours a week.

[00:32:21] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:32:21] Jesse Schwamb: For everybody else.

[00:32:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:32:23] Vance and Papal Authority

[00:32:23] Tony Arsenal: This leads me to two very brief sub, uh, denials slash affirmations.

Uh, I don't know if you saw this, um, this is not a political statement, right? I, I have lots of feelings and thoughts about the current administration and I think most of my feelings and thoughts would surprise. Everybody. But I thought it was hilarious because JD Vance, who is a Roman Catholic, uh, confessed Roman Catholic part of the Roman Catholic Church, uh, he ha I, I'm not sure if I'm affirming or denying this, there was this funny, uh, funny exchange.

I think he was at doing like a, doing like a TPU, I don't know, speech. He was doing a speech at some conservative event and he said something like, I think that the Pope should be more careful when he makes theological statements. I'm wanna be like, do you understand what the pope is in your religion?

That was one of my sub denials. Uh, I don't remember what the other one is, so it must not have been that important. It'll come back to me at the worst possible moment and I will try very hard not to interrupt our show for it, but I probably will fail.

[00:33:25] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.

[00:33:25] Reading Matthew 21

[00:33:25] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, we, we gotta get to some scripture because.

We're, we're doing this old school style where we take like half the time and just talk about affirmations. It's true in house. It's true. Which is great fun. But let's, let's get back to Matthew 21. And I, I know we did this last time, but I am gonna rock through the passage 'cause of course, that's the best part of any of our discussion, is actually hearing from, from the Holy Spirit through the scripture, uh, which he's given to us.

So this is, uh, Matthew 21, starting in verse 33. And you're gonna hear the, the whole thing right here. Uh, this is Jesus speaking. Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and rented it out to vine growers and went on a journey.

Now, when the high risk time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit, and the vine growers took his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Again, he sent another group of slaves larger than the first, and they did the same thing to them. But afterward he sent his son to them saying they will respect my son.

But when the vine growers saw the sun, they said among themselves, this is the heir. Come let us kill him and seize his inheritance, and they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine growers? They said to him, he will bring those wretches to a wretched end and will rent out the vineyard to other vine growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.

Jesus said to them, did you ever read in the scriptures the stone, which the builders rejected? This has become the chief cornerstone. This came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruit of it.

And he who falls in the stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they understood that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to seize him, they feared the crowds because they're regarding him to be a prophet.

[00:35:28] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:35:30] Pharisees Condemn Themselves

[00:35:30] Tony Arsenal: This is like a super heavy parable. Right. And we talked a lot last week about how like the point of this parable is not necessarily to try to instruct the Pharisees or the Sadducees. Like it's not to instruct the people who were going to reject Christ, uh, the, the builders who would reject the cornerstone.

It's really a parable to teach those. Who are observing this process happening. But I think it's, I, I think it's really interesting just listening to you read this and reading through it, and I guess this is a question I haven't asked and I, I need to study a little bit more. It's crazy to me in verse 41, um, Christ seems the, the, the, um, Matthew seems to say here, and maybe I need to do a little bit more Greek study, so bear with me and, and have grace if I'm wrong here.

Matthew seems to say that like Christ asks the people he's speaking to, the Pharisees he's speaking to, what is he gonna do to these people? And the Pharisees answer, he's gonna put those wretches to a miserable death.

[00:36:36] Jesse Schwamb: Right?

[00:36:37] Tony Arsenal: Like the people listening to this parable understand the outcome, like they understand the.

The consequence that the, the, the vineyard owner or the vineyard tenant tenants are facing based on their lack of faithfulness to the covenant. To me, that is like a really striking part of this parable. And, and it's not even like the parable proper, but like the striking element of the context of this is that nobody listening to this parable, including the Pharisees that this parable has basically spoken against, nobody fails to see the gravity of the consequence of rejecting God's emissary, like rejecting the Messiah.

That to me is like a really, I dunno, paradigmatic. Portion of this that I think we need to grapple with. This is not an unclear, an unclear outcome. This is not, this is not masked or vague or OPA opaque. Like everybody understands, the people who reject the Messiah are going to face dire and eternal consequences for that act.

[00:37:48] Jesse Schwamb: That does make this really interesting, doesn't it? Because it's not just entirely like Romans one adventures or even Romans two. It's that this is what Jesus does and he does it in a profound way that's not trickery like I think kinda like you're saying like the lead up to this isn't as if he's even leading the witness.

He's making it very clear, all like the parameters of the story and the characters involved and what should be the proper judgment. And it's not as if like they start saying, they're like, oh, we shouldn't say anything more like we, we plead the fifth because it's gonna condemn ourselves. He draws his audience in to producing and pronouncing like their own sentence.

It's very much like, I think I mentioned this last time, the prophet Nathan and David, isn't it? It's the exact same. Yeah. And the verdict is unanswerable, like even in its own terms. These other, like these other vine growers, prefigures of course like the inclusion of the Gentiles and the apostolic office.

But I like that what Jesus does here, even before he gets to that point, is he extorts from them an acknowledgement of the punishment which awaited them. And so in this way there's like, I think the Puritans use this passage a lot actually to demonstrate that the natural conscience even of like the unregenerate, still bears witness to divine justice.

That's Romans two. Like they, they can't get out from underneath it and Jesus isn't using any trickery on them to get them to say this thing. They are compelled in their own way, even being unregenerate to, like you said, even as they're rejecting the Messiah to recognize that punishment is due these characters in the story, even as they perceive at the end that they are those characters.

[00:39:21] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:39:22] Jesse Schwamb: Saying we'll receive the judgment.

[00:39:24] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:39:25] Usurpers Not Misguided

[00:39:25] Tony Arsenal: And I think too, like, um, this is kind of one of those chicken or the egg scenarios, right? Like Christ is both recognizing the intention of their heart as well as prophesying. And, and not just prophesying, but like inception level prophesying the, the outcome of the intention of their heart.

And so like, again, like we've, we spent a whole week kind of like leading into the parable and now we spent a whole week, we're gonna spend a whole week again kind of leading into the parable. This is such a deep parable, and that like Christ is not just laying bare. The fact that the, the people who were going to reject him were doing so out of this sort of like attempt and intention of usurping the kingdom of God for their own purposes.

I think that brings a layer to this that we don't often appreciate in. Christ's interaction with the Pharisees. I think sometimes, and maybe this is because I just listened to an episode of where Matt Whitman on the 10 minute Bible hour talked about this. I think sometimes we actually have a tendency to sort of be sympathetic to the Pharisees where we think, you know, they were, they were just trying to obey God's law and they got a little sideways on it and you know, they were putting these boundaries in place, but they were doing it in this sort of like misguided attempt to protect the people.

Christ actually here seems to contradict that in that the comparison he's making is not to a, a well-intentioned group of people who just get it wrong, but he's painting the Pharisees, the, the religious leaders, the Sadducees, the chief priests. He's painting them as these usurpers who recognize the proper authority of right.

The master and his emissaries and ultimately of his son, they recognize this proper authority and rather than submitting to it and submitting to the covenant obligations that they, they already actually agreed to, instead of doing that, they're going to reject that authority and try to take it for their own right.

It's not just that they do the wrong thing, it's that they recognize the heir, which is Christ. They recognize this heir and they kill him to try to take his place. That is a really heavy element of this parable. Christ is not painting. Um, the, the, the Pharisees here, the, the religious leaders. He's not painting them as um, well-intentioned, but ultimately wrong, which is I think a lot of times, and I think there's reason to do this right.

I'm not being overly critical and I've done this, I've actually done this myself, and I think there's some. Space for it. Like the Pharisees were wrong, but they were wrong, kind of in the right direction sometimes. Um, Christ is not really on board with that, at least in this parable. Right. This isn't about them thinking that the heir was a threat, and so killing the threat in, you know, inadvertently this is them absolutely seeing who the hair, who the heir is, and intentionally deciding to reject that heir and to murder him and to try to take his inheritance.

Mm-hmm. That's an affront to not only the heir who they murder, but an affront to the owner of the vineyard himself, which of course in this parable is figured to be God the father primarily. But God in sort of general terms, like the whole Godhead, um, with Christ as the second Adam has, as his representative, as his heir.

This is a really heavy parable and I think where this comes into play for us in our own Christian life is. Are there times where we. Sort of do the same thing in refusing to, maybe it's tie into your denial a little bit. Like refusing to acknowledge our own sinfulness, refusing to acknowledge the ways that God has provided for us.

Um, do we at times look at what we have and lay claim to it as though it is our own inheritance that we've taken? Um, right. Do we kind of crucify the son of God anew in, in refusing to repent of our sins particularly? I dunno. I think those are some open questions for us to kind of explore as we dig into this a bit more.

[00:43:54] Jesse Schwamb: And that may relate as well to, well eventually at some point, I dunno, like 2040, get to like the parable of the talents. There's some similarity there with a little bit, right? You're saying? I think you're right.

[00:44:06] God Does All the Verbs

[00:44:06] Jesse Schwamb: And where I think we can anchor some of that is in those first couple of verses. I'm really always impressed by really the number of action verbs that are packed within, like that just initial statement of Jesus explaining the situation.

[00:44:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:44:19] Jesse Schwamb: So he sets it all up and he's saying there's a planting that goes on, this landowner puts up a wall, digs a wine press. Builds a tower and then RINs it. So there's all these like amazing things being done, all this action verb. And I, I think in part why he comes against the Pharisees so hard in the same way that we're looking at like the parable that, uh, the, uh, talents for instance of saying like, what did you do with that was entrusted to you was like this great treasure which Christ has entrusted or God has entrusted to his people, which is, is the gospel essentially is, is all a prophetic witness, is like the truth of who God is and his revelation of himself.

And so I think. The first thing we gotta see in those verbs is that there's this emphasis that the vineyard was God's sovereign creation. You know, he plants it, he chose it, he established it. Israel didn't plant herself. She was planted. And that sovereign initiative is foundational, I think in, like you're saying, the parables indictment, because these vine growers, they don't possess anything that they did not receive.

Right. You know, they did not find a vineyard already planted, but God himself made it from the wilderness that all his glory, all the glory might be his. So. I think it's helpful for us to observe that the church is always the planting of the Lord and that no congregation flourishes that is not first planted by God.

And so there is a major offense here when those who are to care for it, who know, like you're saying, that they ought to care for it, who understand something about the hierarchy and the way it has been entrusted to them. Not to only break that covenant, but then seek to try to usurp the power in the roles of those whom they should be, quite frankly, in our own language, like under shepherds too.

And so it starts with all, all those verbs. Like I think we could probably spend a. A lot of times just speaking about what does it mean? Why? Why is there all this explicit in particular language about the fact that there's a hedge and there's a press besides just these are part in piece mail or part and parcel of what it means to have a vineyard, apparently, but that they're all part of this narrative of God talking about how he protects and cares for his people and sets them in a place and chooses them and is particular about the construction and does so with great volition and authority and care and concern and creative ability.

And then again, you have those who are meant there to do the very job that he's entrusted them with. And not only are they not doing that, and of course you're right. Jesus elsewhere, comes in, comes in hot, right, with a Pharisees saying like, listen, you set burdens on people's backs that you yourselves cannot lift.

You're twice as in the hell as anybody else, and that's who you are. Yeah. It's not just hypocrisy, but you're literally setting people up to fail in this. So you can see how you're right. It's not just like, guys, I appreciate that. Like you wanted to set up some additional boundaries and maybe you took it a little bit too far.

This parable is just scorched earth. It's, it's nuclear. Yeah.

[00:47:10] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:47:11] Scandalous Vineyard Setup

[00:47:11] Tony Arsenal: And you know, I think, um, we are obviously gonna spend another week on this 'cause we still have not really addressed a single verse in this parable. I, I think like a lot of ink has been spilled on explaining sort of like the feal agricultural arrangements of this passage.

What it represents. M my understanding is. A typical arrangement would be that a, a landowner would basically just lease out land and the tenants would be responsible for the planting, for the development. Right. And the, the, the landowner would essentially just collect a portion of whatever they produce.

Right. This parable is actually taking this a step further. Exactly. That it's not as though the landowner just says like, all right, you can use this land. Right. And I own the land, so I get a portion of the pro, the profit. He's actually done all the work. Yes. And all that. The, all that the, the tenants need to do essentially is reap the harvest and then provide the portion of the harvest that belongs to the landowner, and so there is a greater investment.

Of the landowner into this land than would be expected. We've commented in the past about how a lot of times the, the parables start on sort of a premise of shock. Like there's a, there's an element of the setup of the, of the parable where the audience would kind of like sit back and gasp or kind of be like, wait a second.

Like that's not normal. Right. In the parable of the, the, um, lost son, it was the idea that like the son demanded his inheritance. And that wasn't the shocking part. The shocking part was that the father just granted it. Right. Or, um, the lost sheep, like the, there's actually a sort of a shocking element to the fact that like the, the land, the like sheep owner would just go get this other sheep.

So we've, we've commented on there's kind of like. There's sort of like a scandalous setup. The scandalous setup in this is not that the land has been leased to tenants, right? It's that the land has been prepared for the tenants before it was leased out in the first place. And I think that's something we might miss if we read over this too quickly, is.

The landowner has prepared everything for these, these tenants.

[00:49:30] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.

[00:49:31] Tony Arsenal: So the, the, at the, the punchline of the parable where they refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty of, um, sovereignty and maybe a lowercase s in the, in the context of the parable, they refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty and the rightful claim of the tenant or of the landowner on the, the profit of the land.

And sort of like highlighter emphasized by the fact that they actually didn't do any of the work. There's a certain kind of like Amer, like American rugged individualism where we're kind of like, yeah, like if I planted all the crops, then it's kind of lame that this guy's coming in expecting to take a portion of it, right?

Like, yeah, I guess he owns the land, so maybe he gets a little piece of it, but like, who does he think he is? All of that already is already short circuited. Like I. The, these tenants are not actually, um, portrayed as doing anything in this parable. That's right. Like they just lease the land. They, they, um, and leased is not really like the right.

The right word, the, the Greek word is omi, which is like he gave over the land to them. Um, when we say leased, we have this idea that like the tenants pay to use the land and then like part of their contract is that whatever profits they reap, uh, off the land goes back to the, to the landowner. This is really more like the landowner graciously allowed them to live on this land, and the only payment he required was that they would eventually provide him part of the profit back.

Like he's planted the land, he's put up the fence around it. He dug the wine press so that they could make a product out of it. He built the tower so it would be defended. Yes. And he gave it over to them essentially just to like live on until it was time for the harvest. And all he is asking for is basically like, alright, so this is my land.

I've planted the vineyards, the profit is mine to have. And so when the time came for him to come claim that that's where they have now rejected him. Yes. That's where they've now said like, I know you did all the work and really graciously allowed us to live in this land, but we're gonna keep all of it for ourselves.

