Matthew 21:33–46 The Parable of the Tenants

Imagine renting a house where everything has been provided for you. The owner built it, maintains it, and trusts the tenants to live there responsibly and take care of things. But over time, something shifts. The tenants stop answering the owner’s calls. They decide what they owe the owner is optional. When a representative shows up, they send him away beat up & bleeding. Eventually, when the owner’s son arrives, they kill him so they can keep the place for themselves and manage it as they like.

That sounds extreme, but at the core of our sin is not confusion about God—it is resistance to His authority. We want to run our lives our way. We want independence. And when that independence is threatened, we resist the Owner, which is God. We start out as good “tenants” and end up God’s adversary.

This is why the Big Idea matters: God owns the vineyard, and the question is not how busy we are in it, but whether we are submitted to the Son and producing fruit that belongs to Him.