Bible Study · Matthew 21:28 to 32

The Parable of the Two Sons: The Yes That Never Went

Jesus told it in the temple courts to the men who had just questioned His authority. One son refuses and goes. The other agrees and stays home. Only one of them did the will of his father.

By Apostle Johnny Ova · Sound of Heaven · 9 Min Read

The Short Answer

A Story Aimed At The Men Asking The Questions

Straight Answer

The parable of the two sons is Jesus' reply to the chief priests and elders who had just demanded to know where His authority came from. One son says no to his father and later changes his mind and goes. The other says yes and never goes.

Jesus makes the leaders answer their own question, then applies it: the tax collectors and prostitutes who believed John the Baptist were entering the Kingdom of God ahead of the religious leaders who did not.

One thing to clear up first, because the two stories get blended all the time. This is not the prodigal son. That one is in Luke 15. This one sits in Matthew 21, runs a few verses, and ends with a verdict.

The Setting

A Question About Authority In The Temple

You cannot read this parable without the verses in front of it. Jesus is teaching in the temple courts when the chief priests and elders of the people walk up and ask, “By what authority are you doing these things?” (Matthew 21:23).

Matthew 21:1 to 11

The Entry

Jesus rides into the city and the crowds call Him the Son of David. The leaders watch it happen.

Matthew 21:12 to 17

The Tables

He clears the traders out of the temple courts and heals the blind and lame there. The chief priests are indignant.

Matthew 21:23 to 27

The Authority Question

Jesus answers with a question about John's baptism. Was it from heaven or of human origin? They refuse to commit and say, “We don't know.”

Matthew 21:28 to 32

The Two Sons

Having declined to answer, they are handed a story and asked to judge it. This time they do answer, and the answer lands on them.

Notice who is in the audience. The older version of this post said He was speaking to tax collectors and sinners. That crowd belongs to Luke 15. Here He is speaking to the temple leadership, the chief priests and elders, with the Pharisees named alongside them by the end of the chapter. The tax collectors and prostitutes are talked about, not talked to.

The Story

Two Sons, Two Kinds Of Answer

“There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.”

Matthew 21:28 to 30 (NIV)

A vineyard was a familiar picture for Israel. Isaiah 5 sings a whole song about God's vineyard, and the very next parable in Matthew 21 is set in one. The work belongs to the father, and the day is today.

The Son Who Said Yes

Polite, even calls his father sir. His answer is correct and nothing about his day changes. His yes never leaves the porch.

The Son Who Said No

Rude to his father's face, which in that culture was no small thing. Then he thinks again and walks out into the rows. His first word was wrong. His feet were right.

Then Jesus asks, “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” They answer, “The first.” Anyone would. Jesus did not argue with them. He let them rule on the case and then showed them whose case it was.

The Verdict

What John The Baptist Has To Do With It

“Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.”

Matthew 21:31 to 32 (NIV)

This ties straight back to the authority question. The leaders had refused to say whether John was from heaven, because either answer trapped them. Jesus now says it for them: John came in the way of righteousness, and they did not believe him. His preaching cost him his life, as we cover in how John the Baptist died.

Tax collectors

Jews collecting revenue under Roman rule, seen as collaborators. Luke 3:12 has them coming to John for baptism.

Prostitutes

People whose lives had been an open no to the law. Jesus names them on purpose.

The chief priests and elders

Custodians of the temple and the sacrifices. Their public life was a yes to God. They watched John and did not move.

The same split in Luke

Luke 7:29 to 30 records it too. The people and the tax collectors accepted John's baptism, while the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves.

Look at the last line again. “Even after you saw this.” They watched notorious sinners turn under John's preaching, and it still did not change their minds.

In the parable of the two sons, who does Jesus say is entering the Kingdom ahead of the leaders?

The Gentiles who would hear the gospel after Pentecost

The tax collectors and prostitutes who believed John

The disciples who had left everything to follow Him

Matthew 21:31 to 32 names them directly. They are the first son: their lives had said no to God, and when John preached they changed their minds and acted. The leaders are the second son, all yes and no movement. I go deeper into what a parable is in a separate study.

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The Bigger Picture

The First Of Three Parables For That Generation

Matthew places three parables back to back, all spoken to the same leaders on the same day.

1. The Two Sons · Matthew 21:28 to 32

The leaders said yes to God and did not go. Sinners said no and went. The charge is established: they rejected John.

2. The Tenants · Matthew 21:33 to 46

Tenants of a vineyard beat the owner's servants and kill his son. The charge deepens: they will reject the Son Himself. Verse 43 gives the sentence, the Kingdom taken from them and given to a people who produce its fruit.

3. The Wedding Banquet · Matthew 22:1 to 14

The invited guests refuse, kill the messengers, and the king burns their city. The sentence is carried out, and the hall fills with people from the streets.

“When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus' parables, they knew he was talking about them.”

Matthew 21:45 (NIV)

Where We Stand, Plainly

At Sound of Heaven we read these three parables as covenant judgment on the leadership of that generation, and we hold that it was fulfilled in AD 70, when Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem and its temple. Two chapters later Jesus says it outright: “Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation” (Matthew 23:36). He meant the people standing in front of Him, and it happened within their lifetimes.

That rules out two misreadings. The first turns it into a timeless moral about keeping promises and forgets who it was aimed at. The second, far worse, turns it into a verdict against Jewish people as a people. That reading has been used against Jewish neighbors for centuries, and it is wrong. The first son in this story is Jewish. John was Jewish, the tax collectors were Jewish, the disciples were Jewish. The line Jesus draws runs between people who turned and people who refused, and it runs through one nation in one generation.

