Good morning, dear ones.
As you can imagine, things are in a dither around here—with the need to be off to the airport at 11am—heading Portland, Oregon to Missouri. I hope to get in a little jog. But I also need to dash to Ace Hardware in Molalla to get a valve I hope to install in the water line connected to our refrigerator. I discovered a pin-hole leak in that line this morning—causing water to be spreading over the kitchen floor.
Have a great day doing what you need to do. May you be blessed and responsible along the way.
In Jesus’ love—Ray.
The contrasting comparison Jesus makes between WISE and FOOLISH subjects should not go unnoticed or unheeded. We’re all there. We’re all one or the other—at least we’re all walking a path that the Bible marks as WISE or FOOLISH.
The main featured qualities of the WISE servants are faithfulness, busyness, preparedness, and alertness. The main qualities of the FOOLISH servants are laziness, procrastination, unpreparedness, and non-alertness. The WISE live with an anticipation of their accountability to the Master/Lord, while the FOOLISH don’t—they reason that they have plenty of time before their date of accountability—leaving lots of room in their schedules for goofing off with irresponsible tangents. It’s not that they don’t want to be WISE, or don’t understand the importance of being WISE, or weren’t given clear instructions as to what was expected of them. It’s kind of like how a lot of people treat a diet or a routine of physical exercise—they’ll do it later—simply wait till it’s convenient.
How do we process the meaning of the Bridegroom/Lord responding to the FOOLISH maidens with words, “Go away! Do I know you? I can assure you, I don’t even know you!” It can’t be that He didn’t really know who they were. They were clearly included in the celebration plans. But they somehow “dropped the ball” of their personal responsibilities. So I think the best interpretation is an ostensible one (a word I don’t use often)—meaning that, due to their sloppy performance in violation of what the Lord required, it was as though He did not know them.
Don’t miss the bottom-line truth that Jesus is imparting with these two parables. I think it could be phrased this way: “READY OR NOT—HERE I COME!