Week 41 Luke 20
The Lord told a story about a wealthy land owner who rented out his land to some small farmers and the agreement was that they would work the land for themselves and pay the landowner some rent. But when the landowner’s son came to collect rents the farmers murdered him.
Jesus’ audience was offended by the story: God forbid that such a thing should ever happen. But then Jesus asked them: then what do the Scriptures mean? “The stone rejected by the builders has now become the cornerstone”. No one answered the question. I guess nobody knew.
The verse was from the psalms. I flipped back and read: the stone rejected by the builders has now become the cornerstone. I re-read the whole psalm. Then I asked myself: what does that verse mean? And I didn’t know the answer either.
If all I’ve ever read is the OT then I think it’ll be hard to know what to make of that verse. But once I’ve read Luke it changes things. Now it looks like the Rejected Stone = the murdered son (who looks like Jesus himself). And the Builders Who Rejected the Stone = the Pharisees (even they knew that was the spin being put on the story).
Whatever the writer of Psalm 118 might have originally meant the Lord says it also referred to him. He was the discarded stone. He would turn out to be the foundational piece of the whole building.
Note: quotes from Luke 20:16 17 & Psalm 118:22 (NLT)