Matthew 21:18-46

21:17-20 | When He returned to Jerusalem the next morning after spending the night with friends in Bethany, Jesus was hungry and walked to a fig tree. Seeing no fruit, He used it as a spiritual object lesson to show Israel’s shameful fruitlessness because its rejection of the Messiah (Luke 13:6-9).

21:21-22 | Nowhere in Scripture does anyone cast a mountain into the sea through a faith-filled prayer. Why not? Because God has never willed anyone to pray such a thing. This is likely the kind of act, however, that the Pharisees and teachers asked of Jesus. God loves for His children to accomplish great things through prayer, but only when it is within His purpose (Mark 11:24; John 15:7).

21:23 | The chief priests and elders who confronted Jesus probably were representatives of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. Their question about Jesus’ authority gets to the heart of their opposition: they believed that they alone had the kind of authority Jesus claimed to have, so they were ultimately interested in silencing Him altogether.

21:28-32 | This parable of the brazen words and actions of two sons declares that Jesus does not count what people profess with their lips as obedience; only their deeds matter. An obedience that brings a person into vital, intimate, personal relationship with Christ is one that consistently performs what it professes.

21:33-46 | Jesus’ parable here has several allegorical elements. The landowner represents God, the vineyard stands for Israel, the Christ, the Son of God. When Jesus asked His listeners to finish the parable – not interpret it – He was trying to get them so involved in the story that they would see His point and repent.

21:41-46 | The priests and elders initially responded to Jesus’ story exactly as He wanted them to – with passionate disapproval of the fictional tenants’ actions. In this sense, the parable operates in much the same way as the prophet Nathan’s story, told centuries before to an adulterous King David (2 Sam. 12:1-7). Yet the similarities end there. Once David understood that he was the villain in Nathan’s story, the king immediately repented. Once the religious leaders understood they were the villains, however, they became furious and sought to lay hands on Him. The difference between David and these authorities could not be starker.