DEVOTIONS - MORE MATTHEW BLOG

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “the kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.

It would seem that Matthew starts with these words, “Jesus spoke to them again in parables,” and then may have combined the thoughts from several parables into one story. Usually a parable would have only one intended meaning and this one seems to talk about three different things, so it may have been parts of three parables.

The illustration that Jesus uses is of a king that is having the wedding of his son. The king invited many guests who said that they would come and then as the time of the banquet arrived they begged off, so the king invited other people to take their place. This illustration seems to follow the lines of the previous verses as Jesus speaks about how the Jews have rejected God’s gracious gifts and so God will now offer them to the gentiles. That would be one parable.

Then in verses 5-7 the idea that the king was mad at the guests who stood him up, so he sent his armies and burned down the cities is inserted into the main story. It is hard to picture a guest killing the servants that came to bring them to a wedding, or a king on the eve of his son’s wedding sending out his armies. Also it would seem that the cities that he would be destroying would be the same city that his son was to be married in that next day! This sounds more like the parable from the verses before with the vineyard and the murderous tenants. The idea would be that Israel will pay for the fact that they have rejected Jesus and rejected God. This is seen when Jerusalem is destroyed and Israel once again enslaved.

Then in verses 11-14 there is a guest that comes to the wedding without the proper wedding attire. If this were still the same wedding spoken of in the first verses, his lack of wedding garments would be understandable since they were bringing people off of the street into the wedding feast to fill the hall, and the king could not possibly be mad at the man’s attire. Some have suggested that the king had sent the proper attire and the man chose not to wear it in favor of his own clothes. Whatever the case in this story those whom come and are not dressed properly will not be allowed to stay. We often think that this refers to the fact that we must all be clothed in the righteousness of Christ and not our own sinful life if we wish to sit at the wedding banquet of our Lord.

Do you feel that God has asked you to the banquet more than once?
Who often have you declined?