Welcome to Season 3 of Love & Context. This season,
we're exploring the life of Jesus step -by -step
and uncovering what His story teaches us about
loving God and others. Here on Love & Context,
we're all about having real conversations about
how to live out that love in practical, everyday
ways, and understanding the Bible in its full
context. We're so glad you're here. Let's dive
into Season 3 of Love & Context. welcome back
to the love and context podcast the love and
context podcast i feel like you've sang that
one already i have i have it's it's like a reoccurring
theme yeah in my head also i tend to um i have
songs that i sing about just like everything
i'll be like i'm gonna make some dinner gonna
make some dinner people are watching and they're
like i wish he hadn't danced i really wish that
hadn't happened i really really wish that hadn't
happened Yeah, so we are Love and Context Podcast.
I'm Ben, this is Spencer, and we are in season
three. We're talking about the life of Jesus.
Last week we talked about Jesus going through
and cleansing the temple, which is also on the
heels of him raising Lazarus from the dead. So
then he goes into the temple and he says, hey,
stop it. Pretty much, right? Pretty much. Stop
it. You know, the house is supposed to be a place
where everybody's welcome and everybody's being
invited in, and instead all you're doing is selling
a bunch of stuff and ripping people off. Knock
it off. And... We have a story today that is
similar. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, many, I think we
were talking when we actually, when we plan these
out, sometimes we think we know how long we're
going to take and we're wrong. Yeah. So this
week and next week, we're going to be talking
about how Jesus is then going to, from the cleansing
of the temple, have these conversations and really
confront leadership and different perspectives
on what they think Messiah should be and what
they think God should be doing. Yeah. So the
first thing we're going to talk about, there's
a place in the book of Matthew, it's chapter
21. There's a story called the parable of the
talents. And Jesus is going to be telling them
this parable in response to them asking by whose
authority he's going and doing things. Right?
So I think you've got that up, right? All right.
So here we go. Now listen to another story. A
certain landowner planted a vineyard, built a
wall around it, and dug a pit for pressing grape
juice and built a lookout tower. Then he leased
the vineyard to tenant farmers who moved and
moved to another country. At this time of the
grape harvest, he sent his servants to collect
their share of the crop or his share of the crop.
But the farmer grabbed his servants, beat one,
killed one and stoned another. So the landowner
sent a larger group of servants to collect them.
But the results were the same. Finally, the owner
sent his son thinking, surely they will respect
my son. But the tenant farmers saw his son coming
and they said to one another, here comes. the
heir of the estate. Come on, let's kill him and
get the estate for ourselves. So they grabbed
him, drug him out of the vineyard and murdered
him. When the owner of the vineyard returns,
Jesus asked, what do you think he will do to
the farmers? Religious leaders replied, he will
put the wicked men to a horrible death and lease
the vineyard to others to give him his share
of each crop after each harvest. Jesus asked,
then Jesus asked him, didn't you ever read this
in the scriptures? A stone that the builder rejected
will become the cornerstone. This is what the
Lord is doing. And it is a wonderful to see.
I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken
away from you and given to nations that will
produce proper fruit. Sorry. I got a few more
verses, man. Anyone who stumbles over the stone
wall... He threw me off. He threw off my groove.
He threw off your groove. Sorry. Anyone who stumbles
over that stone will be broken into pieces and
it will crush anyone it falls on. When the leading
priests and Pharisees heard this parable, they
realized he was telling the story against them.
And they were the wicked farmers. They wanted
to arrest Jesus, but they were afraid of the
crowds and who considered Jesus to be a prophet.
All right. So first off, let's just. point out
the hilarious part about this is that jesus tells
him the story and he's like what do you think
that the farmland owner should do and they're
like thinking rome right they're like You should
kick them out and put people in charge that are
better. And then he's like, oh, dang it, they're
talking about us. Right? They're like, ah, backfired.
Yeah. So I want to come back and touch on a few
references to this. One of them is from Isaiah
5. It's the Song of the Vineyard. So I just want
to kind of read this because this is kind of
the setting of what's going to be talked about
here. I will sing for the one I love a song about
his vineyard. My loved one has a vineyard on
a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared
it of stones and planted it with the choicest
vines. He built a watchtower in it to cut out
a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop
of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.
Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard. What more could
have been done for my vineyard than I have done
for it? When I looked for good grapes, Why did
it yield only bad? Now I will tell you what I'm
going to do with my vineyard. I will take away
its hedge. It will be destroyed. I will break
down its wall and it will be trampled. Okay.