That's the scandal of this. That's what I think like the original audience would've set up and like, wait a second here. Like, hold on. They didn't even plant the vineyards themselves. They didn't even build the tower themselves. That's really the force of this that I think we miss when we, when we overemphasize, trying to think through like what the original agricultural arrangements were.

'cause this is painted. Very different than what the original arrangements would've been typical for. Like this is a different scenario and I think intentionally so,

[00:52:09] Jesse Schwamb: and we need those words like rented, at least in English, to help us understand that it didn't belong to them. It wasn't a gift, right? It wasn't as if like it was just turned over in the sense that it belongs to you now do with it what you will.

And it's very clear in the passage one, like you said, that the landowner does all those things. So it was a, you know, he completely set it up. I mean, this is just such a beautiful, I think, depiction of the hold of prophetic, you know, understanding of God's word here, but it's very clear that says the, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit.

So you're right. The scandal is that they're like, well, obviously. They need to give him his fruits, like

[00:52:48] Tony Arsenal: right.

[00:52:48] Jesse Schwamb: It was all set up before he left on this long journey. He then turned it over to them to care for, and that was really all that they were supposed to do. They had no role in this. And so it does like lead us in into this weird space where it's like, well, well what, what did the Pharisees think they were trying to do themselves?

What does actually Jesus commenting on, on their own, like licit on their own initiative here, is he basically saying that not only are they not respecting his sovereignty, but they were trying to claim for themselves what only rightly belongs to God that even their position right. Society in culture as their representatives, God himself, they wanted to take that over for themselves, which he does bring that condemnation upon them in other parts of the scripture.

So again, this is really hot. I think it's a, it's both heat and light, but there's no doubt that there's fire to this, right? Because it's a direct indictment that God the father set all of this up. You yourselves are on rented property, but guess what? Even the property that you've rented, I'm not exacting a tax from you as if like you have put forward and grown or supplied or created some kind of profitable outcome here.

And I just want a piece of that. He's not even talking about tithing in that sense. What he's basically saying is, none of this belongs to you. Like how? Right? How dare you? None of this is yours. I set all of this up and in fact, because you've done so poor poorly at this, I'm gonna take it away from you and give it to those who actually produce fruit and guess what's gonna be the Gentiles?

So it's, there's a wild. Amounts of condemnation packed into a very small story.

[00:54:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. It really is.

[00:54:22] Tenants Add Nothing

[00:54:22] Tony Arsenal: Um, there is nothing expected of these tenants. Right. There's no contract, like there's no terms, they, they really add nothing to the, the landowner's land, except I guess maybe they're the ones harvesting these, this fruit.

Right. But even that's not explicit in the parable.

[00:54:43] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.

[00:54:43] Tony Arsenal: Right. Right. He, he does all just to steal your thunder, like he does all the verbs. Yes. All of the ves are done by the landowner.

[00:54:50] Jesse Schwamb: Yes. Right

[00:54:51] Tony Arsenal: on. There is an implication that the, the tenants are somehow like the ones harvesting this, or they're the ones producing the wine, I guess, in the wine vat or the wine press.

But at the end of the day. A normal tenant landowner agreement would be, I'm, you're, first of all, you're probably gonna pay me to use this land, right? You're paying me to use this land, and the way you pay me is you're gonna plant the, the gr the crop. You're gonna harvest it. You're gonna make the produce, and all I'm gonna do is let you live on this land.

I'm gonna take the pro, like the profit, you're gonna pay me outta that profit. There is nothing asked or expected of these, these landowners, except to give the fruit that is already hit.

[00:55:36] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, exactly.

[00:55:37] Tony Arsenal: And, and that's where like, I think our Christian life, John Piper, I won't get into too much, but like John Piper is all in the news again for the same like finance, final salvation stuff that he's, he's been controversial for, for years.

Right. And I think like this ties into that thi this is a, a direct parallel in many ways to the par, like the, the parable of the talents, which I'm, we we'll get into eventually is like. The, the landowner provides these talents or the, in this case, the land and the fruit. All of this is brought forth by his will and the fact that these, these worthless tenants do nothing and then still have the audacity to basically like refuse to.

Provide back to this landowner what he has produced.

[00:56:25] Jesse Schwamb: Right? Yes. That's

[00:56:26] Tony Arsenal: the key. That's, that's really the point of this parable.

[00:56:29] Jesse Schwamb: Yep.

[00:56:29] Tony Arsenal: Is somehow the Pharisees, and I think where the application of this is probably where we'll go next time, is like somehow the Pharisees have got in their mind that this thing that God has done in the people of Israel and is now doing in the Messiah, this ministry of the Messiah, in coming to claim the fruit, that somehow they have a right to lay claim to that and to withhold it from the Father.

[00:56:54] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.

[00:56:54] Tony Arsenal: Even though they had nothing to do with anything that brought about, its, its, uh, its occurrence. Right. The Pharisees didn't create the nation of Israel. They didn't create the gospel. They didn't create the Messiah, and somehow they think that they can withhold the fruit of that ministry from the father and take like lay claim to it for themselves.

And this is where I think. We have to trust the Holy Spirit and trust Jesus because there's really nothing in the gospels that explain what they were doing that sort of like showed them trying to like take over the Messiah's inheritance, right? But that's what this parable teaches, is that that's what they're being criticized for, that they were somehow trying to usurp the position of the Messiah.

They were trying to become the mediators. They were trying to become the sons of God or the son of God who interceded from God for God's people. They were the ones that were gonna do that. They were the ones that were gonna accomplish that. So I think what'll be interesting next week is when we come, come back to this parable and sort of try to talk about like what does that actually teach us as believers 2000 years later, who aren't Pharisees.

We're not trying to do that. What does this have to do with us? What does this have to say to us?

[00:58:07] Wrap Up and Next Week

[00:58:07] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I think you're entirely right and I'm looking forward to, uh, well, we'll wrap it up officially.

[00:58:13] Tony Arsenal: Yes.

[00:58:13] Jesse Schwamb: In, in that next episode, it's gonna be

[00:58:15] Tony Arsenal: probably

[00:58:16] Jesse Schwamb: totally, probably, it's like a 70% chance, honestly. Loved ones,

[00:58:21] Tony Arsenal: 70%, 50.

[00:58:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. There's definitely a meaningful material probability that that still won't be the last one once we get started, but we're gonna try. As always. I, I'm totally with you. I, I hope people take a little time to go read through this because I think the more we slow down and really try to set ourselves into the details and actually be particular about maybe envisioning the circumstances exactly as they're laid out for us and not as we sometimes try to fill out in our minds.

I think maybe the biggest challenge that we've learned in this particular conversation is that verse 34, what is meant when the scripture says Now, when the harvest time approached. He that is the landowner sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his fruit. And I think what you've challenged here is this idea of, well, it doesn't say like he sent to go get them to harvest it.

Right. Just saying like, listen, it's my fruit. Like let's do this thing. Like you knew I would show up. I've left you to, to care for all these things which I put into place. So here I am, I've sent my people to come and receive the fruit. And, uh, they can't do it. They refuse to do it. They won't do it. Uh, they kill everybody whom he sends, including his own son.

And so, you're right, it's not even here. We gotta be careful about the actions and of presuming that they here, like the Pharisees were these people who were in charge somehow of even harvesting. There's, there's actually no mention of that except for it was just harvest time.

[00:59:40] Tony Arsenal: Right?

[00:59:40] Jesse Schwamb: And so it's even there, I think it's purposely ambiguous to remind us that God is doing all the things.

I'm a little embarrassed that I missed the phrase. God does all the verbs when I was literally saying. The landowner does all these verbs.

[00:59:53] Tony Arsenal: It's okay.

[00:59:54] Jesse Schwamb: The first sentence I, I've, I've fallen down on you loved ones. I'm so sorry I missed it,

[00:59:58] Tony Arsenal: Jesse. It's okay because God does all the verbs

[01:00:02] Jesse Schwamb: is factually. That is factually correct, so we'll give this one.

One more shot because at least there's so much for us. We could do a whole series just on this one, and I think if you're tracking with us, you're probably discovering that we also, sometimes in real time, as we really spend a little bit of effort kind of speaking about the particulars, find that these parables are more chock full than you think.

There isn't just one idea. There's often many ideas coalescing around. Yeah. The central theme and the setup in the context is important. The word choice is important, and I am as well, just as you were saying, blown away by the way in which Jesus really evokes from the audience here, their own condemnation, their own judicial decree, which is, yeah, he's gonna take those wretches and kick 'em out.

And they're saying it about themselves. This is what sin does, isn't it? This is what the natural man is like. Ken has to bow down to this great sovereign justice that comes from God while at the same time they think in their self-righteousness. They're proclaiming that in somebody else, and what they're really doing is they're putting it on their own head apart from God.

We are all like that. All of us are like this. So glory beats a God who through the Holy Spirit, opens our eyes to receive and to understand the gospel, to be changed by, to be transformed by it because he does all the verbs. I'm so grateful that that's in fact what he does, that that God has planted us, that he's pull a wall around us, that he stick out this wine press for us, that he's built a tower to protect us and that he has grown the fruit in us because of all the things that he has done.

[01:01:42] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, this is normally the part of the episode where we would do all of our announcements, uh, which just shows you we are not great podcasters. 'cause really we should do that at the beginning of, of the episode. Uh, but you know what, like if you wanna know what all of our announcements are, you're just gonna have to come back next week.

'cause we are out of time. We're not gonna do that. So I, I know that that's the most cliff of all cliffhangers is if you have listened this far and you want to hear about Oliver of our housekeeping assignment, an announcements and whatnot, you're just gonna have to come back next week and listen to it.

Uh, because as much as my brain is telling me I should tell you all about it now, I'm not going to. So, Jesse, until next time when people join us for our housekeeping announcements, honor everyone.

[01:02:31] Jesse Schwamb: Love the brotherhood.

In this powerful episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse return to their parable series with an in-depth examination of the Laborers in the Vineyard from Matthew 20:1-16. This often-misunderstood parable confronts our natural inclination toward merit-based thinking and exposes the scandal of God's grace. The hosts unpack the covenantal language embedded in the text, particularly the workers' "grumbling"—a loaded term echoing Israel's wilderness rebellion. Through careful exegesis and theological reflection, they demonstrate how this parable dismantles religious entitlement while celebrating God's sovereign freedom to bestow mercy according to His purposes, not our calculations. The discussion offers fresh insights into grace, election, and the radical generosity that defines God's kingdom economy.

Key Takeaways

• The parable operates on covenant logic, not economic fairness: The landowner's dealings with his workers reflect covenantal promise-keeping rather than marketplace transactions, establishing that God's relationship with His people is fundamentally gracious.
• "Grumbling" carries profound theological weight: The Greek word used for the workers' complaint is the same term in the Septuagint for Israel's wilderness rebellion—not mere dissatisfaction, but a covenantal accusation against God's faithfulness.
• Two types of workers represent two approaches to God: The first-hired workers who contracted for specific wages represent those relating to God through legal obligation and merit, while later workers who trusted the owner's promise represent faith-based relationship.
• The reversal of payment order is narratively essential: By paying the last workers first, the landowner deliberately exposes the merit-based assumptions of the first workers, forcing them to confront their entitlement.
• Grace doesn't negate justice—it transcends it: The landowner fulfills every contractual obligation while simultaneously exercising sovereign generosity beyond what is owed, demonstrating that mercy and justice coexist in God's character.
• The parable addresses the present kingdom, not just heaven: Because it includes grumbling and complaint, this parable describes life in God's kingdom now—the "already but not yet"—rather than the consummated state.
• Divine sovereignty in salvation is the theological climax: The landowner's declaration "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?" directly addresses God's freedom in election and the scandal of unmerited grace.

Key Ideas The Covenantal Nature of the Landowner's Dealings

The parable's opening establishes a formal agreement between the landowner and the first workers: one denarius for a day's labor. This contractual arrangement is crucial for understanding what follows. Unlike marketplace haggling, this represents a covenant—the landowner binds himself to provide what he has promised. Tony emphasizes that even this initial contract is an act of condescension and grace, as the master had no obligation to employ anyone at all.

As the day progresses, subsequent workers are hired with increasingly less formal agreements. By the third hour, the landowner promises only "whatever is right," and by the eleventh hour, no wage is even mentioned. These later workers enter the vineyard based entirely on the landowner's character and trustworthiness. This progression mirrors the movement from law to gospel—from contractual obligation to trusting promise. The theological implication is profound: those who relate to God based on His gracious word rather than calculated merit are actually in a more secure position than those who attempt to earn their standing through works.

The Wilderness Echo: Grumbling as Covenant Violation

The hosts make a critical exegetical observation about the Greek word for "grumbling" (γογγύζω) used in verse 11. This is not casual complaining but the identical term used throughout the Septuagint to describe Israel's covenant rebellion in the wilderness. When the workers grumble "upon receiving" their wages, they're not merely expressing disappointment about pay inequality—they're filing a covenant lawsuit against the master, accusing him of unfaithfulness.

This connection to Numbers 16 and Exodus 16-17 is devastating. The Israelites' wilderness grumbling wasn't about logistics or comfort; it was fundamentally about doubting God's covenant fidelity. By employing this loaded terminology, Matthew signals that the first workers' complaint is nothing less than accusing God of covenant violation. The landowner's response ("Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?") is a covenant defense—he has fulfilled his obligations precisely. The workers' real offense is not miscalculation but begrudging God's freedom to show mercy beyond what is contractually required.

The "Evil Eye" and Begrudging God's Grace

The final rhetorical question—"Or do you begrudge my generosity?"—contains another Jewish idiom often lost in translation. The Greek literally reads, "Is your eye evil because I am good?" This "evil eye" imagery appears throughout Scripture as a metaphor for envy, stinginess, and resentment toward another's blessing. The landowner's question cuts to the heart: are you cursing me for being generous?

This directly parallels Jonah's response to Nineveh's salvation. Jonah had just experienced miraculous deliverance through the great fish, yet when God showed identical mercy to the Ninevites, Jonah's response was essentially, "I knew you were gracious—that's why I ran!" The parable exposes the same perverse logic: those who have received covenant mercy begrudging that same mercy extended to others. For the Pharisees listening to Jesus, this was an indictment of their resentment toward tax collectors and sinners receiving the kingdom. For Christians today, it challenges any sense of spiritual superiority based on how long we've been in the kingdom or how much we've sacrificed.

