Daily Devo - Tuesday, March 4, 2008

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.” - Matthew 20:1 (NKJV)

One of my favorite church buildings is a Greek Orthodox building in Southwest Michigan. The sanctuary is oval shaped with several massive windows around the exterior. Within each window is a stain-glass icon of one of the twelve Apostles. Worshippers presumably assemble each Lord’s day to hear the Apostle’s teaching (i.e. Scripture) while being visually ‘surrounded’ by the Apostle’s themselves. If I could build a church building, this would be it.

Many of my Baptist brethren would take issue with me on this point. Some would sense that such images of the Apostles smack of Catholicism or show inappropriate reverence of mere humans. However, Revelation 21:14 clearly teaches that the wall of the Celestial city will bear the names of the twelve Apostles for all eternity. If such decoration is good enough for Heaven, I’m sure it should pass our standards on carnal earth. But my detractors do have a point—and a very important one. Namely, at the foot of the cross all must bow down. None are ‘more worthy’ than others in the eyes of Jesus.

In the parable of the landowner, Jesus is trying to counterbalance what he has just told the Apostles in 19:27-30. There he informed them of the great privileges they would have for being the first and chief responders to the Gospel. Now, in the first several verses of chapter 20, Jesus explains the true nature of how rewards work in the Kingdom of Heaven. He gave an equal reward to those who had worked one hour in the cool evening and those who had “borne the burden and heat] of the day.” Jesus is telling the Apostles that those who would come after them and express belief in Christ (you and I) would be equally rewarded with eternal life and blessings. It was not the dedication or hard-work of the Apostles that Jesus was rewarding, but rather the reward flowed from his own generosity.

The Apostles should be admired and held out as examples for living the Christian life. If given unlimited funds, I would still have twelve stained-glass windows bearing their image in my “perfect” church building. Despite this, I recognize that they must bow before the foot of the cross as I do. In that place (and in that position) all thirteen of us recognize who is truly worthy of admiration.