So then the other one that's going to be referenced
is Psalm 118. And I'm not going to go through
the whole Psalm. I'm just going to kind of read
you a few highlights out of that. Because these
people are very familiar with what Jesus is pulling
in. So it starts give thanks to the Lord for
he is good his love endures forever Let Israel
say his love endures forever. Let the house of
Aaron say let his love love endures forever Those
who fear the Lord say his love endures forever
Catching a theme here, right? When hard -pressed,
I cried to the Lord. He brought me into a spacious
place. It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in humans. It's better to take
refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.
All the nations surround me, but in the name
of the Lord, I cut them down. They surrounded
me on every side, but in the name of the Lord,
I cut them down. Coming down here to this portion.
I will give thanks for you answered me. You have
become my salvation. The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone. The Lord has done
this. and it is marvelous in our eyes. The Lord
has done it this very day. Let us rejoice and
be glad. Lord, save us. Lord, grant us success.
Now, why is that important? Because they've actually
been crying this when Jesus came in. Hoshana,
right? Blessed is he who comes in the name of
the Lord. For the house of the Lord, we bless
you. The Lord is God, for he has made his light
shine upon you. So, if you remember from the
triumphal entry just a few weeks ago, They were
crying these verses when he was coming in. Blessed
is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Right.
And now Jesus is taking that same Psalm and reminding
them is like, Hey, this King, this kingly figure
is saying everybody's against me, but it's better
to trust in God than to trust in people. Yeah.
It's better to trust in God than to trust in
the powers around you. Now, who's he talking
to? He's talking to them. Like, what are they
trusting in? They're trusting in their institutions.
They're trusting in their, their wealth, their
power, like whatever it is. Right. He says, no,
you need to trust in God and God's going to do
it all. But the very thing that you're rejecting
is actually going to be the cornerstone of new
creation. Right. The very thing that you're rejecting
is actually going to be the cornerstone of everything
that comes up. Well, and then you also, you,
you, in the story, you have the. a landowner
sending people to help the farmers. Yeah. Right.
And oftentimes we don't interpret it that way.
Cause like, no, there's, they were going to correct.
Right. Yeah. Well, often that's what Jesus does
in our life with sin. Right. He comes in and
he corrects that. And so, but you have the landowner
being like, Hey, they're doing this, go and correct
this. Yeah. Like help them. Yep. Like the landowner
wasn't there to kick those farm tenants out.
He's like, just go correct that. Yeah. And, And
then the tenants were like, okay, cool. We're
going to kill him too. And we're going to kill
him and we're going to kill him. Right. And so
you have this, you have the story of, of the
landowner in this case, God being like, I'm sending
someone to help you. Yeah. I'm sending someone
to be there for you and you're pushing them away.
And, and, uh, coming back to this Isaiah, he
says, I did everything I could. I'm done. I've
done so much. Um, now in this, in this, in this
parable, like the leaders understand at the end,
but the landowner is obviously God. The servants
who keep coming to address the farmers, these
are prophets. Because what are prophets supposed
to do? They're supposed to speak truth to power.
They're supposed to be a guideline pulling Israel's
kings back, Israel's leadership back to who they're
supposed to be. The priesthood is supposed to
every day help you ritualistically get into a
rhythm of like... serving God and following God
and, and worshiping God. Uh, but the prophets
are when you get out of line, they can say, Hey
guys, let's go back to where we're supposed to
be. And they also speak that to the, to the priests.
Yeah. Right. Because that's what's happening.
And, um, and so, and he's like, he's like, you
didn't like the prophets, you killed them. So
I sent more prophets and you killed them. Jerusalem
who kills its prophets. Remember we read a couple
of weeks ago and he's like, Then the son came
and you're like, oh, you know, if we kill him,
you know what the owner is going to want to do?
Give us more land. Yeah. No. You're completely.
He's been trying to bring you back. He's bringing
you back. And you very much. They said it themselves.
They're like, he's going to kick out the people
and build. By the way, this is not, by the way,
supersessionism. Because people will take this
and they'll be like, well, that's because the
Gentile church is going to supplant the Israel
church. No. Faithful followers are going to replace
the ones who are not being faithful. Yeah. And
because if you remember in the book of Acts,
the church actually starts with a bunch of Jews.
Right. And they go and they spread out and they
start growing in number with a bunch of Jews.
Yeah. So this is not supersessionism. This is
saying that God is creating this new creation,
the cornerstone of which is going to be Jesus
himself. I'm he's rejected, but he's actually
going to be the foundation of everything that's
coming after. And in, in a lot of ways, he's
the foundation of everything that came before.
