their Master. Wholly detached from the things of the world, their hearts set
on the Kingdom, only one thing should seem worthy their whole attention, and engage all their thoughts and energies: their Master! He was away at some joyous feast, and the uncertainty of the hour of His return must not lead the servants to indulge in surfeiting, nor to lie down in idleness, but to be faithful to their trust, and eagerly expectant of their Master. The
Discourse itself consists of three parts and a practical application. itself consists of three parts and a practical application.
1. The Disciples as Servants in the absence of their Master: {St. Luke xii.}
their duty and their reward. {vv. 35-38.} This part, containing what would be so needful to these Peraean disciples, is peculiar to St. Luke. The Master is supposed to be absent, at a wedding, a figure which must not be closely pressed, not being one of the essentials in the Parable. At most, it points to a joyous occasion, and its mention may chiefly indicate that such a feast might be protracted, so that the exact time of the Master’s return could not be known to the servants who waited at home. In these circumstances, they should hold themselves in readiness, that, whatever hour it might be, they should be able to open the door at the first knocking.
Such eagerness and devotion of service would naturally meet its reward, and the Master would, in turn, consult the comfort of those who had not allowed themselves their evening-meal, nor lain down, but watched for His return.
Hungry and weary as they were from their zeal for Him, He would now, in turn, minister to their personal comfort. And this applied to servants who so watched, it mattered not how long, whether into the second or the third of the watches into which the night was divided. f1889
The ‘Parable’ now passes into another aspect of the case, which is again referred to in the last Discourses of Christ. {St. Matthew 24:43, 44.}
Conversely, suppose the other case, of people sleeping: the house might be broken into. Of course, if one had known the hour when the thief would come, sleep would not have been indulged in; but it is just this uncertainty and suddenness, and the Coming of the Christ into His Kingdom would be equally sudden, which should keep the people in the house ever on their watch till Christ came. {St. Luke 12:39, 40.}
It was at this particular point that a question of Peter interrupted the Discourse of Christ. To whom did this ‘Parable’ apply about ‘the good man’ and ‘the servants’ who were to watch: to the Apostles, or also to all?
From the implied, for it is not an express answer of the Lord, we infer, that
Peter expected some difference between the Apostles and the rest of the disciples, whether as regarded the attitude of the servants that waited, or the reward. From the words of Christ the former seems the more likely.
We can understand how Peter might entertain the Jewish notion, that the Apostles would come with the Master from the marriage-supper, rather than wait for His return, and work while waiting. It is to this that the reply of Christ refers. If the Apostles or others are rulers, it is as stewards, and their reward of faithful and wise stewardship will be advance to higher administration. But as stewards they are servants, servants of Christ, and ministering servants in regard to the other and general servants. What becomes them in this twofold capacity is faithfulness to the absent, yet ever near, Lord, and to their work, avoiding, on the one hand, the masterfulness of pride and of harshness, and, on the other, the self-degradation of
conformity to evil manners, either of which would entail sudden and condign punishment in the sudden and righteous reckoning at His appearing. The ‘Parable,’ therefore, alike as to the waiting and the reckoning, applied to work for Christ, as well as to personal relationship towards Him.
Thus far this solemn warning would naturally be afterwards repeated in Christ’s Last Discourses in Judaea, as equally needful, in view of His near departure. {St. Luke 12:42-46; comp. St. Matthew 24:45-51.} But in this Peraean Discourse, as reported by St. Luke, there now follows what must be regarded, not, indeed, as a further answer to Peter’s inquiry, but as specifically referring to the general question of the relation between special work and general discipleship which had been raised. For, in one sense, all disciples are servants, not only to wait, but to work. As regarded those who, like the professed stewards or labourers, knew their work. but neither
‘made ready,’ f1890 nor did according to His Will, theirpunishment and loss (where the illustrative figure of ‘many’ and ‘few stripes’ must not be too closely pressed) would naturally be greater than that of them who knew not, though this also involves guilt, that their Lord had any will towards them, that is, any work for them. This, according to a well-understood principle, universally, almost instinctively, acted upon among men. {St.
Luke 12:47, 48.}
2. In the absence of their master! A period this of work, as well as of waiting; a period of trial also. {St. Luke 12:49-53.} Here, also,the two opening verses, in their evident connection with the subject-matter under the first head of this Discourse, f1891 but especially with the closing
sentences about work for the Master, are peculiar to St. Luke’s narrative, and fit only into it. The Church had a work to do in His absence, the work for which He had come. He ‘came to cast fire on earth,’, that fire which was kindled when the Risen Saviour sent the Holy Ghost, and of which the tongues of fire were the symbol. f1892 Oh, how He longed, f1893 that it were already kindled! But between Him and it lay the cold flood of His Passion, the terrible Passion in which He was to be baptized. Oh, how He felt the burden of that coming Agony! {vv. 49-50.} That fire must they spread: this was the work in which, as disciples, each one must take part. Again, in that Baptismal Agony of His they also must be prepared to share. It was fire:
burning up, as well as purifying and giving light. And here it was in place to repeat to His Peraean disciples the prediction already addressed to the Twelve when going on their Mission, {St. Matthew 10:34-36.} as to the certain and necessary trials connected with carrying ‘the fire’ which Christ had cast on earth, even to the burning up of the closest bonds of
association and kinship. {St. Luke 12:51-53}
3. Thus far to the disciples. And now for its application to ‘the multitudes’
{ver. 54} although here also He could only repeat what on a former
occasion He had said to the Pharisees. {St. Matthew 16:2, 3} Let them not think that all this only concerned the disciples. No; it was a question
between Israel and their Messiah, and the struggle would involve the widest consequences, alike to the people and the Sanctuary. Were they so blinded as not ‘to know how to interpret the time’? {St. Luke 12:56}Could they not read its signs, they who had no difficulty in interpreting it when a cloud rose from the sea, or the sirocco blew from the south? f1894 Why then, and here St. Luke is again alone in his report {ver. 57.}, did they not, in the circumstances, of themselves judge what was right and fitting and necessary, in view of the gathering tempest?
What was it? Even that he had told them before in Galilee, {St. Matthew 5:25, 26.} for the circumstances were the same. What common sense and common prudence would dictate to every one whom his accuser or creditor haled before the magistrate: to come to an agreement with him before it was too late, before sentence had been pronounced and executed.
{St. Luke 12:58, 59.} Although the illustration must not be pressed as to details, its general meaning would be the more readily understood that there was a similar Rabbinic proverb, {Sanh. 95 b. Its import is thus explained: Prepare ta vengence, sans que ton ennemipuisse s’en douter
(Schuhl, Sent. et. Proverbs d. Talm. p. 3.)} although with very different practical application.
4. Besides these Discourses, two events are recorded before Christ’s