Paul's Passing Thoughts

From the New Calvinist Bible, Matthew 21:28-32:

Jesus asked the men who had come to test him, “But what do you think? A man had three sons, and he came to the second son and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went. Then he came to the third son and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. Which did the will of his father, the second son or the third son?”

One of the really smart men listening to Jesus said to him, “The third son. While it is true that the second son repented and went to the vineyard, he obviously never understood the graceful message the father intended to convey to him. Sadly, the second son spent his life trying to please his father by working hard and following what the father had commanded. The third son, on the other hand, understood that the father never really expected obedience to his commands. The third son realized that, despite all the knowledge the father had revealed to him and all the resources he had been given by the father to do the work in the vineyard, he was in fact totally deficient of all ability to tend the vineyard as the father had commanded. The third son had learned from his teachers that the father almost always meant just the opposite of what he said to his sons, especially when the father said something that sounded like a command. Moreover, the third son trusted that the father’s first son, who had died years earlier, had already done all the work necessary for the vineyard to thrive. Again, that’s what the third son’s teachers had taught in class, and the third son felt at peace with their teaching. Importantly, the third son’s teachers had instructed that, in order to never feel compelled to go and work in the vineyard, the third son should remind himself daily of the good news that the father didn’t mean what he commanded and that the deceased first son had already done all the work.

Note 1: The original manuscripts explicitly mention only two sons. However, the Editors interpreted the penumbras of the best original manuscripts and found there were actually three sons. These penumbras were found to exist throughout the best original manuscripts whenever the text included imperative statements.

Note 2: Original manuscripts contain a warning by Jesus in verses 31b and 32. This warning has been omitted by the Editors because all such warnings impart fear and obedience to commandments, which are Old Testament concepts that were carried over into some of the New Testament writings inadvertently.