Memorable Quotes

Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? That 'or' is a logical connector—either I'm not allowed to do what I want with my belongings, which is ridiculous, or if I am allowed, then you must be mad at me for being generous. Those are the only options. — Tony Arsenal

The grumbling in the Old Testament in this context is a covenantal accusation. These workers aren't just complaining about not getting what they thought they would—they're questioning the veracity of the covenant that was made. — Tony Arsenal

Most of us are this eleventh-hour call. It's much better to be in the place of that younger brother who comes in and repents than to be the older brother who is stubborn and finds some reason to come before God with self-righteous grievances. — Jesse Schwamb

Full Episode Transcript

[00:01:05] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 488 of the Reformer Brotherhood. I'm Jesse

[00:01:13] Tony Arsenal: and I am still Tony, and this is the podcast where Tony comes back. Hey brother.

[00:01:19] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother. The band is back together again, man. It's reunited and boy, do you feel it? It feels good, doesn't

[00:01:26] Tony Arsenal: it? I do, I do. I'm excited to come back. It was nice to take a break.

[00:01:29] Jesse Schwamb: Good.

[00:01:29] Tony Arsenal: I, uh, I've been, you know, texted with you a couple times. Just it was, I did my best to sort of not think about the podcast because that's sort of defeats the purpose of taking a break from something if you spend a lot of time thinking about it. Um, so I'm back. I'm refreshed. I'm ready to go.

[00:01:44] Break and Work Chaos

[00:01:44] Tony Arsenal: I appreciate the listeners' patience.

Uh, it's been sort of a weird, crazy busy time at work. Uh, there's a lot going on. I, I lost like. 60% of my staff in the course of like three weeks. And, um, I'm still kind of in the thick of it, but we're coming out of it. So took a little bit of time to just make sure that I was having a, an appropriate space to de-stress from that and take care of my family and attend to worship.

And, um, it was really a, a blessing to have that. Uh, sort of sabbatical. Ironically, the sabbatical wars were going on at the same time on Twitter, and Jesse is blissfully unaware of that 'cause he's not involved in in the Twitter. That's true. Um, but yeah, just took a little break and it's kinda like overblown it, to call it a sabbatical.

Like this is a podcast, it's a hobby, but, but it was nice to have, uh, a little bit of extra time, you know, couple hours extra week, uh, uh, each week of extra time to just decompress and, uh, play with the kids and spend time with my wife and clean the house a little bit, which was good.

[00:02:36] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it is always good to have a clean house.

You look great. You seem refreshed. The voice sounds good, and I'm like, I don't know, in year seven or eight of my Twitter sabbatical, it's going great so far. I feel like I haven't missed a whole lot. The world still seems wild and I'm sure, or X, right? We gotta go X on this. It's

[00:02:53] Tony Arsenal: always Twitter. It's always gonna be Twitter.

I don't care what Elon Musk

says.

[00:02:56] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I'm listen. I'm totally fine with that.

[00:02:58] Back to Parables

[00:02:58] Jesse Schwamb: And I teased this in the last episode, but we can't be stopped. I mean, people should know this by now, we have an inexorable march through the parables of Jesus's true. That will not be stopped. We're always gonna come back until there are no more.

And on this episode, we're gonna be hanging out in Matthew 20, talking about laborers in the Kingdom of Heaven.

[00:03:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I'm stoked. I'm, I'm, I'm excited to get back into it. I'm excited to get back into the word together with everybody. I'm excited to clear whatever that was on in my throat out

[00:03:27] Jesse Schwamb: emotion,

[00:03:27] Tony Arsenal: live on the air.

Uh, but yeah, it'll be good. I'm, I'm stoked. I mean, I love this stuff and it's good to be back.

[00:03:32] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, you had the rest. Now let's talk about labor. So speaking of labor, it's, it's time for you to work up here, Tony. Are you affirming with or denying against on this episode?

[00:03:42] Tony Arsenal: Uh, I'm affirming something and I'm hopeful, uh, that just a little behind the scenes activity here.

Jesse recorded episode 487, like an hour and a half ago. I have not yet listened to it, so I don't know if you did an affirmation and I I did. If you did. I hope it's not the same one.

[00:03:58] Jesse Schwamb: I did not. You're

[00:03:59] Tony Arsenal: safe. Uh, good. So I'm safe.

[00:04:01] Artemis II Hype

[00:04:01] Tony Arsenal: So, um, I'm affirming the Artemis two mission. Um, oh, nice. Have you been, I mean, I know you're not on Twitter, but I'm sure there's news elsewhere.

Uh, this amazing mission around the moon, um, for astronaut, for astronauts, I think, um, the furthest man space travel, um, since the Apollo program. Um. Pretty intense, pretty amazing pictures, right? The camera technologies amazing. Increased exponentially, uh, since we were there last. Um, this is ostensibly in preparation for an actual moon landing, which who knows when that will be?

Um, but as far as I've seen, the mission was a resounding success. There was no right. I think they had, they ran into a few little hiccups early on with some technical things, but nothing crazy. I have not heard. Um, I know they did touch down and they did reentry. Um, I've not heard anything one way or another, but I'm assuming since I have not heard terrible, tragic news that they made it through, did they do the reentry?

I'm really, apparently I'm not actually paying as much attention to this as I thought I was. I saw a lot of information about reentry, but I guess, I don't know for sure when that happened or is happening.

[00:05:05] Jesse Schwamb: I mean, by this point, when people listen to it, it'll be old news anyway, right? So

[00:05:09] Tony Arsenal: For sure. Yeah. And either, either it went terribly wrong and I'm gonna feel awful, or it went fine and I'm gonna feel a little silly for.

Throwing a caveat that it went terribly wrong out there. But, um, it's cool. It's, it's amazing. I mean, I, I commented to my wife the other day and she's kinda like, yeah, maybe we should like, spend that money on people who are on the planet. I was like, okay, I can, I can buy that wisdom. But, um, there's something very cool and very Genesis, uh, one, ask Genesis one and two, ask about flying out into space and taking dominion over Yeah, for sure.

Over a, a little ball of rock, uh, you know, uh, 25,000 miles away or whatever it is. Um. And, you know, I'm like an engineering nerd. I, I don't know anything about engineering, but I love watching YouTube videos that explain stuff like this. And

[00:05:52] Jesse Schwamb: me

[00:05:52] Tony Arsenal: too, all of the videos that have cropped up now about free return and how, like they're able to basically like do minimal burn on the thrusters to get into the right trajectory and then just like meet the moon in the place it's gonna be.

And then the, you know, the moon's gravity captures it and whips it back around and then shoots it back towards Earth. And for the most part, they're able to do all of that with relatively minor, um, relatively minor energy output because they're just utilizing physics and gravity and math, um, to fly to the moon and come back.

Yes. It's pretty crazy amazing. So, yeah. Amazing. And the photos of like the, the sort of like new versions of the Earthrise photos are really, really phenomenal. Um, they're crisp, they're clean, they're obviously like the best, the best actual pho photographic images we've had of the lunar surface. Um. And the, the far side of the lunar surface, which we get all sorts of like telescopic photos and things of this side of the lunar surface because it's tightly locked and is facing us at all times.

We don't get a ton of really great photography of the far side of the moon, which is a big part of what this mission was, so,

[00:06:56] Jesse Schwamb: right.

[00:06:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. If you haven't seen the photos, I mean, they're out there, they're amazing. There will be even more available once we get back. You know, they, they're transmitting only the most stellar, amazing ones.

Um, and, but they're taking, I'm sure thousands and thousands of photos and, um, so yeah, it's pretty cool. I'm affirming the Artemis two mission. Um. It's just amazing what, what people can do with common grace, you know? That's right. In insight into nature. Um, I don't know anything about the astronauts. I don't know anything about their religious faith or their spiritual life or anything like that.

But, um, the people who design this, the people who fly it, they're just tapping into the truth that's present in God's creation. So good on them. Uh, either I'm glad they got home, wish they have a safe home coming, or something along those lines, I guess. I don't know.

[00:07:40] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, you'll be happy to know that NASA is reporting that the four astronauts are an excellent condition after they landed in the Pacific Ocean.

So

[00:07:47] Tony Arsenal: good.

[00:07:47] Jesse Schwamb: All, all appears to be well. And it says they have a giant SD card of pictures that's they've been taking. Yeah. And saving. I'm sure. They were just, they were just too big to send to over wifi.

[00:07:58] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Like massive wideness. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure they have a ton that they didn't send because you know Right.

Data rates to the moon are pretty high. Yeah.

[00:08:05] Jesse Schwamb: Ex. Yeah.

[00:08:05] Tony Arsenal: This economy is crazy. So

[00:08:07] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly. In this economy. Really In this economy. Yeah, exactly.

[00:08:11] Cosmic Worship Reflections

[00:08:11] Jesse Schwamb: I think you're right. This is good. I haven't talked about this at all. It's hard not to get just stoked, even in the amateur way about the science, the technology, the physics of all this stuff, and then even the astronauts just being overwhelmed by what they're seeing.

[00:08:24] Tony Arsenal: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:25] Jesse Schwamb: It's hard not to get pulled into that and think about the universe that God has created and find that there is something transcendent just, uh, by observing all of these things. Yeah. Like even casually, which I think shows, again, this is literally the, the heavens and the earth crying out for God, showing his immeasurable power and, you know, immortal nature.

It's incredible that we can even see and be a part of some of these things. Just wild.

[00:08:49] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, and I think it's crazy that they can get signals to the moon. I mean, I drive home from Dartmouth College and I go through half of the spot there, and I don't have a cell signal, but we can get images from the moon.

Um, so yeah, it's great. It's great. Check it out if you haven't seen it. If you haven't heard about it, I don't know what you're doing. Uh, this is probably the largest major scientific advancement in our generation. Um, in terms of like big scale scientific enterprise projects. There's been a lot of really amazing technology that's been developed.

But this is like the first big. Almost like risky kind of scientific,

[00:09:30] Jesse Schwamb: right?

[00:09:30] Tony Arsenal: I dunno. Gambit or I dunno, gamble that we've done in a long time. Big deal. I mean, big a lot. Deal of things. Deal. Nothing went wrong. Nothing ma major went wrong. Praise God that they all got back to the planet safely. Right. But, um, a lot of things could have gone wrong, uh, and they didn't.

So check out the photos, check out the scientific data they're gonna get. I mean, I'm sure they've got all sorts of information about the way the, the, the space ship moved, all of that stuff. It's gonna be really interesting to see kind of how this all comes about.

[00:09:56] Jesse Schwamb: Get some worship on, right? Yeah. I mean this is what a one, a thing to be reminded about how big and how glorious God is.

[00:10:01] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:10:01] Jesse Schwamb: And, and to realize, like you said, the risks of this exploration. And this is God again, creating all of this outta nothing. Why? Yeah. Just absolutely wild. Incredible.

[00:10:12] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, for

[00:10:12] Jesse Schwamb: sure. Blown away.

[00:10:13] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. What about you, Jesse? What do you have for us?

[00:10:15] Bayes and Predictability

[00:10:15] Jesse Schwamb: I got affirmation. It's equally nerdy, and actually this is as is always the case.

This is why one of many reasons I miss you is it, it dovetails so nicely, so I'm affirming with a book. It's called Everything Is Predictable, how Esy and Statistics Explains the World. It's by a guy named Tom Chivers. I know this sounds super nerdy, but hear me out on this because Thomas Bayes, if you don't know this guy is first kind of like a wild and interesting guy, but this whole theory he put forward is super interesting.

And this book is not like a mathematics book. It's like reads almost like a statistical thriller, which as it came outta my mouth, realized it was not maybe more ingratiating. I could have chosen better words than statistical thriller. But Thomas Bayes was alive in the 17 hundreds. And what's interesting to me at least about him, is he was an English statistician, who was a Presbyterian minister actually.

He was a non-conformist and his, this whole theorem that he developed was actually published after his death. And the non-conformist part is super interesting. It's all in this book, even some of his different theological ideas. But because he was non-conformist, it basically meant like he couldn't learn.

He was kicked out of all the English universities. He had to go to Scotland. Even all of that shaped how he came up with this particular theorem. But the gist of it is. Rather than treating like probabilities, as we think about it as this fixed frequency, you know, how many times does this thing occur? He argued and realized that it should represent a degree of belief and then you would update that belief rationally as new evidence comes in.

And I know that sounds super quaint, but this is like what machine learning is based on medical diagnosis. A lot of like space travel is based on this in terms of understanding uncertainty and systems spam, all of that stuff. Here's an example, I think Tony, because we are, we have to carry forward with the top 50 medical podcast thing, right?

We've got going on here. Lemme just give everybody an example of why you need this and why you automatically think this way. So. Statistics is really important, especially in medical testing. This was really prevalent in during COVID. So there's two ways that you can describe how a medical test performs you.

You know this already, Tony, you're an expert. So one would be like sensitivity. So like how AIG

[00:12:19] Tony Arsenal: not an expert.

[00:12:20] Jesse Schwamb: Oh, you're definitely an expert in testing. Here we go. So one would be like sensitivity. How good is the test at catching people who are sick? So if you're sick, you, you want the test to identify that, that you're sick.

That's sensitivity. So a test with a 99% sensitivity is gonna correctly identify 99 out of a hundred people who are truly sick. It always gonna miss one person. It's a false negative. The other half of that coin is something called specificity. So if sensitivity is all about catching the people who are sick, specificity is gonna say, how good is the test at clearing people who are not sick?

And so a test with 99% specificity, you might have correctly guessed, is gonna identify or clear 99 out of a hundred healthy people. Now if you have a test. Both of those 99% sensitive and 99% specific, you might be thinking, that is the dream. That's exactly what I want. That that test is gonna be so precise and accurate.

How could my intuition fail me? But this is the thing. It actually fails all the time, and here's why. Let's say that. You go out and you screen a group of people, a general population for a rare disease that affects one in a thousand people. One in a thousand people, rare disease. So if you screen 10,000 people from the general population, that means that truly only 10 of them are going to have the actual disease.

I'm not gonna do all the math 'cause it'll, oh, this is already making for amazing podcasting. But here's the bottom line. That test, which sounds so good on the face, is going to identify 109 people as truly sick or truly having disease. But the problem is that only 10 of them actually have it. That means that only there's, it only has a success rate of 9%.

There's only 9% chance you actually have the disease, but it's falsely identified. The short end of this is Bayes corrects that problem. He fixes it with his theorem so that we get to the right number of people. That's what's called like a base fallacy rate. It's not taking into account that really only 10 people should have this particular disease or this sickness.

So I know that's sounds super nerdy, but so much of our lives are based on this. We have a prior belief or a prior set of things that we understand about the world. And then as evidence comes in, we refine that. That sounds so normal and normative, but it's revolutionary in this book actually. Bayes versus what's called like frequentist or frequent, um, probability is like hotly debated.

People actually throw down over this theorem. So it's a really fun read. Go check out. Everything is predictable. Al Bayesian statistics explains our world. It really is for everybody. And then you can impress your friends with all the statistical pross you're gonna have when you're done reading it.

[00:14:56] Tony Arsenal: Like the medical administrator hat that I can't always take off is like, why would we screen 10,000 people?

