The Last Will Be First
So they went. Matthew 20:5 · Berean Standard Bible
He goes out again at noon and at three in the afternoon and does the same thing — finds workers and sends them to the vineyard.
The owner keeps going back, again and again. He doesn't stop looking for people who need work.
The narrator shows a pattern of relentless generosity.
Each trip to the marketplace shows the owner's heart. He wants everyone to have a place in his vineyard.
The landowner repeats his hiring at the sixth hour (noon) and ninth hour (3 PM), extending the same open-ended promise to each new group.
The pattern of repeated hiring emphasizes the landowner's persistent generosity and desire for all to work in his vineyard.
The narrator summarizes additional rounds of hiring throughout the day.
The owner keeps going back to the marketplace, extending opportunity at every hour, foreshadowing the inclusion of the last-hour workers.
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.’
5So they went.
6About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ he asked.
7‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
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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