The Last Will Be First
The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. Matthew 20:9 · Berean Standard Bible
The workers who only worked one hour each get a full day's pay. A whole denarius.
Nobody expected this. One hour of work, and they get what a full day should earn.
The narrator describes a moment of jaw-dropping generosity.
The latecomers can hardly believe it. A full day's wage for one hour. That's not fair — it's grace.
The eleventh-hour workers each receive a full denarius — a complete day's wage for one hour of labor, an act of extraordinary generosity.
This payment exceeds any reasonable expectation and represents grace: unearned, disproportionate generosity from the owner.
The narrator describes the shocking payment to the last-hired workers.
The last workers receive far more than they earned. The first workers see this and begin to calculate.
7‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
8When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last ones hired and moving on to the first.’
9The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius.
10So when the original workers came, they assumed they would receive more. But each of them also received a denarius.
11On receiving their pay, they began to grumble against the landowner.
Read all of Matthew 20 — Workers hired at day's end receive the same wage as those who sweated since dawn. God's generosity offends our scorekeeping instincts.
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