Are, are they all symptomatic? Are none of them symptomatic? But suppose it doesn't really

[00:15:08] Jesse Schwamb: matter for the example. That's a great, so generally what happens here is, let's say it's like some kind of rare form of cancer, unless you use Bayesian statistics, what you'll find is you'll get these false positive rates.

So these tests do use Bayesian statistics. It corrects, in other words, for this problem. So there might be a lot of people that are gonna screen for this because if you, you wanna know if you have it, but you don't wanna get it wrong and say that you do. So this ensures his approach ensures that you get it.

Right. It's wild. Fascinating stuff.

[00:15:34] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and I would think actually, you know, there's probably, there's other mechanisms as well where they would, where they would sort of screen out. People that shouldn't be tested or help identify false negatives, false positives. Um, but yeah, that's, that's interesting. I probably won't read that book, but it sounds like an interesting read.

I just don't have a lot of room on my A TBR shelf.

[00:15:55] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, listen. That, that's fair.

[00:15:57] Goodreads DNF Update

[00:15:57] Jesse Schwamb: By the way, here's like a, a side affirmation. I think you and I both share speaking like books and cataloging books. If you use Good Reads, good Reads. Right. Finally adding a list of the Do Not Did Not Finish book. That's fantastic.

This, this might be an example for some people, so pick it up and even if you don't have a place for it, guess where you can put it on the did not finish list. Yeah. Good Reads.

[00:16:16] Tony Arsenal: That's finally, that's one of those like, like why didn't they add that 15 years ago? Kind of an updates and you get the email and they're like, we're so excited to introduce the did Not Finish thing.

And we're like, yeah. Like of course. Like, duh. It's likes, like, we're proud to introduce that. Your keypad now has a zero on it.

[00:16:36] Jesse Schwamb: Right. So

[00:16:37] Tony Arsenal: yeah. I'm, I'm excited about the DNR, um, the DNF, um, I'm so excited. I can't even remember what it's called. Yeah. The shelf. But, uh, very, very useful. The DNR list

[00:16:47] Jesse Schwamb: is a diff it is a different list.

Speaking of medical things, it's a different

[00:16:50] Tony Arsenal: list. Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely a different thing. Usually it's not a list. It's a list of one in most cases.

[00:16:56] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly,

[00:16:57] Tony Arsenal: yeah. You can't put other people on your

[00:17:00] Jesse Schwamb: DNR

[00:17:00] Tony Arsenal: This,

[00:17:00] Jesse Schwamb: I suppose. Yeah, I should clarify that. You can really, you can only really put yourself, or I suppose somebody for whom you have that kind of authority over on that list, but I was thinking that more from like a medical perspective, that somewhere there would be a database in which there might be a list of DNR.

I don't know.

[00:17:15] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure. Probably there was at some point, but I think with medical chart technology now, that's probably like a. A moot point. Yeah. They don't need to be able to like cross reference a master list anymore. They just look in the patient's electronic record. We're really like in the weeds here.

You can tell it's been a while since I've, I've podcasted. I don't really remember how to do this.

[00:17:35] Jesse Schwamb: This is great.

[00:17:36] Segue to Matthew 20

[00:17:36] Jesse Schwamb: I think at this point we try to make some kind of awkward segue that is mildly successful. Again, probably has statistically like a 20 to 27% chance of being successful and really hitting the mark.

Yeah. So do you have anything that's gonna move us into this?

[00:17:49] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I mean, I feel like you've been podcasting for the last several weeks without me and I've been working hard and now I'm kind of coming in as Johnny come lately and we're gonna get paid the same amount so. Even though you've worked harder for longer and I'm coming in late to the game here.

[00:18:03] Jesse Schwamb: Oh man. Ple loved ones. Please tell me you got that. Please tell me you got all of that. That's, that's what you show up for here. Yeah, that was

[00:18:10] Tony Arsenal: a deep cut.

[00:18:11] Jesse Schwamb: That, that was beautiful. And I think leads us right into Matthew 20. So I think we've got at least 16 verses to get through here. Maybe again, if we're gonna keep a statistical theme here, something about engineering and math, all that stuff, we'll let everybody else pick the over under and whether or not we're gonna get through this and how many verses that's going to be.

But at this point, we might as well begin.

[00:18:32] Tony Arsenal: Yes. Yeah.

[00:18:33] Read the Parable

[00:18:33] Tony Arsenal: I'll start by reading. Uh, we're here in Matthew chapter 20, the first 16 versus this is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard and it reads. For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborer laborers for his vineyard.

After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into the vineyard and going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace. He said to them, you go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right, I will give you. So they went, going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same.

And about the 11th hour, he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, why do you stand here idle all day? They said to him, because no one has hired us. And he said to them, you go into the vineyard too. And when the evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call the laborers and pay them with their wages, beginning with the last up to the first.

And when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now, when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house saying, these last worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.

And he replied to one of them, friend, I'm doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me? For a denarius, take what belongs to you and go, I choose to give the last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you beg, do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first and the first will be last.

Now I just wanna head this off. I did bite my tongue earlier and I probably am lisping and this is like a running gag. We thought that we'd resolved it. Uh, so if you hear me stumble over my words a little bit, it's just, it's just the struggle bus today.

[00:20:24] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, this is the, these are like the real things we have to deal with when the podcasting, like the real threats, the real injuries.

I appreciate you like working through it. Like you just get back up and you walk it off with your tongue.

[00:20:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, my, my, uh, my podcasting hiatus was actually just a recovery of the last time I bit my tongue. I just needed a couple weeks to, no, I'm just kidding.

[00:20:43] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we didn't wanna say.

[00:20:44] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:20:44] Kingdom Fairness and Grumbling

[00:20:44] Tony Arsenal: So, Jesse, this is a, this is a parable that follows right on the heels, um, of kind of everything we've been talking about.

And I think as we go through these parables and we look at them and we, we sort of pick them up and we look at the different facets of them, we sort of compare them to each other. We kind of, we kind of place them in their context really. They all have basically the same theme, right? Like they're all kind of circulating around these same topics.

In this parable, it's circulating around this idea that, um, the, the owner of the vineyard, the master of the vineyard, is allowed to pay the people he employs whatever he wants. And as long as the payment that is due to an individual is received by that individual, then what other people receive and how they receive it and how hard they've worked and how hard they didn't work.

That's really not germane to whether or not the, the laborer received a fair wage, uh, in the first place. Right. So we're, we're circling around themes of kind of fairness of, uh, of sort of resentment, I think for resentment at the master's generosity, which has been a big theme in previous ones. So this will be good for us to expand on.

There's always little nuggets and kernels of things that are different from other parables, and then it's interesting to always see the ways that they kind of line up and, and tell us similar things.

[00:21:57] Jesse Schwamb: And this parable is unique to Matthew. Yeah. And it does function as this exposition or expansion of what Jesus says in chapter 19 where it says, but many who are first will be last.

And the last first, which is repeated with this lovely like inverted emphasis in, at the end of this as you just read. So it belongs to this like interesting cluster of teacher teachings on discipleship and reward nature of the kingdom of God. And we've, we've spoken a lot about that. I think I was just reminded of this as you were, you were.

Reading this, I feel like I remember this from some teaching, like this parable is kind of like a unique chiasm that's anchored on the landowner, sovereign generosity, which you brought up. And then there's the complaints of the first hired, which is mirrored by the late comers vulnerability. And then the landowners, two speeches which divide everything, kind of provide sandwich and the like, the theological climax.

It does start in that really familiar way, which we've gotten accustomed to thinking about that introductory formula of the kingdom of heaven is like, and it signals of course that what follows is not gonna be a lesson in economics, but it's gonna use all this economic language as theological disclosure for how God's kingdom operates.

And it starts again, like you said, with this master of the house, which to me seems. Pretty clearly like a, a God figure himself. Yeah. It's, that's kind of like a reoccurring mathian image. I think. So we've got this vineyard, which of course has all this symbolism, steeply rooted in Israel's covenant imagination and evokes God's people and his redemptive labor among them.

So, man, now that I'm saying this all loud, is this thing like super pregnant with all kinds of like imagery and meaning?

[00:23:27] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's always good to remember, although parables have kind of some parables, most parables have sort of distinct discreet, symbolic elements where like, this represents that this represents that almost in an allegorical form.

And, and in some cases, like purely in allegorical form, where it's like pilgrim's progress where each, each individual, each entity, each location each represents some sort of symbolic value. But we have to remember that when, when it says the parable of the kingdom of heaven is like the master of the house, it's not just like the master of the house.

Yes. Right. It's like this whole scenario. Yes. It's, it's like. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like everything that follows, it's like the entire, um, the entire paree here. That's what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. And one of the things that I think is striking about this is the kingdom of heaven is like some people complaining, like the people complaining about, some people are getting the same wage for less work.

Um, that is part of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. So I think we sometimes think of, of. The kingdom of heaven in, um, in the parables, we think of it as though God is just saying, this is what heaven is like. Right? Jesus Just saying like, this is what heaven is like, but the kingdom of heaven, that language is broader than what we normally would say, uh, is.

We're thinking of heaven, like in the, the spiritual abode where God lives and the angels live. Um, where, where the departed saints are waiting for the resurrection, the kingdom of heaven is, is also inclusive of the, the sort of like. Time now between the victory of Christ on the cross and the consummation of the kingdom and the last day, the kingdom of heaven is inclusive of that time period too.

And so this parable sort of situates us. I think it situates us in that pre consummated state where we're talking about what it's like to be a part of the kingdom of heaven here and now in our fallen state, but still solidly in the kingdom of heaven. 'cause there's not gonna be any complaining or grumbling about God's justice in God's fairness once we're in the final resurrected state.

Right? Sure. Nobody's gonna be looking back and be like, yeah, you were way too gracious for that guy. Nobody's gonna be playing the Jonah part when we're all resurrected and we're worshiping for, for all time going forward. So this parable, because there are elements of. Dissatisfaction or elements of grumbling or complaining similar to like the, the parable of the prodigal son.

There's this sun figure, the, the older sun figure who like is just a bonehead and doesn't get it. Well, that can't be talking about the people who are in the resurrection kingdom in the final kingdom. It's gotta be talking about people who are still awaiting the resurrection of the body and who are still not yet.

Uh, and even in, in that parable, the, the older son doesn't even seem to be a figure who's, who's regener. Maybe he does become regener at some point in the future, but he doesn't seem to be. In, even in God's kingdom, he doesn't seem to be, even among God's people, he's consistently placed outside of the field.

You don't even know he exists until Nick halfway through the parable. This is similar in that there are these workers, they're receiving their wages and some of them are, are outwardly dissatisfied and grumbling against the master of the house. Um, so I think if we think about parables as describing heaven rather than the kingdom of heaven, we can lose sight of, of what's actually being said in a lot of them.

[00:26:50] Contracts Versus Grace

[00:26:50] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that's really good stuff because it strikes me that there are like, strangely, two groups here mentioned, I, I find this really kind of fascinating. We, I think we should talk about this, like the first group has like the most formal agreement, it's almost a legal contract, right? Various was like a standard day laborers wage sufficient mostly for subsistence.

And so that detail seems theologically loaded to me. These workers relate to the landowner on the basis of a contract and what is owed. And so their claim at the end of the day will be exactly that. They're owed something and they know it, and that sets up Then this contrast with a second group, which is mostly all about grace because by the time we get to that third hour, like.

Approximately like 9:00 AM then we're beginning this pattern repeated at the sixth and the ninth hours. And crucially, for those workers who go out, go out and get recruited, there's no wage that's specified for them. Only the promise of like whatever is right. And so they enter the vineyard, not on the basis of a contract, but on the basis of like the owner's word and character.

And that seems to be like more of a picture of trust and not, not calculation. Yeah. Separate than like the first group. And that marketplace, idleness, as I read this, doesn't imply like laziness because verse seven clarifies like they just had not been hired. Right? They were overworked, they were unemployed.

They were marginalized. So it does set up, like you said, everything you just talked about, about the kind of this, I like that. Like the Jonah, the Jonah whiners or whatever, like yeah, they want to complain about this, right? There are, and there are two, two separate groups that have kind of been brought into the fold, not under different terms or pretenses, but differently.

[00:28:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And I think too, bear's saying, um. Although there are elements of parables that are very, very directly applicable. Mm. We shouldn't read this as though every, every specific thing in the parable is not a parable. Right. Right. I think we can look at this and we can go, you know, you can read this in a way where, oh yeah, there's some people actually earn their, earn their wage, they earn ary.

Right. It's a fair contract. And they work all day and he says, well, I'm gonna give you what's right, what you, what I owe you.

[00:28:45] God Owes Nothing

[00:28:45] Tony Arsenal: The reality is God doesn't owe any of us anything. Right? Right. He owes us wrath and judgment and destruction. And so even, even the people who are the hard workers in the kingdom of God don't merit and never could merit, um, to, in a certain sense, in a strict sense and stick with me before you send your, your angry emails in a real strict sense.

Even Adam couldn't merit. What was, well, it was guaranteed to him, according to the Covenant of Works, God had to condescend to make the covenant of works in order for Adam to have any sort of fruition of his blessedness. So there there's no natural obligation, strict obligation that God has to reward the work of his creatures because nothing they could do could ever be sufficient enough to obligate him.

So the, the obligation of himself, and that's, this is where I do think this is strong, the fact that he obligates himself to these workers to give them their denarius after a hard day's work

[00:29:37] Jesse Schwamb: exactly

[00:29:37] Tony Arsenal: is itself. A covenantal, um, contractual, yes. But I actually read this as sort of a covenantal thing and the, the strange part is that the people don't recognize the sort of semi gracious covenantal nature of this.

Yes.

[00:29:50] Grace In The Hiring

[00:29:50] Tony Arsenal: I think, um, you know, there have been times when I, where I've been unemployed, um, not for very long. Now, I know some people face unemployment for a lot longer than I ever have, but I know there was times where I was, I was looking for work and someone would say to me like, Hey, you know, my, my, my lawn needs to be mowed.

Could you come over and I'll, I'll give you 25 bucks to mow my lawn. It's a small lawn. Um. That's a gracious act in most cases. Right, right. Um, yes, I'm performing a task. Yes, they're paying me, but they didn't have to offer me that work. They didn't have to offer me that job, especially when it's something that like they could have accomplished themselves.

They could have just done it themselves. Um, so I think there's an element of that here, that there's, there's a condescension of the master to these workers, to these laborers who are not part of his household. These are not, they're not slaves. These are not people who are part of his household, who are regular employees.

These are people that he goes out into the market to, to find and to hire. And as we see some of, some of these mark, like the difference between the ones that are hired and the ones that are not hired until later in the day, the parable's not super clear about what it is. Just that they're not hired, it doesn't say the lazy ones were left there.