Yeah. Yeah. And you're going to be pushed out.
Yeah. And like, yeah. And it's, uh, now this
is, this is, uh, this is really important because
like we, we talked about, um, last week he's
come through and this court of the Gentiles where
they're supposed to be a kingdom of priests to
the all nations has become commercialized. It's
become about transactional transactions. It's,
it's no longer representing like actual worship
and actual ritual and actual following of God.
It's now a place of commerce. It's no longer
a beacon of hope to the world. Yeah. And he's
like, listen, that's it. That's done. It's time
to be a beacon of hope to the world again. Yeah.
Right. Yeah. Let's zoom. Can we zoom in on, uh,
Jesus's question to the Pharisees here? Um, so
by the way, just side note for everybody, I'm
pretty sure I drive Ben nuts when we do this.
Cause Ben has like notes. He's like, we're going
to talk through this, this, this, this, and I
don't have anything. And I'm just like, Oh, let's
talk about this now. Um, but yeah, this question,
uh, So Jesus, what do you think? So when the
owner of the vineyard returns, what do you think
he will do to those farmers? Now, this question,
you're like, okay, this is really simple, but
really the Pharisees are left in a bind, right?
Because one, they don't realize that Jesus is
relating the farmers to them yet. Correct. So
if they answer, he needs to kill the farmers,
Jesus is like, okay. you know you're the farmers
right yeah right and if he answers and if he
answers well well he's just not going to do anything
he's just going to show show mercy or kindness
And then Jesus could answer, what about your
son and all the atrocities that these farmers
have committed? Either way, it points back to
either the Pharisees and the atrocities they've
committed in Jerusalem right now, or the Pharisees
just being like, oh, no, kill him, take him out,
which would signify that they themselves now
see. They now see themselves as evil. Right.
Or at least know Jesus sees them that way. One
of the other things that I see in this story,
too, when he's having this conversation with
them, because I'm always told that the God of
the Old Testament is God of fire and brimstone.
Right. And obviously in our podcast, we disagree
with that. We believe that Jesus is the representation
of who the father is, like the made flesh. Right.
And you ask yourself, you're like, if you're
reading the story, I don't know if you, when
you've read it, sometimes you're like, okay,
they killed the last people. Why would you send
more people? Right? Like in my head, I send somebody,
they kill them. I'm like, oh, let's send more
people. And then if they kill those people, I'm
definitely like, hey, why don't I send my son?
Like, and like, does that make, and so like,
what is, if this is God, this is, he's continuing
to come and he's showing mercy and he's showing
mercy and he's showing mercy. Like, This isn't
painting a God who's ready to smite you the second
you mess up. This is actually a God who's incredibly
patient and probably lavishly graceful. Yeah.
If we owned a vineyard, we sent somebody to deal
with the situation. They killed them. We're probably
calling the cops. Getting the SWAT in there.
FBI, call Sierra 117, which is Master Chief,
by the way. We're going to call someone who has
the authority to go in and forcefully handle
the situation. Because it's like, hey, I just
sent an employee over here to help clean this
mess up, and the other people who are renting
our space killed him. In modern days, that's
a 911 call of like, hey, this just happened.
Like, we would have to be, from an earthly perspective,
we would have to be idiots to be like, okay,
well, they killed one staff person. Let me just
send another. Okay, he killed another. Oh, let
me just send my son. See if that makes a difference.
Yeah. Right? Just to put that in perspective.
Now, why are they killing these people? It's
because they're not wanting to give the landowner
exactly what the land is supposed to produce,
which is good fruit. Right? Now. All throughout
the Bible, good fruit is going to be connected
with living the kingdom life. Go back to Matthew
5, the kingdom of God looks like this. And you're
going to know them by their good or bad fruit.
I think it's interesting that right after this
story, and I just went to the wrong place in
the Bible, but give me one second here. He's
going to tell a parable, but the next one is
he's going to be talking to a Pharisee in 22.
And I just want to connect this to what we're
talking about here. Then the Pharisees went out
and laid their plans to trap him in his words.
So he's been talking to religious leaders. Now
he's talking to Pharisees, right? They sent their
disciples to, they sent their disciples to. To
him, along with the Herodians, which, by the
way, is really weird. The Pharisees and Herodians
are working together. Go back to our podcast
where we talked about that. They don't like each
other. They don't like each other. Teacher, they
said, we know that you are a man of integrity
and that you teach the way of God in accordance
with the truth. You aren't swayed by others because
you pay no attention to who they are. By the
way, if anybody ever says that to you, they're
definitely getting ready to drop a bomb. Right.
