The Last Will Be First
He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. Matthew 20:2 · Berean Standard Bible
He agrees to pay them the standard daily wage — a denarius — and sends them to work.
This is a fair deal. A denarius was a normal day's pay. Everyone agrees to the terms.
The landowner and the first workers shake on a fair wage.
Everything starts out straightforward. A fair day's pay for a fair day's work. But this story isn't about fairness.
The landowner agrees (symphōnēsas) to pay one denarius — a standard daily wage for laborers — establishing a clear contractual arrangement.
The explicit agreement is crucial to the parable's logic: the first workers have a contract; later workers trust the owner's fairness.
The narrator describes the agreed-upon wage between the landowner and the first workers.
The first workers negotiate a fair wage. Their contract will become the basis of their complaint later.
1“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.
2He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.
4‘You also go into my vineyard,’ he said, ‘and I will pay you whatever is right.’
Read all of Matthew 20 — Workers hired at day's end receive the same wage as those who sweated since dawn. God's generosity offends our scorekeeping instincts.
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