The ones were exactly, that were ugly or had like limp legs or like just couldn't cut it. It just says like there was some that didn't get hired. Um, so there's a gracious element of this, and that makes the recognition at the end or the lack of recognition at the end by these full day laborers, the, the sort of like recognition, this, this entitled ness, um, that actually makes it all the worst.

It's like the people who are outwardly attached to the covenant of grace. Um, I know all the Baptists in our, our group, their heads just exploded, but like are outwardly attached to the covenant of grace, um, who wanna somehow complain about like the graciousness of the covenant of grace that they're outwardly attached to it.

It's just sort of like a form of, of theological and temporary insanity, I think. And that's what we see on full display here.

[00:31:40] Jesse Schwamb: It's definitely all grace. You're right that nobody's gonna get injustice right in this parable. And I think that's definitely exemplified the further out you go in this hiring order.

[00:31:49] Eleventh Hour Mercy

[00:31:49] Jesse Schwamb: So by the time you get to 5:00 PM which is pretty extraordinary, right? Only really like one hour remains before sense, right? It's the end of the working day.

[00:31:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:31:56] Jesse Schwamb: You can imagine like these guys who are being hired at the hour probably can contribute very little in the last hour of the day, right? But this owner goes out and hires them and no agreement is stated whatsoever.

It's just pure grace. The landowner's question, why do you stand here idle all day? I think to your point, underlies their vulnerability. They were not idle by choice, presumably. And so I think we rightly here in this, like a foreshadowing of those who are called the late in redemptive history, Gentile sinners, the seemingly least qualified for kingdom membership.

All of that I think is at play and it's all, it's getting this lovely setup of all these groups to help us understand what that kingdom is actually like.

[00:32:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:35] Reverse Payroll Setup

[00:32:35] Tony Arsenal: And then we have this, um, this is where the sort of dramatic tension turns, right? The end of the day comes and, uh, the master calls the, the people that he brought last, right?

He calls the people who'd only been there for an hour and he starts to go down the list of the people who, the people who were last, and the people who came in next. And the people who came in next, right? And the workers who had contracted at the beginning of the day. Um, they're watching this happen and they're kind of going, oh, this is gonna be good.

Like, that guy's only been here for an hour and he got a denarius. You know, the logic is probably like, I'm gonna get 12 denarius, like I'm gonna go 12 days worth of work. Um, because I think there's an assumption on their part, um, that the master's fair that he is, he's providing an equitable wage. Um, of course the master is fair, but he's providing an equitable wage that's commensurate with the work delivered.

A delivered, delivered, right? And that, that's the key to this parable.

[00:33:26] Merit Mindset Exposed

[00:33:26] Tony Arsenal: I think the expectation that God. Helps those who help themselves. Right? God rewards those who put in the hard work. God. God provides blessing or salvation according to the merit provided by the one who's being saved. That perspective is what's on full display here.

Yes. By the people who are, uh, the ones who contracted for the full day. They're not thinking about the covenant that they have with this person or the contract they have with this person. They're not thinking about the fact that they agreed to work for the day in order to earn a day's wage. They're thinking about how this actually is gonna work out great in their favor.

They're looking at this as a strictly merit-based kind of a, a thing. And you would think that like when the, the one hour people come in, they get a denarius, and then the three hour people come in and they get a denarius. You'd think they would pick up on it at some point, but then in the course of the payroll, it doesn't seem that they do.

They still get to the bottom of the list and think they're gonna get more compared to the other people who all got the same.

[00:34:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that display piece is critical to this. It is like complete setup. Like you can imagine he, the landowner calling everybody together at the end of the day and they're all standing around.

Some of them are exhausted because they've again born all their work in the heat of the day on their backs. They're tired, they're dirty, maybe they're exhausted. And he starts in this reverse order. And by the way, we should note that there is something here that's beautiful in that the law, the landowner is law abiding because right evening payment is mandated in the Torah.

So we see all this taking place as to fulfill the law in some ways. But the reversal of the order that last of first is like such deliberative and good narrative storytelling and staging, isn't it? 'cause it ensures that the first hired workers are going to witness the payment of those who work the least.

And if without that order, if you just did it the other way around, the more a crisis of the parable disc like completely goes away.

[00:35:10] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[00:35:10] Jesse Schwamb: So this execution of the payment at the owner's will, it just shows that he has. He's completely independent. His sovereignty belong. The sovereignty belongs to the master alone.

And so this 11th hour workers receiving a full day's wage for one hour of work, that's like an act of sheer generosity. It's not proportional justice. And I think as reform, people, maybe all of us at some point have had this conversation about predestination and justice and mercy. And again, really I think putting a crowbar between this idea that nobody is receiving injustice, but some are receiving mercy and grace.

And here these first hired workers seeing this form, like you said, this expectation that they're gonna receive more, like you said, where that came from. Yeah, it's just them, right? It's purely manufactured in their own reasoning. It's not anchored in the covenantal promise and certainly not witnessed in the grace that they should be receive, like perceiving as the payments get doled out, like sequentially moving in their reverse order toward those who have worked the longest.

But their expectation reveals that they have fundamentally misread like the landowner's character. They're still operating in the register of a contract and not grace.

[00:36:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And you know, I think to sort of lock this covenant covenantal frame and sort of like lack of recognition of the covenant into place too, when you look at the language of this parable, um, and especially kind of what it's following up on, it's coming on the heels of this interaction with this rich, rich young ruler who comes in and he thinks that he's gonna earn eternal life by keeping the commandments.

Um, and, and he, he has this outward sense or this outward display of pty. He's calling Jesus good. He's saying he, you know, he keeps the commandments, Jesus doesn't even disagree with him actually, that he has connect. Yes. You know, I think it's implied that, well, of course you haven't, but he, he still is graciously trying to like, convince this guy, no, you actually need to abandon your self righteousness and, and pursue and follow me.

Um. But this is a parable where like other people are listening, right? There's other witnesses. This isn't like the rich young ruler came to him in the middle of the night, like Nicodemus. This is something that's happened on PO on in the public. So we can anticipate that the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes and the lawyers were all aware of this.

They may have been there, but they were at least aware of this happening. And I think there's some language in here that is actually directed at those people.

[00:37:30] Grumbling As Accusation

[00:37:30] Tony Arsenal: And, and here's where it comes in, is you get to verse, um, we'll start reading again at verse nine. It says, when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a denarius.

Now, when those hired first came, so we're referring to the people who are hired at the beginning of the day. Now, when those who were hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius and on receiving it, right? So this is as, this is, um, uh, just unbelievable as they're receiving the denarius on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house.

Now, just the way that I read that and said the word grumbled tells you that that word is really important here. Yes. If you look at this Greek word. And you compare it to the, the word, the usage of this word in the, the, um, Sept. Yes. Which of course is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. This word most commonly appears in the wilderness wandering accounts.

[00:38:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.

[00:38:23] Tony Arsenal: Right. And the, the primary sin of the Israelites during the wilderness wandering was grumbling against the Lord. And this grumbling against the Lord in that context is not just a general complaining, right. It's not just like a, a sort of like a, a general dissatisfaction or like murmuring. This isn't like water cooler frustration about your boss.

The grumbling in the Old Testament in this context is a covenantal accusation, right. So this is tied to the, the accounts where Moses first is told to strike the rock, and he does so when the water comes out, and then second is told to speak to the rock, but he strikes it. I won't go into all the details, but the scene that's being, being displayed there is the people come, they accuse the Lord of abandoning them into the wilderness.

And this scene where Moses is set up on the rock and he strikes the rock, that scene is a judicial scene. The people have filed a covenant accusation against the Lord, and in reality, it's the people who have been unfaithful. But the Lord standing in the place of the rock is the one who is struck, right?

Jesus was the rock in the wilderness from which the water came. Paul says that in First Corinthians, right? So this language of grumbling in this is not just, they're not just complaining about the fact that they didn't get what they thought they were going to, they're questioning the veracity of the covenant that was made.

So they're, they're still locked into this merit-based. This merit-based idea even more than it seemed at first, right? There's a logic to the idea that like, oh, if the, the master is actually paying a wage of one denarius for per hour, like there's a logic to that. But it's not just that they're saying, and this is, this explains the response of the master.

It's not just that they're saying like, Hey, wait a second, like the wage rate that you're paying is not right. They're saying you have violated the terms of our covenant in the way that you have paid us. 'cause it's upon receiving it that they complain or they grumble and the master says more or less like, Hey.

You agreed with me for one Denarius, I'm giving you what you've earned. I'm giving you what you agreed on. Why don't you take it and go. So the answer is not to try to justify why he is free to pay these other people more, or why he's free to pay these people a perceived less. The answer is, again, they're complaining against the covenant.

He is bringing it back to the covenant saying, well, here's what the covenant relationship was. You work for the day. I give you Denarius. We're square here, we're on the same page. We've fulfilled our covenant obligations, and you've received your reward for that. So I, I think that's another thing we have to lock in here is this is not just a general idea of like unfairness that's being presented.

This is not just a general idea that people are saying the master of the house is unfair. They're saying he's covenantal. Unfaithful. Right? That's a pretty big accusation.

[00:41:09] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that is, thank you by the way, for completely stealing the whole tugen thing from me. Like I was just going hot to Tugen to find that reference.

And now all I can do is add to it. So that is from at least one of those occasions, a number 16, and I just wanna read the verse. This is 16 six. So Moses and Aaron said to all the sons of Israel at evening, you will know that Yahweh has brought you outta the land of Egypt. And in the morning you will see the glory of Yahweh for he hears your grumblings against Yahweh.

And what we are that you grumble against us. So I'm totally with you. This is not subtle. The workers first complaint here, the first workers' complaint is like theologically serious. Uh, I think that's what you're hitting us on. Like it charges the owner with injustice. Right. And as I read it, the grievance has like two layers or two parts, I would say.

One is this comparative part, which is basically saying, you made us equal to them. Right? And the second be like a meritorious part, they have worked harder and in worse conditions. And that's why they say things like, it's, it's all inflammatory language, isn't it? Like the scorching heat emphasizes like the real bodily cost and their complaint.

I think if we're honest, it's not irrational, but it's spiritually revealing at least because Right, they believe their greater effort, mayors greater reward and they resent that grace shown to others. So like you said, they're bringing forward a very serious grievance and it's, it's not just like, Hey, we think maybe could you give us a bonus?

Right. But that is a matter of faithfulness. And in fact, like as I'm looking at this tugen here, shout out to logos Bible software. And I'm saying that that verb that we're talking about in Exodus 16 is in the imperfect tense. So this is, they kept on grumbling and it is like an an echo of Israel's murmuring in the wilderness, which I presume like Matthew certainly had intentionally used there or had that view in part casting these workers as the same types of those who relate to God through entitlement rather than gratitude.

So it's like insults upon insult here, but it is to emphasize this fact that it's no small accusation, it's not subtle, it's meant to be in your face. They're coming in hot with this and they're making a big deal about it.

[00:43:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and again, I think like underscoring the covenantal nature of this is so key.

And I think, you know, when we look at this, we really have to land that this is not just saying. Your wage structure is not right. 'cause and, and we gotta remember, they weren't there when the master went and made this bargain, or, you know, brought these other workers into the vineyard. They weren't there to hear what covenant or contract he did or didn't make.

And as we've commented, they didn't, he didn't even make a covenant with them. He basically just said, I'm gonna put you to work and I'll pay you what's fair. I'll pay you what's right. Um, and they went, okay, you need the work and thank you. Like, I think, I think that's kind of like the, the scene here is they're standing there.

They recognize they're not gonna get a wage for the day, especially these ones that he's coming in at the 11th hour, they're not gonna get a wage for the day. And as you said, these are subsistence workers. Right. These are people that if you don't get a wage, and this is the, the grounding of the Old Testament, um, the Old Testament command of, of paying at the end of the day is that if they don't get their wage, they're not gonna eat.

They're not gonna have food, they're not gonna have the money they need to survive. Um, so he comes in and he basically says like. You don't have a job that's not gonna be good for you. I'll take care of you. I'll, I'll give you a job and I'll take care of you. And the ones who are complaining and grumbling, they have no line of sight to that process.

That, that's right. They make a lot of assumptions about the, and this is, goes back to, um. The parable of the talents, which we haven't really talked about yet. The, the, there's a lot of assumptions about the nature of this master that the, the contracted or covenanted day laborers are making that don't turn out to be accurate.

Right. They, they assume that he's working, as you've said, that he's working on this one-to-one, you know, quid pro quo. You do this, I do that kind of a, a methodology and he's actually operating on a basis of a much more. Basic, uh, grace principle. Uh, and again, even, even the principle of hiring these original workers and covenanting with them is gracious in the sense that he didn't have to hire them.

Right. So, so all along the way they're, they're, it's like the epitome of looking a gift horse in the mouth.

[00:45:24] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.

[00:45:24] Tony Arsenal: They've been hired, and so yes, it is right for them to expect their, um, to expect their wage, whatever that wage might be. But they, they are misinterpreting the idea of what the wages are and how the wages are to be delivered.

They're, they're applying, this is actually a lot like job's, friends, right? Their, their logic is not actually all that bad, but they have, they have missing parts of the picture that makes the logic. Apply differently in this particular situation. They think that this, this master works on a strict merit-based.

You do X amount of work, you receive X amount of money. And this master is actually more functioning on this covenantal principle of, I'm gonna pay you what's right, regardless of what, what work you've done, which, what work is actually owed to you. And the master makes these, this agreement with these other workers to just say, go into the vineyard and then when the evening comes, I'll pay you.

Right. Well, he intended to pay them what they needed to survive, regardless of how much work they provided. Right? So they're all, even though there's a formal contract to say these, this group works for the whole day and this group, you know, and, and they receive one day's labor, at the end of the day, he's graciously providing another day of survival for all of these people, for the work that they're, they're putting forward regardless of how much they actually contribute to his bottom line.

[00:46:41] Owner Defends The Covenant

[00:46:41] Jesse Schwamb: And we see that in verse 13, where the landowner gives his defense, you know, it says. He and he replied, friends, I'm doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for Denarius? Now the address, because now I'm deep in the Greek Tony. Here we go. So the address I'm seeing in, uh, again, shout out to Locus Bible software, it, this use of friend is not like the warm fellows, but like a more formal or distance term of address.

It's used elsewhere in Matthew. But I think the point here is that the owner's first line of defense is this contractual point, which you're saying. I have not wronged you. He's kept his agreement precisely. No injustice has been done. And that's crucial. The owner doesn't re appreciate justice. He actually fulfills it.

He obligates himself and he fulfills that obligation. And what the worker receives is exactly what was promised and exactly what is due. And so by the time he gets to verse 14 where he says, take what belongs to you, and go, I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you here. I think this is like the theological beating hide of this whole bad boy.

Yeah.

