Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard is a parable from the New Testament of the Bible, which is told in Matthew 20:1-16 EU.

Content

In the parable of the kingdom of God is compared to a landowner who sets in the morning workers so that they order his vineyard. He agreed with them a daily wage of a denarius. The vineyard owner goes after 3 hours, a further three times and finally after 11 hours last appeared on the marketplace to hire workers.

At the end of the working day, after twelve hours, he first paid the last Adjusted who have worked only one hour, one denarius. All other receive this reward. The workers who have been working all day, complain about the landlord. They demand more pay, because they have worked more. The landlord has the criticism but back by reminding the disgruntled workers because they were previously agreed with him about paying a denarius, and that he also could deal with his money as he pleased.

Interpretation of the parable

The " doctrine " of this parable is a paradoxical reversal of the usual standards; they framed this in two variants, besides Mt 19,30 EU famously put Mt 20,16 EU:

" So the last shall be first and the first last. "

Depending on exegetical method allows different aspects of this parable to highlight:

The vineyard owner gives all workers exactly the reward, which was necessary in those days to feed a family for a day can. As the parable ends with a salutation of the listener in you form, it would be interpreted as meaning that Jesus wants to encourage his listeners to act in an appropriate manner, which is to allow each to survive.

In the Old Testament of the vineyard often stands for the people of Israel. Accordingly, in the parable of the vineyard would be for the whole world, which will be processed for the final coming of the kingdom of God. The church then comprising all those who participate the mind, no matter when they start it. In this role as a " modest worker in the vineyard of the Lord" is also saw Pope Benedict XVI. , As he emphasized it in his first address from the benediction loggia.

The vineyard owner is God, respectively.

After Oser and Gmunder, there are 5 stages of religious judgment. The respective level of religious judgment determine a person's mind. So people would see the level 2 the parable literally and held that God will pay an hourly wage. People on Level 4 indicated exactly the opposite: God will not let himself be confined within categories of performance and reward; it was up to the free development opportunities for all people.

The social identity theory ( Tajfel Henri ) examined in small groups different reward distributions. This revealed that in profit distributions not even bother going yourself (or one's group ) to allocate the maximum profit, but that maximizing the difference to other people (or groups) is sought. So it is to a certain extent not important how much you get, as long as you relatively speaking, receives more than the others.

The sense of injustice from the parable of the laborers in the vineyard can be regarded as an early example of this theory.

Genus

Due to the literary structure which is headed for a climax in the form of the utterance of the vineyard owner, is a parabola.