{"id":751,"date":"2015-07-28T20:28:57","date_gmt":"2015-07-29T00:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=751"},"modified":"2015-07-27T17:09:05","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T21:09:05","slug":"wednesday-july-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=751","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday, July 29"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MATTHEW 20 \u201cFor the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. <sup>2\u00a0<\/sup>Now when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. <sup>3\u00a0<\/sup>And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, <sup>4\u00a0<\/sup>and said to them, \u2018You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.\u2019 So they went. <sup>5\u00a0<\/sup>Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise. <sup>6\u00a0<\/sup>And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle, and said to them, \u2018Why have you been standing here idle all day?\u2019 <sup>7\u00a0<\/sup>They said to him, \u2018Because no one hired us.\u2019 He said to them, \u2018You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right you will receive.\u2019<sup>8\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cSo when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, \u2018Call the laborers and give them <em>their<\/em> wages, beginning with the last to the first.\u2019 <sup>9\u00a0<\/sup>And when those came who <em>were hired<\/em> about the eleventh hour, they each received a denarius. <sup>10\u00a0<\/sup>But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received each a denarius. <sup>11\u00a0<\/sup>And when they had received <em>it,<\/em> they complained against the landowner, <sup>12\u00a0<\/sup>saying, \u2018These last <em>men<\/em> have worked <em>only<\/em> one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.\u2019 <sup>13\u00a0<\/sup>But he answered one of them and said, \u2018Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? <sup>14\u00a0<\/sup>Take <em>what is<\/em> yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man <em>the same<\/em> as to you. <sup>15\u00a0<\/sup>Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?\u2019 <sup>16\u00a0<\/sup>So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>PRACTICAL APPLICATION: \u00a0this parable can seem &#8216;unfair&#8217; until we realize that Christ is referring to salvation itself, not &#8216;rewards&#8217; earned through following Christ. \u00a0The Jews thought they should be &#8216;more saved&#8217; than the gentiles who found salvation at the 11th hour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MATTHEW 20 \u201cFor the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2\u00a0Now when he had agreed with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orthodox-daily-devotional","has_no_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=751"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":765,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751\/revisions\/765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}