[00:47:37] Jesse Schwamb: The landowner explicitly invokes his will, his sovereign freedom to do and to give as he pleases, which is exactly how God behaves. It's not a negation of justice, but this declaration of something beyond justice, it is grace. He exercises his freedom and generosity to those who had no claim, and the command, take what belongs to you and go is, is kind of like a world dismissal, like, like you were saying.

Yeah. We're in the courtroom. He's like, I, I've ruled on this already. Like, bring Brian, bring your grievance. Here's my ruling. Take what you have and go. Their grumbling has revealed that they're not celebrating the kingdom. They're actually grieving it. So yeah, you know, I think original invocation of like Jonah is right on the money.

It's basically like, are are you mad enough? Yeah, I'm mad enough to die. Like, how dare you give me, give me this great shade and then take it away from me. Yeah. And in some ways this is even worse because what they have been given has been that were promised to them, was given to them, and they get to retain and God says, go, or the landowner as God says, go now and take what is yours.

Take what I've given to you graciously. But your point that like what supersedes that, the antecedent to all of that is still God's covenant keeping, covenant making promise, making, right? That sets the whole thing up. But I love this idea that, you know, I will choose, it's my desire, it's language of divine volition.

And of course the reform theology, this single verb resonates with the entire doctrine of election. It's God's free, sovereign, and gracious will to bestow blessing without reference to merit, like praise his name.

[00:49:00] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And then we come to kind of the close of this parable, right? And this is, this really is like the punchline of the parable.

Like not every punchline or not every parable has like a real specific, like punchy punchline, but when he says, am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? Right? That or is a logical connector, right? It's he's saying like, these are the two logical options you have.

Either I'm not allowed to do what I want with my belongings, which of course is a ridiculous thesis, right? He's clearly allowed to do what he wishes and they would want him to do that because what he's done is he's provided them with a job and giving, giving them the labor.

[00:49:40] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.

[00:49:40] Tony Arsenal: He says, or if I am allowed to do with what I want with my belongings.

Then you must be mad at me for being generous.

[00:49:47] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.

[00:49:47] Tony Arsenal: Right. Those are the only options. And there's kind of a ridiculous, there's kind of, this is one of those like arguments to absurdity, right? Are you really this small and petty that you're gonna be mad at me for being generous to somebody? Right.

[00:50:00] Jonah And Begrudged Grace

[00:50:00] Tony Arsenal: This, and this is, this is the Jonah effect.

This is exactly what happens in Jonah, is Jonah, um, comes from this, I'm, I'm actually preaching in Jonah too here in a couple weeks. So I've been studying, um, Jonah's prayer in chapter two, and Jonah, Jonah is rescued by the whale, right? We, we think of the whale sometimes as the judgment that God sends, and there may be an element of that.

But, but Jonah, Jonah views the whale as a vessel of salvation, right? He thanks the Lord for rescuing him from the deep of the ocean and from the, the bars of the earth and the mountains under the sea. And the, there's a lot of reasons textually to see not just Jonah's prayer, but in, in the actual narrative itself, that the, the whale is the way that God saves Jonah from drowning in the sea, not the way that he punishes.

Right. And so he comes from this, this regenerative SVA salvation process, right? He comes outta the whale, he's been praying and praising God in the whale, and he's been thanking God for his salvation, for rescuing him from the deep. And then he gets to Nineveh and he proclaims this message, and then he goes right back to like, I knew you were gonna forgive those chumps.

Right? And you can almost see God saying like, am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Am I not allowed to save all of these people and all of these cattle from destruction? Am I not allowed to do that? Or Jonah, do you begrudge my generosity with the implication of, do you begrudge the generosity that I showed you when I didn't let you sink to the bottom of the ocean and drown to death?

Or do you begrudge the generosity that I showed you where the whale was a vehicle of salvation that brought you to safety rather than digesting you and killing you? Right? Right. And that, that's the same force I think that we have here at the end of this parable. He's looking at the people and, and there's an element of like.

Put yourself in those shoes. It's almost, it's almost like a subtle retelling of the parable of the Unforgiven servant, right? Put yourself in the shoes of the people who needed a day's labor. Were not getting paid, were not being hired, and then all of a sudden, someone generously gives them the very survival that they need for the following day.

You're gonna begrudge me. That kind of generosity. If you were that person, you certainly wouldn't do that. Then there's also the, like, you're gonna begrudge me. My generosity with the implication of like, the generosity of having hired you in the first place could have hired anybody else. Um, he's really this, it's really this rhetorical master move.

And then again, then this is exactly what Jesus does. The people who are listening to him in many, many instances identify that the parable is told against them. They identify that the parable is actually a form of judgment against them. Right? I have to think that the Pharisees and the scribes, especially the Pharisees, um, and the Sadducees who only had the, only had the, um, the Pentateuch only recognized the Pentateuch.

I had to think, I have to think. They're coming out of this, looking at it and going, he just called us the grumbling Israelites. Can you believe this guy?

[00:52:43] Jesse Schwamb: Right?

[00:52:43] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. He did. Like, that's exactly what you are, you are the grumbling Israelites, and, and that's the force of this parable on the heels of this young man who walks away sad.

I didn't look at the Greek yet, but walks away disturbed at the fact that he's not going to get the salvation he believes is, is guaranteed to him because of his love of obedience to the law. He's like, I have to do one more thing. I have to, I have to work one more work to get the salvation. I'm gonna walk away sad at that.

Well, the answer is that he's begrudging the generosity of the Lord in providing salvation apart from his mar and apart from his works.

[00:53:18] Jesse Schwamb: That's right. That's right. Yeah. That's, that's beautiful. By the way, just so like you said, Tony, we should giving it a warning so people don't like at us or send a bunch of random messages to our inbox, our form brotherhood.com.

Uh, we know great fish whale. We're using that interchangeably. Everybody calm down. It's true. Just in case. Could have been a whale. Yeah,

[00:53:35] Tony Arsenal: I mean,

[00:53:36] Jesse Schwamb: one of, doesn't matter. One

[00:53:37] Tony Arsenal: of the, one of the gospels uses the word whale, so I think we're fine.

[00:53:40] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we're, we're covering all bases there.

[00:53:42] Tony Arsenal: Yeah,

[00:53:42] Jesse Schwamb: I totally agree with you on that.

[00:53:44] Last Will Be First

[00:53:44] Jesse Schwamb: 'cause the climax of this is like something interesting I think in the orientation of the final statement. So this idea of the, the, so the first, so the last, see I already got it twisted. So the last will be first and the first last. It actually does reverse the formulation that we were just looking at in chapter 19 where Jesus says the first will be last and the last first man say that like six times best.

[00:54:04] Tony Arsenal: I know it's tough.

[00:54:05] Jesse Schwamb: So it, but it doesn't complete, it does complete like this kind of a, I inclusio, I guess around the parable. The inversion I think is not merely like a social statement in light of what's unfolding in this drama, but it is so te logical. So those who approach God on the basis of this accumulated merit like you've been saying, or.

Religious piety or even like, dare I say, covenant superiority or seniority. We'll find that those calculations are totally irrelevant in the kingdom economy. And those that receive the grace of God with empty hands, the gentile, the sinners, the 11th hour called if you want to, those are gonna stand fully on equal footing before this sovereign owner and the saying then resists any kind of triumphalism or celebrating over somebody else the last, or not exalted because of their lateness, but because of God's great grace, or the owner's great grace.

And so I think that's the thing that we get to kind of settle in. Like you take a deep breath at the end of this because really most of us are this 11th hour call. And again, it's, it's like understanding and putting yourself in the place of the humble, the place who is the sinner, because you know, that's.

Whom God has come and condescended to save in His loving kindness, like His has said, is for those people who recognize that they're exactly the kind of ones who need that. And so here we find it's much better, like you're saying, to be in the place in some ways of that younger brother who comes in repents than to be the older brother who is stubborn and find some reason, some justification to come before God with self-righteous grievances or what you believe to be self-righteous complaints in his kingdom and in his courtroom, because you do not wanna stand in that place.

You know, even, even, I remember there are times like in Israel's history, when they're in the wilderness, where they come against Moses and Aaron, even for like their relationship with like foreign women, and they complain to God and God basically says, stop complaining about. My servants. You know, even there like you must be very careful, I guess.

If you wanna come against God with what you think are your self or righteous grievances, you better not miss. Yeah. And so here now saying it's better for you to humble yourselves that he avenges this kind of behavior. He comes hard against those who are prideful, but instead the humble, he lifts up the humble, he comes and he rescues.

Like I said, even in Jonah, what we find there is the whale. The great fish is God's formation of Jonah as a loving father who disciplines and chastises not as one who punishes. And so here too, we find some of that echo, that it's better to understand that we don't want to be among the complainers. What we want to be is among those who are willing to recognize and receive God's gracious provision for us.

[00:56:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:56:34] Evil Eye And Final Sendoff

[00:56:34] Tony Arsenal: And one last, one last little bit of nerdy Greek here that I think underscores this covenantal, um, covenantal aspect of this that we're talking about when he says to them, or do you begrudge my generosity? Um, if the, if the, um, video caught my perplexed look, it's, 'cause I was trying to figure out why the word I was related to this.

Uh, the, the phrase here is actually, do you give me the evil eye for my generosity?

[00:57:01] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.

[00:57:01] Tony Arsenal: This is good. Good. And I think what it's getting at here is he's saying like, do you curse me?

[00:57:05] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.

[00:57:06] Tony Arsenal: Because of my generosity. So that does, that ties into this covenantal language. He's basically saying either I'm allowed to do what I want with what I, what it belongs to me.

Or are you gonna curse me in a, probably in like a covenantal sense, are you gonna call down the covenantal curses because I was generous to somebody else.

[00:57:23] Jesse Schwamb: Right.

[00:57:23] Tony Arsenal: And it's, it's in this way. That so is not, it's not, therefore it's a demonstrative. So it's in this way, in, in this way where those who are, um, those who receive God's generosity, recognize it.

Um, and those who fail to recognize God's generosity are. Are dismissed because of it. It's in that way that the last will be first, right? Yes. The people who, who are sold out to the generosity of God and they trust him, and they, they, yes, they come and they work, right? But the, the response of a day laborer at the 11th hour when someone comes and says, look, I've still got work to do it.

It's one of overjoyed response. It's not, it's not thinking they're gonna earn a lot of money. It's not thinking they're gonna, they just get to work and they're thankful and they trust that person. Uh, and, and that's what we see is salvation in the Christian faith is we turn to Christ. We recognize his generosity.

We trust that he's going to, he's gonna do what's right. He's gonna take care of us. And in that way, the last will be first, those who are, are late to the party. Those who not necessarily like this isn't necessarily a parable with saying like. You know, like the people who have deathbed conversions are somehow the, the, the first, um, it, it's, it's not temporal in the sort of idea of like those who've been saved for the longest are represented by the day laborers and those who are sort of new converts are represented by the 11th hour people.

It's saying those who are, are, um, those who abandoned themselves to the mercy and generosity of God, those people will be first in the kingdom of God. And those people who are so like, tied to and connected to and, and, um, sort of locked into this idea of covenant merit as the primary EE economy of how God operates, um, those people will be last.

I'm not entirely sure, you know, like, this is still all operating within the Kingdom of Heaven, within this is what the kingdom of heaven on earth appears like. Um, so I think we, you know, I don't think we're gonna do another episode. I think we, we probably have covered this sufficiently, but it'd be interesting to sort of tease out like, what does that mean for the people who are in God's kingdom?

And let's just say it like, sorry, perform Baptist, like in God's kingdom, um, who are not. Apparently not actually sold out to the grace of God here. Um, what does it mean for those people who are in God's kingdom and are now the last? Are they the last, the last in terms of the last who will still be saved?

Are these the ones Paul talks about who are saved as though through fire? Or, or is there something else going on here? Um, I would love to hear people sort of theorize and think about that as they've listened to this. And Jesse, how could they do that if they wanted to talk to us about this little question I've dropped?

[01:00:01] Jesse Schwamb: Man, that was like so smooth. So smooth. Yeah. Listen, people you already know, do I, I know I don't need to say it, but like I'm contractually ally by way of the podcast obligated to tell you. That there's a little corner of the internet in this messaging app that's called Telegram, where we all hang out.

And by all of us, I mean all of us, except for you who's listening right now, that's not in it. Why are you not in it? So here are the instructions on how to find your way there. Go to your browser, type in t.me back slash reform brotherhood t me Back slash reform Brotherhood Do. Link will take you to that corner of the world.

And you can see we have a bunch of channels set up where people are conversing from everything to just general topics, to the episode, to prayer requests, to food reviews, to just good plain Christian reform, theological fun. I said, it's just fun. So come hang out, go to t.me/reform brotherhood.

[01:00:50] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And for those of you who are sick of us promoting the Telegram channel, I'll just ask you, are we not allowed to do what we choose with our airtime or do you begrudge us our free podcast?

[01:01:01] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. Listen, do you have an evil eye? And, and do you said that so well, Tony. I love a good Jewish idiom. Like for instance, I love that when we read of God being long suffering, the text literally says he's long nosed.

[01:01:13] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.

[01:01:14] Jesse Schwamb: And here this idea of the evil eye is like this Jewish idiom, connoting like envy or stinginess or like, uh, miserliness or parsimonious.

So because I, I just happen to look that up by Proverbs 28 22 says, A man with an evil eye hurries after wealth and does not know that want will come upon him. That's so good. Yeah. So don't, don't have the evil eye. Come hang out, come hang out with us.

[01:01:39] Tony Arsenal: Well, Jesse, I'm glad to be back. I feel like, uh, I'm back in the saddle or Yeah, you are.

I dunno. Back, back in, I dunno. In the field. I dunno what the right analogy is.

[01:01:48] Jesse Schwamb: Backstreet's back.

[01:01:49] Tony Arsenal: I was backstreet's back. Yeah, I, I was trying to figure out whether I was gonna go with a Backstreet back joke or a slim shady joke. Um, in my mind they sort of merged together, like if I had good technical audio skills, I might make a sweet mashup of some really awesome out of date, like white boy semi hip hop or something like that.

Uh, but I'm not gonna do that 'cause. If anything is worse than I think so. Well, slim Shady, it's me trying to synthesize slim Shady, so I'm not gonna do that. Uh, but I'm glad to be back and it is the real slim shady. I'm the real slim shady something, something. Um, but yeah, it's gonna be great. We're gonna keep going in the parables.

We don't know how long it's gonna take. Uh, we didn't even know we were gonna do this parable tonight. We sat down let's, we were like, what are we talking about tonight? We're like, let's just keep going in the parables. So we're gonna keep at it. So stick with us. Um, pick up a good commentary, read ahead, pick up a good, you know, a good Bible translation and follow along with us.

Uh, and join us in the telegram chat so we can kind of keep talking about this and having these conversations long after the episode ends.

