Episode 22: Be Therefore Ready Part 1–The Parable of the Faithful Steward

This is the beginning of a four-part teaching series on the “readiness” parables of Matthew Chapter 24/25 concerning what we are and are not to do in order to be ready for our Master’s return. In this installment, we are going to explore the Parable of the Faithful Steward from the perspective of Joseph from the Genesis account and find out what his life teaches us about how we are to live.

As usual, this isn’t really thoroughly edited so unless I have said something horrifying by accident, just ignore the small mistakes

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³⁶“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. ³⁷For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, ³⁹and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. ⁴⁰Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. ⁴¹Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. ⁴²Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. ⁴³But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁴Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

⁴⁵“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time?⁴⁶Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. ⁴⁷Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.⁴⁸But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’⁴⁹and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, ⁵⁰the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know ⁵¹and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (ESV)

Last week, we left off with the first sentence of Matthew 24 where Yeshua/Jesus leaves the Temple—hearkening back to the dramatic exit of the Presence of God from the Temple in Ezekiel. This week we are skipping the pronouncements about the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem by the Romans and will be focusing on one of the most primary commandments in Scripture—the command to be ready.

Hi, I’m Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where we explore the historical context of Scripture and talk about how it bears on our own behavior and witness as image-bearers. You can find my teachings on my websites theancientbridge.com and contextforkids.com as well as on my youtube channels, accessible from my websites. You can also access past broadcasts on my podcast channel characterincontext.podbean.com, which also links to my iTunes channel, and my context books for adults and families are available through amazon.com.

This is a very popular section of Scripture for people who are interested in the Rapture, which I am not so you might be disappointed, but I figure there are already about a million teachings on that anyway. Frankly, I don’t even remotely see that as the point of what Yeshua was saying here—and to delve into the heart of His warnings, we have to investigate the four parables that follow—the parable of the faithful servant here, the parable of the ten virgins, the parable of the talents, and the parable of the sheep and the goats. They each emphatically tell us what we are to be doing, what we can and can not expect, how not to be distracted, and what God will and, by extension, will not be expecting from us.

At the beginning of Matthew 24, the disciples are marveling at the Temple buildings from the incomparable vantage point of the western slope of the Mount of Olives and yet Yeshua informs them that it will all be gone within a generation. In response to this, they ask Him two questions:

“Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

Two questions, and two answers. (1) When will the destruction of the Temple Complex happen, and (2) what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?

The answer to the first question is quite specific, giving them the circumstances and signs about when the Temple will be destroyed and, truly, what He says does line up well with the siege of Vespasian and Titus between 66 and 70 CE. But for the second question, they will be sorely disappointed. Yeshua gives them no answer and in fact, He tells them that He doesn’t even know it will happen. Instead, He instructs them to be ready, to be awake, at all times—but what does being ready entail?

The answer is found in each of the four parables in Matthew 24 and 25.

Let me tell you what the parables don’t say—they don’t say anything about knowing the shape of the earth, or being up to date on the latest theories on who the antichrist is (being fifty, I have lived through the presidencies of six different antichrists, that I clearly remember them being labeled as such, and I have it on good authority that the speculation goes back further than that). It doesn’t tell us to make sure we know who the ten horns are, or any of that—that boils down to what people who have a lot of time on their hands have the luxury to focus on. But what are we called to do? Well, we aren’t called to any sort of academic life—you won’t see that heralded as being “awake” in any of these parables. Being ready also isn’t equated with prepping, which wouldn’t have even been possible for Yeshua’s audience of subsistence level farmers and slaves.

Right off, He tells them plainly, “the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect.” That right there should drown out any hope of date-setting or any dream of thinking that we can expect it. For the last two-thousand years, every single generation has searched the Scriptures and has found proof in them that the return is imminent and every single generation as wrong. Statistically that means that we are probably wrong too and so we need to always be of the mind to settle down for the long haul—prepare to be here doing His work until we die of old age because to plan for anything else, for some release from serving God here and now and in the future probably is not going to happen.

Let me tell you the horrible mistake I made while homeschooling my kids, who just graduated High School. I hadn’t meant to do it, but I made a mistake common to a lot of parents. In the religious education of my kids during my first year of homeschooling, I gave them the impression that they would never be adults because Yeshua was returning any time now. The result was not lighting them on fire to serve God, or to do their schoolwork or to prepare for their future. Nope, they figured they would never graduate, marry, have kids, get a job—all that. It was hard to educate them when they had that hopeless mindset. They were young and wanted to live and get married and have kids and have careers—and I crushed that out of them. It wasn’t my intention—I was excited about Yeshua returning, but I taught it all wrong. I wasn’t doing my job as a parent by preparing them to live as adults in this world. I taught them to keep the commandments as children with no hope of adult life. I was robbing them of a true life in Messiah, living to serve God and others. Fortunately, I undid the damage and Matthew will be getting his criminology degree from Missouri State in order to pursue justice, and Andrew wants to get a nursing degree. Andrew has a girlfriend and his fondest dream in life is to get married and have a ton of kids—hopefully not soon, but definitely someday. But it wasn’t easy to unindoctrinate them. It’s like swearing in front of your kids for the first ten years of their life and then stopping and wondering why they don’t follow suit and look at you weird when you tell them, “we don’t use that kind of language in this house” lol

Before we begin, I want to point something out—being ready has to be something available to every single believer in every culture throughout time. Therefore, it cannot be dependent upon wealth, intelligence, beauty, athletic ability, spiritual gifts, or technology. Yeshua wouldn’t tell people to be ready if it required internet access or literacy or whatever because historically that has been out of reach for most believers and He wasn’t catering to our generation.

