We are continuing in our study Enormous Lessons from Small Parables. Before we make application for today from a passage, it is important to determine if the Bible has other teaching on the subject. While an immediate context which includes the historical setting helps us determine meaning, we must remember that the best interpreter for Scripture is Scripture. The truth of the larger biblical context stands throughout the ages. One teaching of the Bible will not contradict another. What else does the Bible teach about this subject?
Let’s once again look at the parable of the laborers in the vineyard from Matthew 20:1-16.
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius.10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Few of us have the entire Bible memorized. In order to determine the larger biblical context, we will need the use of a concordance or a topical Bible. Does the Bible teach about these truths in other places? The biblestudytools.com website has several concordances available. Nave’s Topical Bible provides Scriptural references upon many popular topics. Strong’s Concordance lists most every word in the Bible. You can look to see if there are other teachings which use the same words. Of course, when a passage is found in one of the Gospels, we want to know if the same story is told in another Gospel. Do we find more information there?
Your question for this section of our study is simple yet profound.
- Does the Bible teach about these truths in other places?
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