Now tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it
right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?
But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, You
hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show
me the coin used for paying the tax. They brought
him a denarius, and he asked them, Whose image
is on this and whose inscription? Caesar's, they
replied. Then he replied to them, So give back
to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what
is God's. When they heard this, they were amazed,
so they left him and went away. What's going
to happen in this section, in all these conversations,
is different religious leaders, different avenues
of Judaism are going to come and try to confront
Jesus and try to trap him and try to get him
caught up in his words. So in the parable of
the tenants, the people who are in charge of
the land are not giving what's supposed to be,
which is the good works, right? It's the life
of righteousness, the kingdom of priests. So
Jesus is then still in the temple and they come
up and they say, we got one for you. They're
like, who should we pay taxes to Caesar or not?
Now, the thing is, if you say you're not supposed
to pay taxes to Caesar. then Rome's going to
come after you. And if you're going to say you
should pay taxes to Caesar, the Pharisees are
going to come after you and talk to you about
that you're bowing to man over God. And the zealots
are going to be frustrated with you siding with
like paying taxes to Rome. You know, they're
like, how could you betray your people? Now,
if you know anything about, if you read in Torah,
you're not actually supposed to have a Roman
coin. In the temple mount. So Jesus says, hand
me a coin and let me, or take out a coin and
let's take a look at it. So the person who pulls
out the coin has already told Jesus what they
think, right? They've pulled out the temple or
the non -temple coin in the temple. They've already
told you what they think, where their allegiance
lies. So first of all, masterclass by Jesus.
He's already uncovered them and what they're
about to do. And then he says, now, whose inscription,
whose image is on this silver? Whose image? So
he takes it a step further, right? Yeah. He's
like, okay, you have that coin now. Tell me about
it. Yeah. Like, well, here's Caesar's face. Yeah.
And this, I think, highlights the grace of Jesus,
though, in this moment, because Jesus could have
gone on a tirade of like you hypocrites and like
talking about how like only the temple coin is
allowed in here. Foreign currency is not allowed
in the temple, all this stuff. And instead he
says, so give to Caesar what is Caesar and give
to God what is God's. Now, it feels like there's
something in the image, something in the book
of Genesis that talks about mankind being in
the image of somebody. It talks about mankind
being made in the image of God. And so Jesus
says, likening back to the prophets and Micah
and many others, it says, you think that the
money matters. If Caesar wants his money, he
can have his money, but don't you dare give him
what belongs to God, which is you. You remember?
You're leasing out a space. Yeah. You're supposed
to be producing fruit. You're supposed to be
sending it out to the nations for everybody to
enjoy. You're supposed to be a kingdom of priests
to the world. Don't you dare give Caesar what
belongs to God, which is your service. It's your
life. It's your good works. It's your shining
the light into the world, right? Don't you dare
give Caesar that. Yeah. I don't care about your
gold. By the way, church, God doesn't care about
your money. Tithing is not about your money.
He doesn't need it. The guy literally spoke the
world into existence. You think he needs your
20 bucks? Right? But we need to stock that espresso
stand. But what he does want is your heart. Yeah.
He wants your heart and he wants you to go and
bring the kingdom of God wherever you go to become
a kingdom of priests that are mediating between
heaven and earth, that are bringing heaven to
earth, that are bringing kingdom principles around,
right? And this is who we're supposed to be.
And money can be a tool that can be used for
that, right? Please don't mishear us and say,
okay, Ben and Spencer said we don't need money.
I was like, well, no, like in the world we live
in today, like we need money to survive, like
to pay rent, to buy food, to take, I mean, to
physically take care of ourselves. Right. But
what we're saying is we do not want to take money
and elevate that above who God called us to be.
Right. Right. And that's what Jesus is getting
at. He's saying, he's saying, okay, look, you
have foreign currency here. Yeah. He's showing
that. Yeah. And he's actually having them show
everybody in a temple. Okay. And you have that
here. You've already showed us where your value
is. Yeah. You've already shown us that this is
what's most important to you. Yeah. And so then
he's saying. And then he just kind of turns back
around. He's like, what about God? Yeah. What
about him? What are you doing with what God gave
you? Yeah. Are you actually putting that into
practice? Are you actually implementing that
or not? Yeah. I was having a conversation with
a friend the other day, and it was along one
of these things, because Jesus is having conversations
with these religious leaders and these people
who think that they know what's going on in the
kingdom of God, which, by the way, we've never
been in danger of being, right? Being the religious
leader that's close minded to what God's actually
doing or thinking that our way is right and nobody
else could possibly do anything any other different
way. There is not a single person who's had this
experience with God where God has been like,
hey, or where you've been like, hey, I believe
in God. This is how everything's going to work
out. Here's my 37 step plan to get through my
life so that I can be in eternity with Jesus.