[01:02:50] Jesse Schwamb: You got it. Well, listen, everybody's been hearing me say it, but man, are they gonna be glad to hear you say it? Honor everyone.

[01:02:56] Tony Arsenal: Love the brotherhood.

In this compelling solo episode, Jesse Schwamb unpacks one of Scripture's most famous—and misunderstood—passages: Jesus' confrontation with the Pharisees and Herodians over paying taxes to Caesar. Far from being a simple political soundbite, Matthew 22:15-22 reveals Jesus' brilliant wisdom in dismantling false dilemmas and redirecting our focus to identity rather than ideology. Through careful exegesis, Jesse demonstrates how Christ's response cuts through political posturing to address the deeper question: Whose image do we bear? This episode serves as both a masterclass in biblical interpretation and a timely reminder that our ultimate allegiance belongs not to any earthly authority, but to the God whose image we carry. Perfect preparation for the podcast's upcoming journey through the parables of Jesus.

Key Takeaways

• Jesus Cannot Be Cornered: The Pharisees and Herodians crafted what seemed like an inescapable trap, but Jesus transcends false dilemmas by reframing the question entirely, demonstrating His divine wisdom and authority.
• The Imago Dei Is Central: By asking "Whose image is this?" about the coin, Jesus points to the deeper question: Whose image is on you? We bear God's image, making our primary obligation to Him, not Caesar.
• Civil Authority Is Real but Bounded: Jesus affirms legitimate temporal authority ("render to Caesar") while establishing that all such authority is derivative and limited by God's ultimate sovereignty.
• Hypocrisy Is Exposed by Action: The Pharisees' immediate production of a Roman coin revealed they were already participants in the system they questioned, undermining their supposed concern for Jewish law.
• Amazement ≠ Transformation: The opponents "marveled" and left, demonstrating that intellectual defeat or astonishment at Jesus' teaching is not equivalent to spiritual conversion or surrender.
• Identity Precedes Politics: Before asking what we owe the government, we must ask what we owe God—the answer being ourselves, as those created in His image.
• The Breath of Divine Life: Our creation bears special intimacy—God breathed life into humanity, making us doubly unique as both image-bearers and recipients of His divine breath, foreshadowing spiritual regeneration.

In-Depth Analysis The Imago Dei Is Central

Jesus' response to the tax question brilliantly redirects attention from political obligation to theological identity. When He asks "Whose image is this?" about the denarius, He's employing the Greek word eikon—the same term used in the Septuagint translation of Genesis 1:27 for humanity being made in God's image. This isn't coincidental wordplay; it's deliberate theological teaching.

The profound truth here is that while Caesar's image on a coin establishes his claim to that piece of metal, God's image stamped on humanity establishes His total claim on us. We are not our own; we were bought with a price far greater than any taxation. The coin metaphor works because it's a physical representation of ownership and authority—but our bodies and souls are the true "coinage" that belongs to God. This reframes every political question as ultimately subordinate to our identity as image-bearers, reminding us that our primary citizenship, allegiance, and obligation is heavenly, not earthly.

Civil Authority Is Real but Bounded

Jesus' statement "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's" has often been misinterpreted as establishing a complete separation between sacred and secular realms. However, Reformed theology—particularly Calvin's interpretation—understands this passage as establishing legitimate but limited civil authority within God's sovereignty. Caesar's authority is real and should be respected; Christians are called to submit to governing authorities as Paul argues in Romans 13.

However, this authority is derivative, not ultimate. Caesar operates within a sphere that God ordains and limits. There is no zone of existence that belongs exclusively to Caesar, outside God's jurisdiction. The state has legitimate claims on our obedience, our taxes, and our civic participation—but never on our worship, our ultimate allegiance, or our conscience when it contradicts God's law. This creates a framework for Christian citizenship that takes earthly government seriously while never granting it the totalizing authority that belongs to God alone.

Amazement ≠ Transformation

The conclusion of this encounter is sobering: the Pharisees and Herodians were "amazed" but unchanged. They marveled at Jesus' wisdom, were intellectually outmaneuvered, and had nothing more to say—yet they walked away to plot His crucifixion. This demonstrates a crucial truth for evangelism and apologetics: winning an argument is not the same as winning a soul.

Intellectual defeat can coexist with spiritual hardness. Someone can acknowledge the brilliance of Jesus' teaching, be unable to counter His logic, and still refuse to surrender their life to Him. This reminds us that conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit, not merely the result of superior argumentation. Our task is faithful witness and clarity in presenting truth, but we must pray for the Spirit to do what only He can do—soften hearts, open eyes, and bring dead souls to life. Astonishment at Jesus must give way to submission to Jesus.

Memorable Quotes

"You can never corner Jesus. Of course, you can never catch him off guard. And while those seem like very just trite and straightforward explanations of who he is and what his character is like as the son of God, we should not go away from them too quickly because what we find here is the wisdom and the brilliance of God in providing teaching to cut to the hearts of what is actually in the question."

"Caesar can have his coin, but he cannot have you. Not in any ultimate sense. You and I, loved ones, we belong to God."

"Being out argued is not the same as being transformed. You can leave someone with nothing to say and still not reach the heart."

Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:08] Jesse Schwamb: So here's the trap. If Jesus says yes, pay the tax, he completely alienates the crowd of Jewish pilgrims who are beginning to believe that he might be the Messiah who will liberate Israel from Rome if he says. No, do not pay it. He could obviously be reported to the Roman authorities as a seditious rebel.

Either answer loses. There's really no good way out of this. At least on the face. Either answer costs him something, his popularity or his freedom, and this is what we call a false dilemma. The Pharisees think that they've got him cornered. But here's the thing, loved ones they haven't. You can never corner Jesus.

Of course, you can never catch him off guard. And while those seem like very just trite and straightforward explanations of who he is and what his character is like as the son of God, we should not. Go away from them too quickly because what we find here is the wisdom and the brilliance of God in providing teaching to cut to the hearts of what is actually in the question.

And Jesus doesn't play this game.

Welcome to episode 487 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse, and this is the podcast for all those with the Imago Day.

Hey, brothers and sisters, so let's talk taxes. Now you should know that the Reform Brotherhood is not that kind of podcast, but I suspect that you had one of two responses when you heard that topic.

Either it piqued your interest or you thought, I'm just totally gonna skip this episode, and I get that. That's a polarizing topic. It's in part why I said it at the top, but I want us to chat a little bit today about a passage of the scripture where Jesus himself brings up taxes, but not in that way. In fact, he demonstrates some exceptional teaching, showing the wisdom of God in a very difficult and complex circumstance.

And so we're gonna spend just a little bit of time hanging out in Matthew 22.

[00:02:17] Why Matthew 22

[00:02:17] Jesse Schwamb: Now, why are we doing this? Why this on this episode? Well, we're about to continue on the podcast, our inexorable march through all of the parables of Jesus as we go into the summer months. It's parable, summer loved ones, which I realize sounds like a horrible name for like a low budget drama.

But in this case, Tony and I are about to reem embark or pick up our journey in the parables of Jesus. And what we find in Matthew 22 is this little exchange. It happens. And it actually is in the midst of a bunch of parables that are happening. It's in some ways a response to the parables that Jesus is bringing forward.

And also, I just love this passage so much, and since we're doing one more solo episode, before we, we reunite and the band comes back together and we start talking about parables. I thought this is a great way for us to, again, consider the teachings of Jesus. In light of everything that he's saying and teaching in these really lovely stories.

And so we find ourselves to think right in Matthew 22, which is a great place to be. So come hang out with me there. Grab a Bible, go stop your car right now and pull up on your phone the Matthew 22 so you can read along with me because this is something fantastic. It's one of the most famous passages actually in the gospels.

And also at the same time, it's one of the most misused texts in the history of political theology. Because people on every side of almost every date about this topic, especially taxes since they're mentioned here, have reached for this passage, like it's some kind of Swiss Army knife. So I think the best thing that we can do.

Our conversation right now is, let's slow down a little bit. Let's chill out. Let's get easy. Let's read it carefully and figure out what Jesus was actually doing here because it is, I promise you, far more interesting than just like a soundbite about taxes and the way that I beta you. At the top of this episode by saying, let's talk about taxes.

[00:04:09] Setting the Scene

[00:04:09] Jesse Schwamb: Now, before we get to this particular passage, here's a bit of scene setting, which I think is really important before we get to verse 15, which is where we're gonna pick up. Jesus has entered Jerusalem in the triumphal procession. He's cleansed the temple. He's cursed a fig tree, and he delivered three withering parables aimed directly at the religious establishment.

We've got the parable of the two sons. The parable of the Wicked Tenants, the parable of the wedding banquet, which by the way, we're gonna get to all those bad boys. They will all have their own episodes because they're all brilliant and exceptional in each their own way, and they deserve for us to sit in them a little bit.

But by the time we reach chapter 22, verse 15, I think at this point the Pharisees have heard enough. They are not stoked about the fact that Jesus is coming after them and coming in hot. And so the response is, let's set a trap. Let's now go back on the offensive. Let's give Jesus a test in front of everybody.

So he's gonna be pinned down with something very difficult to explain or to answer. And so that's exactly where we find Matthew writing in 22 verse 15.

[00:05:15] Reading the Passage

[00:05:15] Jesse Schwamb: Here's where we pick it up. Matthew writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Then the Pharisees went and took counsel together about how they might trap Jesus in what he said, and they sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians saying, teacher, we know that you are truthful and teach the way of God in truth and deferred a no one for you are not partial to any.

Therefore, tell us what do you think? Is it lawful to give a tax to Caesar or not? But Jesus knowing their wickedness said, why are you testing me? You hypocrites, show me the coin used for the tax. And they brought him a denarius and he said to them, whose likeness in inscription is this? They said to him, Caesar's.

Then he said to them, therefore rendered Caesar, the things that are Caesar's and to God, the things that are god's. And hearing this, they marveled and leaving him, they went away. What an incredible passage. I love this so much in part because we're about to see here this wisdom in the teaching of God through Jesus.

It's both spicy. It comes with almost like a clenched fist. It strikes back, but it gets to the root of something that wasn't even part of the original question and unentangle the trap to such a degree that the end result is that. Everybody is left speechless and they just have to walk away.

[00:06:41] Enemies Unite

[00:06:41] Jesse Schwamb: And it starts with this idea that the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words.

Matthew actually uses this interesting word here, this idea of they took counsel together. It's a formal deliberate scheme. In other words, they definitely talked about this. It's premeditated, it's not impulsive. It's a confrontation with design. And the Pharisees are doing opposition research. They want to.

Trap him, tangle him up. The Greek is to snare or to trap in a net. So they're hunting. They're trying to snipe Jesus, and they're going to send in this least likely combination of collaborators, collaborators, to do this whole thing. It's worth noting here. These groups that we have in the passage, the Pharisees and the Herodians, these guys were natural enemies.

The Pharisees were Jewish priests or purists who despised Roman rule, and the Herodians were political pragmatists who basically owed their power to Rome. And so these guys, you can imagine, they agreed on almost nothing except that Jesus needed to be stopped. And when your enemies join forces to come after you.

I guess you know, you've been effective. We might think about the own, own, our own times in which we live and the kind of polarized way our societies tend to be bending and tilting right now. And to think what would it take for everybody to come together, unite on common hatred or disagreement about some kind of third element or party?

What would it take for that to happen? And so here, there is. The sense in which both the Pharisees and the pros for all of their dislike toward each other, for all their philosophical and religious disagreements, for all of their political conniving against each other, they are completely united in this purpose.

And they easily come together to say, Jesus, we must deal with, and it requires all of us, let us come together and reason against him finding a way that we can consolidate our effort and power to such a degree that we leverage one another to entrap him. So there's something here where I think they're demonstrating what the Psalms say that God, when the nation's rage against God, he laughs.

He holds 'em in derision. And here's a perfect example of that. In a microcosmic kind of way, we find these two groups who really should never be with one another, finding common ground and unity to try to defeat. Jesus.

[00:08:56] Flattery as a Trap

[00:08:56] Jesse Schwamb: And so this delegation arrives and here is their approach to Jesus. They say, teacher, we know that you are true and you teach the way of God truthfully, and you don't care about anyone's opinion.

For you are not swayed by appearances. This is some kind of magnificent flattery, and it actually, it's almost entirely true, which just makes this so ironic. There's a confession among the Herodians and the Pharisees, even as I tried to undermine Jesus, you know, that's what makes this so dangerous. They say you don't care about anyone's opinion.

You're not swayed by appearances. They're essentially saying you can't be pressured. You'll answer honestly no matter what. And in saying so, they're trying to pressure Jesus, of course, into answering honestly. But it's like a rhetorical judo move. The compliment is the trap spring mechanism. Calvin, in this passage, likes to know that they address Jesus as teacher to feign respect while concealing this animosity, this ho hostility that they have towards him.

They want him to be relaxed. Flattered off guard as if it's possible to take the son of God off guard, but notice what they're actually confessing in that flattery. Jesus is truthful. He teaches God's way accurately. He's not a respecter of persons. Every word they speak in false praise is true testimony about who he is, which makes their hypocrisy all the more damning.

And this is the thing, for as much as anybody wants to try to blaspheme Jesus for as much as anybody wants to come at him with one particularly. Facet of his character. For instance, he's a good teacher or he seems to teach peace and love and truth and that, and that's it. They compliment him while at the same time confessing themselves short of the true confession of who he is.

And so it's ironic to me that these guys. Who in their hearts are holding all of this malice toward Jesus. Say, well, you're not a respecter of persons because you th see things as they are and not merely as they appear to be, while all the time thinking that they're truthfully concealing the fact that they hate him and yet are flattering them with his, flattering him with their tongues.

The absurdity of this is absolutely insane. And so I think if you're in this moment, you have to be appreciating. This sense of what is building here? How is Jesus going to respond? The trap has been set. They've tried to flatter him, and of course he's not buying it. But they start with this question. All of that's a set up to say here is like the real punchline.

Tell us then, what do you think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

[00:11:36] The False Dilemma

[00:11:36] Jesse Schwamb: Now, if you're like me, quite honestly, you might wish that Jesus answered this question differently. This is the trap, the trap. Snapshots on this single question or so they think, I mean, I, I truly believe they think they're being really smart here, that they've come to terms with maybe lots of ideas.

I don't know what they did. Whatever the equivalent of using chat GPT was, they said, how can we entrap Jesus? They all got together. They devised a plan. I'm sure they had. Some kind of whiteboard where they're brainstorming ideas and some came up and said, no, that's not gonna work. And others came. I imagine they settled on this because they thought there was no way outta this.

And in some ways it's actually a really brilliantly engineered dilemma. The tax in question here is the kenzos. This was the Roman poll tax. A denarius per head paid directly to Rome, and it was incredibly and deeply controversial. Some Jews viewed paying it as completely an act of collaboration with an occupying pagan power, and the zealots called it outright sin, and the HEROs thought it was perfectly fine.