We work through the same pattern in many are called but few are chosen, which covers the wedding banquet, and in the last shall be first. The Kingdom those leaders refused is the one Jesus established in that generation, and it is the one we live in now. See what the Kingdom of God is.

A Note On The Text

Why Some Bibles Tell It The Other Way Round

If your Bible has a footnote at Matthew 21:29, this is why. The ancient copies of Matthew do not all tell the story in the same order.

The order most Bibles print

The first son refuses and then goes, the second agrees and does not, and the leaders answer “the first.” Codex Sinaiticus and many other manuscripts read this way.

The order reversed

The first son agrees and does not go, the second refuses and then goes, and the answer is the second or the latter one. Codex Vaticanus, one of the oldest surviving Greek Bibles, has this form.

The odd one out

Codex Bezae keeps the usual order but has the leaders pick the son who said yes and never went. Most textual scholars treat that reading as a copying slip or a deliberate jab at the leaders, not the original.

What changes

Nothing that matters. In both main forms the son who refused and then went is the one who did the father's will.

Takeaway

The manuscripts disagree about which son speaks first. They all agree about which son the Father counts as obedient, and that is the whole point of the story.

The Heart Of It

Repentance Is A Changed Mind That Gets Up

The same Greek verb appears twice in this short passage, and it ties the whole thing together.

GreekMetamelomaiμεταμελομαιStrong's 3338

Basic sense

To care afterward, to regret, to think again about something you have done.

Verse 29

The first son “changed his mind” and went. The regret did not stay a feeling. It turned into a walk to the vineyard.

Verse 32

The leaders “did not repent” even after they saw the sinners turn. Same verb. They had every chance to be the first son and would not.

John's word

John's own preaching in Matthew 3:2 uses metanoeo, a change of mind. Jesus pairs the two ideas here: a new way of thinking that shows up as a new direction.

Notice what repentance is not in this story. The first son is not made to grovel. Nobody shames him. He simply thinks again and goes to work. His father's vineyard was open the whole time.

Many people were taught that repentance means feeling bad enough for long enough. Shame keeps you on the porch as surely as a hollow yes does. Real repentance is simpler. You see it differently, and you get up. If you want to walk through that step by step, read how to repent to God and what repentance means in the Bible.

If Your Story Has A Long No In It

Some of you read this parable and recognize yourself in the first son's opening line. Years of no. Things you did that you would rather nobody knew. Hear what Jesus actually said: people exactly like that were walking into the Kingdom first. Your history is not the verdict. The next step is.

And if you have been the polite yes for years, knowing every right answer and quietly not moving, there is no condemnation in admitting it. The invitation to go today is for you too.

There is one more thing to see. Neither son is the hero. The father deserved a son who said yes and meant it, who went and did not need to be asked twice. There is exactly one Son like that. Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34). He is the yes that went all the way, and in Him the rest of us are welcomed into the work.

Where This Lands

The Vineyard Is Still Open

The parable of the two sons was a warning to particular men at a particular moment, and that moment came and went in AD 70. We do not need to pretend it was written about us to hear it.

What it says is that God is not impressed by the right words and is not put off by a bad start. He is looking at who goes. The religious yes that never moves feels safe, and it is the more dangerous place to stand.

The door into that Kingdom is Jesus, the Son who did everything the Father asked. Nobody earns a place in the vineyard. The invitation says today.

For related reading, see why Jesus spoke in parables and the parable of the sower explained. If you want someone to pray with you about your own turning point, you can ask for prayer, and if you are on Long Island, you are welcome to plan a visit and sit with us on a Sunday.

The Whole Thing In One Line

In the temple, to the leaders who rejected John, Jesus told of a son who said no and went and a son who said yes and stayed, and He made clear that the Kingdom belongs to those whose changed minds get them moving.

Somewhere Between No And Going?

If you are ready to take a step and want someone beside you, send it in and someone at Sound of Heaven will pray with you.

Questions People Ask

Questions About The Two Sons

What is the parable of the two sons about?

The parable of the two sons, in Matthew 21:28 to 32, is about the difference between saying yes to God and doing His will. One son refuses his father, then changes his mind and works in the vineyard. The other agrees and never goes. Jesus told it to the chief priests and elders who had rejected John the Baptist, and said the tax collectors and prostitutes who believed John were entering the Kingdom of God ahead of them.

Is the parable of the two sons the same as the prodigal son?

No. They are often confused, but they are different parables. The prodigal son is in Luke 15, told to Pharisees who complained that Jesus ate with sinners, with a younger son who leaves home, a feast and a resentful older brother. The two sons is in Matthew 21, told in the temple courts to the chief priests and elders, and it is only a few verses long.

Why did Jesus say tax collectors and prostitutes would enter the Kingdom first?

Because they responded to John the Baptist and the religious leaders did not. Matthew 21:32 says the tax collectors and prostitutes believed John, while the leaders refused even after watching those lives change. Jesus was not praising sin. People whose lives had been an open no to God changed their minds and acted, exactly like the first son. The leaders, for all their public yes, never moved.

Who does the second son represent in the parable?

In context, the second son represents the chief priests and elders Jesus was speaking to. They said yes to God in every visible way, but when God sent John they did not believe him. Matthew 21:45 says they knew Jesus was talking about them. It is not a picture of Jewish people as a whole, since the tax collectors, John and the disciples in the same story were all Jewish.

What does repent mean in Matthew 21:29 and 21:32?

Both verses use the Greek verb metamelomai, to regret or think again about something you have done. In verse 29 the first son changed his mind and went, so the regret became action. In verse 32 the leaders did not repent even after seeing sinners turn. The word describes a change of mind that shows up in what you do, not feeling bad for long enough.