And then God upheavals that about a third of
the way through step one. Yeah. Yeah. That's
never happened. The reality. is the only one
who gets to, uh, up in those plans is God. Right.
Yeah. Um, but we were having a conversation.
I said, you know, I think a lot of times, and
it's something we have to remind ourselves when
we are, when we are preaching, when we're teaching,
when we're conversing with each other and when
we're reading the Bible, we read these by the
Bible and we, we, we read these stories where
Jesus is talking to people and we're like, yeah,
I'm the outcast. I'm the downtrodden. If you
grew up in church, you're probably the Pharisee.
You're probably the Sadducee. You're probably
the religious leader. Like you probably need
to listen to what he's saying to them and let
it prick your heart. Like, I know that that's
the case for me because like, I have these ideas
of like, I'm like, well, I know how God works.
And he's like, do you, do you know how I work?
Right. And, uh, and a lot of times, and, and
I was like, you know, am I in danger of, of with
what God has like, cause it's, it's a huge honor.
and a huge privilege, privilege to grow up in
a church that worships God or grow up in a family
that worships God. But at the same time, like
sometimes we mix tradition with what God actually
teaches. Yeah. And traditions don't necessarily
always translate like what the, what the called
out life is supposed to be. Yep. Right. So one
of the things I would just encourage listeners
is if you are a person who's grown up in the
church, when you read these stories, just pause
and be like, if this is me, what, what might
this mean for me? Yeah. Right. When you look
at this, you're like, am I actually bringing
plate things that don't belong into God's temple?
Yeah. Right. Am I asking questions to try to
trap Jesus into doing what I want him to do?
Or am I actually allowing him to lead and guide
me? Right? It's a really dangerous place, but
a lot of us try to put God, you know, we've talked
about this, put God in a box. Yeah. Right? Well,
and we see that attitude throughout scripture
too. Yeah. Like take David in the Psalms, for
example. Yeah. I talked on this a couple Sundays
ago, or I don't know, four or five Sundays ago.
For those who don't know, my last month has been
a blur. I actually think it was like four weeks
ago. I know. It was like a month. It's just been
a blur. But there's times in the Psalms where
David is like, Lord, if you do this, then I will
praise you. And you're like, and because all
these bad things are happening to me, so if you
do this, I'll praise you. And there's times where
we're like, okay, we're going to try to put conditions
on our praise. And I'm just here to say that's
not who we're called to be. Right. Right. Like
we're called to be people who who even when we're
in good places, we're in bad places, we're in
good spirits, we're in bad spirits. We are here
praising God through it all. Right. And striving
to be in relationship with him through it all.
Yeah. So by the way, the flip side of that is
that doesn't mean you can think whatever you
want and don't, you know, don't try to. No, that's
that's not it either. The thing is, we're trying
to identify what does God want us to do? Who
is Jesus teaching us to do? And how do we walk
in faithfulness with that? The stone, the stone.
The cornerstone. The stone that the builders
rejected has actually become the cornerstone.
Right. Reminding ourselves in this psalm, it
says, man, it's better to take refuge in God
than with people. It's better to take refuge
with God than with princes. It's better to take
refuge with God for his love endures forever.
Coming back to this Isaiah imagery, he's going
to come after us with faithfulness, with chesed,
which is the word that they use for love, steadfast
love. He's going to come after us over and over
and abundantly. be ready to course correct. Yeah.
Right? Absolutely. Be ready to course correct.
It's okay. It's okay to course correct. When
you realize you're doing a dumb thing, it's best
to stop doing a dumb thing and course correct.
That's part of Christian life. So like we said
at the beginning of the episode, we figured we
probably would not make it through all of our
things. So this is going to be part one of two
of Jesus speaking truth to power to leadership
and reminding them of who they're called to be.
So next week we're going to be talking about,
they're going to have questions about the resurrection.
They're going to have questions about his authority.
They're going to have some other questions. We're
going to dive into those and then continue in
the narrative of Jesus's life. Sounds good. Until
next time. And that's a wrap for today's episode
of Love and Context. We hope this conversation
encouraged you and gave you fresh insights into
how we can better love God and others through
the powerful truths of the Bible. We'd love to
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