So here's the trap. If Jesus says yes, pay the tax, he completely alienates the crowd of Jewish pilgrims who are beginning to believe that he might be the Messiah who will liberate Israel from Rome if he says. No, do not pay it. He could obviously be reported to the Roman authorities as a seditious rebel.

Either answer loses. There's really no good way out of this. At least on the face. Either answer costs him something, his popularity or his freedom, and this is what we call a false dilemma. The Pharisees think that they've got him cornered. But here's the thing, loved ones they haven't. You can never corner Jesus.

Of course, you can never catch him off guard. And while those seem like very just trite and straightforward explanations of who he is and what his character is like as the son of God, we should not. Go away from them too quickly because what we find here is the wisdom and the brilliance of God in providing teaching to cut to the hearts of what is actually in the question.

And Jesus doesn't play this game.

[00:13:40] Coin and Hypocrisy

[00:13:40] Jesse Schwamb: Jesus aware of the malice says, why? Put me to the test. You hypocrites, show me the coin for the tax. He doesn't even pretend to take the question at face value. He immediately identifies what's happening. This is a test and you all are hypocrites. Now, for me, I think if you are in the seats or standing in the shoes or the sandals, I suppose, of the Herodians or the Pharisees.

I would be like, if I were on the side, I would be like, pull up, pull up, get out, get out. He's onto us just just with Jesus directly coming at them and labeling them as hypocrites. I think that itself undoes all of this. They've been exposed from the very beginning and Jesus doesn't mess around. It's like him coming into the temple to cleanse the temple, and it's as if in his left hand, he has mercy in his right hand.

He has that cord that whip. And the word that Matthew uses here for hypocrites is one that Jesus deploys with like surgical precision throughout his this gospel. A hypocrite is someone performing virtue they do not possess. And right away he identifies it. These men are performing concern for Jewish law while actually serving their own political agenda.

And I love that the son of God in power does not put up with that at all. And then, and I think this is. Absolutely delightful. Jesus asked them for a coin of all the things he could have said or done. Here's where there is like a little bit of a kind of a parable feel to this. He asked for the physical object, the thing that they're talking about.

He asks, and interestingly, he doesn't have one. He's the guest of Pilgrim, the one without a Roman Denarius in his pocket. But, and here's what's interesting. Loved ones, they produce one immediately for him, which means the people who are asking whether it's lawful to use Roman currency are already using Roman currency.

Jesus hasn't even answered yet, and hypocrisy is already self-evident. I think that's a considerable fact. The, the instance that they're able to produce the coin promptly, I don't think is a minor detail. It implicates them. They're already participants in the Roman economic system, which. I would say it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Their question about whether it's lawful to pay taxes to Caesar is somewhat undermined though by the fact that they're carrying Caesar's money in the temple precincts. In other words, the whole thing just smells a setup. And even Jesus asking for the coin is showing them and others around them that not is he onto them.

Not only does he see through them, but he is undermining the complete argument that they're making, showing that the question that they need to have answered is actually not about taxes at all. It's about something much deeper he's about to answer or bring forward the question, rather, whose image is on you.

[00:16:29] Whose Image

[00:16:29] Jesse Schwamb: And he starts by holding up the coin and saying, whose image is on this? So they bring him a denarius and Jesus says to them, whose likeness and inscription. Is this now the denarius of Tiberius Caesar bore his portrait in the inscription. The inscription, generally historians say, said something like Tiberius Caesar, son of the Divine Augustus, and it was a claim of divinity stamped into everyday commerce.

This is why so much of the Jews found it so offensive to participate because it felt as if in every transaction you were affirming in some way the divine authority of Caesar. It was a claim that was stamped on the coin and therefore represented in every kind of transaction that took place throughout the lamb.

Every time a Roman coin changed hands, Rome's imperial theology was in some ways quietly proclaimed, and Jesus holds it up and he asks this obvious question. Whose face is on this thing, and the Greek word for likeness here, whose likeness is, this is the word for image. This is the word the SubT uses in Genesis one.

When God makes humanity in his image, in the Imago day, Jesus is about to build an argument that depends on this resonance, whether his questioners hear it or not. Whose image is on the coin and whose image is on you. Those are two very different questions with two very different answers. And of course, they lead to this incredibly famous reply, one that's known by most people, but I think not understood by many.

So they said, Caesar's Caesar's image is on this coin.

[00:18:12] Render to God

[00:18:12] Jesse Schwamb: So Jesus says to them, therefore. Render to Caesar, the things that are Caesars and to God, the things that are God. I think of almost all the places in the scriptures. This might be Jesus at his most dazzling. I say that partly. Subjectively, because I'm captivated by this whole encounter.

I'm captivated and drawn in by the son of God and his teaching here. I'm captivated by his ability to see through what's happening here, and I'm captivated by the truth that he delivers. But I think I'm not alone because objectively, when we get to the end of this, we find everybody else marveling.

Notice that Jesus doesn't choose between the two horns of this dilemma. He reframes the entire question. He blows up the entire premise because even here, the choice of language is so incredible. The word render means to give back what is owed, to return, what belongs to someone. Sometimes we hear this as give, give to Caesars.

What is Caesars? Just give it to him. This seems like a, a secular question you're asking me. So keep this secular nonsense out of what is this sacred life? But instead it's not just give it's give back, render as in this was already his to begin with. So give Caesar back. What has Caesar's image on it? The coin bears his image.

The coin belongs to his realm, fine. But when that, but then comes this, this second half, this glorious truth, that's far better, and this is where the weight falls. Give to God, what has God's image on it. And what of course, bears the image of God, you and I, every human being made in the mago de bears the divine image.

Caesar can have his coin, but he cannot have you. Not in any ultimate sense. You and I loved ones. We belong to God. And of course, from a reform perspective, this is the bedrock of what we mean when we speak of the Lordship of Christ over all of life. There's no zone of existence that is only Caesar's.

Caesar operates within a sphere that God ordains and limits. The state has legitimate authority. Paul's gonna argue that in Romans 13, but the authority is derivative. It's not ultimate Caesar's domain is real, but bounded God's domain is total and unbounded. And so that's why. Calvin insists that Jesus never divides life neatly into sacred and secular.

Rather, he is establishing that all of life is lived before God, and within that totality, there are legitimate temporal authorities to whom we owe appropriate submission. The coin goes to Caesar, but the person. The image bearer of God is owed entirely to the Lord.

[00:20:50] Imago Dei and New Life

[00:20:50] Jesse Schwamb: I was thinking, again, reading through Genesis, just how beautiful the CR creation narrative is when it comes to mankind, that God is ex ne hill speaking things into existence.

He's showing his great command over all things. The spirit hovering over the waters from the beginning. And here's God in this Trinitarian act, bringing into the existence, all the things that you and I know, all the things which are familiar to us that we still marvel at, but are part and parcel peace wise of the world in which we live.

And I sometimes forget that when it comes to that day, when God creates man, that he forms him and then he takes a breath and he breathes. The specialty of that type of creation that you and I are derivative and contingent beings, but we're way separate than all of creation because God has breathed his very breath of life into us.

And in that way, it's not just that he set us up and said, let me design mankind to be like me, which he does. Let us make mankind in our own image that Trinity says in the scriptures, but also that consummation of life. Comes from the very breadth of God himself. And in that way we find that human beings are doubly special.

I would say that one, that God has formed us to be like him to exhibit many of his qualities, but two, that life itself didn't come just from merely speaking, but there's an intimacy. More or less loved ones. He put his lips on ours and breathed into us so that we might be alive. And of course, the scripture itself tells us that the second life, the abundant life, salvation itself is very much like that.

In the same way, Jesus didn't come to make bad people good. It came to make dead people alive. And so we need that breath of life again. And when we are surrendered to him, when he comes and arrests our hearts, when he does that incredible surgery of cutting us and removing that heart of stone and replacing it, one with flesh, we are made alive in Christ so that we gain more in Jesus than what we lost in Adam.

[00:22:50] Amazed Not Changed

[00:22:50] Jesse Schwamb: So what is everybody's response when Jesus explains all of this? Well, I love what the scripture says when they heard it. They marveled and they left him and went away. They marveled the Greek here is, is the word actually for enthusiasm. They were amazed and astonished. It's not actually polite appreciation.

This is like draw drop of people who came to spring a trap and watched it spring BRAC on them. There was no follow up question. I love this, don't you? That this is so complete, so succinct, so confronting, so condemning, so damning that they had nothing, they, they left. Imagine maybe they looked at each other with that look of like, does anybody else have anything else they wanna say?

'cause if not, I just want to get outta here right now and notice what Matthew doesn't say. He doesn't say that they repented, he doesn't say that they believed they were astonished. And they left. They walked away. And this is one of those sobering realities of the gospels. Jesus could silence his opponents without converting them.

Intellectual defeat is not the same thing as spiritual surrender. The Pharisees went away to a pla to a. Construct a plan essentially of crucifixion of how to kill him. And being out argued is not the same as being transformed. I think for us in evangelism and apologetics, it's a good reminder that winning the argument is not the goal.

Clarity is a gift and faithful witness matters, but conversion is the work of the spirit. You can leave someone with nothing to say and still not reach the heart, and this should move us to pray accordingly. So I'm amazed by this teaching because it draws us back to this understanding that what the Pharisees meant to use for entrapment to in the temporal space.

To divide Jesus, to make him basically say something that he did not want to say, to put him in a place he did not want to be. Instead, he uses the convey the greatest message of all, and that is we are God's children. And ironically, the ones who are professing to be God's children had missed the point altogether because what they really needed to ask was, whose image is on you?

And as a result of that, what ought you to render that is to give back to God, and that is ourselves.

[00:25:00] Takeaways and Application

[00:25:00] Jesse Schwamb: So here's some things I would say that we can take away from Matthew 22. A few things I think worth holding onto as you and I go about our weeks first, Jesus can't be cornered. And I, I understand that that's like obvious to say, but don't you love that about the God man?

Like every intent to trap him. In this chapter and throughout the gospels now and forevermore results in his opponents looking worse than when they started. And this is how we know that we can trust Jesus, that we can trust his power, that he is for us, that his enemies will ultimately be subdued, that they will be humiliated and made low, that he is the one who cannot be caught in his words because his words are truth.

I love that the scripture just tells us the truth about reality, and so we come back to it time and time again because we find it both. Warm, comfortable blankets in which we might cuddle up as it were and find ourselves comforted by God. But also it does have a sharp edge that like a knife cuts against us sometimes to remind us that we serve a holy God and that we are sinful people.

It never shrinks away from the truth when that hard edge of the law must be brandished against us, and it also at the same time, never ceases to apply the bomb of the gospel to our lives where we need healing and restoration and comfort. Here's the second thing in my mind, this question, this big question, is it lawful?

And what a question by the way, right? Like, you know, you could couch this in lots of different ways. Should we pay taxes? That's kind of how we think about it. But this idea of like, no, no, no. Is it lawful? Which law are we talking about? The law of God or the law of the land Even that is left for this kind of subjective reasoning to entrap.

This was a question though about politics. And Jesus answered with a question about identity. I love that. Whose image is this? That is always the deeper question in my mind. And before you ask what you owe the government, we ought to ask what do we owe God? And remember that you yourself are what you owe him because you bear his image.

So we start from this place where we don't get it twisted like we do in Romans one, when we're outside of God. That is, we don't wanna change the truth of God for Allah here. We need to remember that Presuppositional, all that we are, all that we have, all that we've been given, all of this is God's. And so in that contingent sense, we are merely pouring back to him that which is already due, his name and his praise.

And so that's the place where we start. Third, I think there is a legitimate but bounded role for civil authority in Christian understanding of the world. That's something Tony and I have talked about before. You can go back into the Reform Brotherhood catalog, which by the way exists in reform brotherhood.com.

You can find all of the 400 deficits back there. There's a search function, so you can just type in a word and at this point I'm guaranteed some episode will come up. We've talked about this before. How we're not theocrats, we're we're pilgrims. Who hold our earthly citizenship loosely and our heavenly citizenship with everything that we've got.

So there is a role in our land for civil authority. Paul, again will argue this very cogently in Romans 13. At the same time, we don't wanna get it twisted. We don't want to have too much focus on that. And too little focus on the fact that our heavenly citizenship is what truly defines us because of who we are.

And finally. Amazement is not enough. The Pharisees were amazed and walked away unchanged. We can't just be impressed by Jesus. We must be His. And to remind you, even I think as we engage in the parables that are ahead of us and the teaching that is behind us here in this episode, that it's not just to marvel and say, wow, isn't Jesus.

Good because he is, and he is really great with his teaching. He's really great at perceiving all of this. But more than that, he's Lord and Savior of all. He's guiding us not into just like better rhetoric and how to defeat like Pulic argumentation. He's drawing us into the very heart of God, into love for him and for service for one another.

And it starts with who we are and how much of our society right now. Has gotten all of this confused such that a lot of our problems is because we do not realize who we are. We are trying to change who we are, change the rules of who God has made us to be, and in this way we shipwreck our lives. And so Jesus calls us back with this simple question, whose image is this?

And in that question, our loved ones, I would encourage you all to meditate, to metabolize it, to set yourselves to it. Because the task of answering that question is the task of understanding who God is and who we are in light of who God is. So there you go. Uh, just a little bit of teaching from Jesus that I think is so helpful for us, especially as we move into more parables that he's about to expand.

As we go through, I don't know how many that we have left, but there's a lot of 'em, so you're gonna want to continue to hang out with us, I think, because we're gonna go through these, talk about them, process them together, pull in some exegetical chops at the same time, make sure that we're trying to apply these things, because that's the whole point here.

There's so much here. I think that could be said. But I'm gonna leave the application to you. So take your time meditating and thinking through this lovely teaching.

[00:30:08] Join the Community

[00:30:08] Jesse Schwamb: If you wanna come hang out and do some of this together, which, why would you not wanna do that? We are super fun people. That's what everybody says.

Come and join us in the Telegram chat. You've heard me say before, telegram is just a messaging app, and we have a small corner of that app that's a private group of listeners from all around the world who are just hanging out together. We're talking about the episodes, we're talking about life together.

We're sharing prayer requests. We're. Tasting things and recording videos of how delicious or not those things are. So if you're curious now about how you can join, it's super easy. Just go to any browser and type in t me slash reform brotherhood, t me slash reform brotherhood. One more time. Everybody in the back.

It's t. It's in telegram.me back slash reform brotherhood and then you'll find a link which will take you right to the place where we are all conversing together.

[00:31:00] Closing Blessing

[00:31:00] Jesse Schwamb: So that's it on this episode. Come hang out. We're about to jump back into the parables. The band will be back together. It's everything that you wanted and more and, and I hope that you'll come and hang out again.

But until you do, you should definitely honor everyone and love the brotherhood.