Matthew 20:1-16
The Parable
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. Now when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle, and said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right you will receive.’
“So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first.’ And when those came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each received a denarius. But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received each a denarius. And when they had received it, they complained against the landowner, saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.’ But he answered one of them and said, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’ So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen.”
Lesson
Whether we have worked for the entirety of our life, or only come to the Lord late in life, yet our rewards are equal - we get to keep our life.
If the kingdom of heaven is to be understood of the church, then the parable is limited to the time of the church, and the above explanation holds true. There is also the view that the kingdom is meant to describe the saved through the entirety of human history. In this case, the early laborers can be understood to be Israel, and the various times up to the ninth hour the landowner went into the marketplace are the times that God sent the prophets to them to bring them back to Him, with those of the eleventh hour (“Little children, it is the last hour,” 1 John 2:18) being the entrance of the Gentiles with the establishment of the church.
“The last first and the first last…” In another place, the word says, “Sitting down, He called the twelve and said to them, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all,’” Mark 9:35. He said this to them, because they had been discussing among themselves who of them was the greatest. It is the humble soul which is of the greatest value to our Creator; these men in the parable had an “evil eye” because they thought they would get more than had been agreed upon, because they had been at it longer, and so thought they deserved more, and yet received exactly what they had agreed upon; and so they grumbled. But the humble are pleasing to Him, “Though the Lord is on high, Yet He regards the lowly; But the proud He knows from afar,” Psalm 138:6.