Before we talk about the first parable, I want to go over the “rules of the parable” that I covered in depth in Episode 8: The parable of the four soils available on my podbean channel characterincontext.podbean.com

A parable is a story concerned with teaching a moral, usually one that is spelled out. Think Aesop’s fables.
Parables describe a vague reality or pseudo-reality, without oftentimes being at all realistic. King parables are notorious for being unrealistic.
The moral often has zero to do with the parable itself, a fact which is ignored by the audience, who are expected to be entertained by the story, which in turn makes them willing to accept the moral even if it has nothing to do with the story.
The same parable can be used by two different teachers to say completely opposite things.
Parables cannot be used to develop specific doctrines because they are generally not realistically describing situations but instead teaching through metaphor. And sometimes very questionable metaphors by modern standards.
Parables rely on hyperbole, exaggeration—often saying something that isn’t true, and recognized by the audience as untrue, in order to make a point. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Or “The Customer is always right.”

The deal is, we have to suspend a certain amount of reality in order to take away a lesson from a fable. If we are too literal or too nitpicky, the whole lesson falls apart.

Anyway, the parable of the faithful servant—the first of our four parables.

⁴⁵“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time?⁴⁶Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. ⁴⁷Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.⁴⁸But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’⁴⁹and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, ⁵⁰the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know ⁵¹and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (ESV)

So, let’s get some of our Greek words clear here

Faithful is our translation of the word pistos, although I personally prefer “trustworthy” and I will tell you why. According to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, which takes up an entire row on one of my bookshelves, pistos was a term associated with the military. I talk about this in more detail in Context for Kids Volume 4: Image-bearing, Idolatry and the New Creation, but we will just touch on the meaning here. Pistos is the trust required in military operations. Each level of soldier from leadership on down has to have this type of trust in their immediate commanders who, in turn, have to trust them in this way as well. If this sort of trustworthiness, or reliability, wasn’t present then an army couldn’t accomplish much of anything. Everything would descend into chaos with the battle plan falling to pieces.

“Servant” is the word doulos, and in the context of the Roman Empire, almost certainly means slave. Slaves were very different in ancient Rome than we think of as far as European, American or modern Islamic slavery. Slaves were often well-educated and trusted members of the household responsible for great things and could even be government administrators, and often earned wages. They were also generally set free at the age of thirty—although they still remained bound to the household.

Household is oiketeia (oy-keh-tay-ah), and it doesn’t describe a modern household of father, mother, kids—it refers to a very extended network that goes beyond family members and includes slaves, retainers, and clients.

I don’t know if you have ever read this passage this way before, but –besides Yeshua—what biblical hero does this bring to mind?

Joseph. This right here is the life story of Joseph, not just twice over, but three times over. The slave of Potiphar who was placed over his entire household because he was faithful and wise. He became the steward for the head of the prison because he proved so faithful. Also, the servant of Pharaoh (everyone was his servant) who cared for the entire people of Egypt. How awesome and awe-inspiring that Joseph is the very first example among the parables of the good and faithful servant. As the story of Joseph would have been well known, inside and out to all Jews, this was an excellent place to start with God’s expectations for living in readiness.

Joseph was always: faithful with whatever he was trusted with, withstood sexual temptation, and didn’t spend his time in bitterness or trying to escape. In the prison, we don’t see him starting riots or spewing curses against Potiphar or taking vengeance on his wife, but proves trustworthy and able. As Pharaoh’s right-hand man, still a slave, just Pharaoh’s slave now, he gets to work saving the heathen nation that enslaved him. Joseph doesn’t spend his time in bitterness and unforgiveness, taking vengeance and getting revenge—he is always serving the interests of his master.

⁴⁸But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’⁴⁹and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, ⁵⁰the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know ⁵¹and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (ESV)

He could have slept with Potiphar’s wife and no one would have been the wiser—that’s the equivalent of the wicked servant who beats his fellow servants and drinks with drunkards. He could have absconded with prison funds. He could have hoarded the enormous wealth of Egypt for himself instead of profiting Pharaoh. At each step, and we will see this in each parable, Joseph served his master faithfully, whoever that master was, doing whatever that particular master needed.

Now you might say, “But Joseph was prepping!” Yes, but that’s carrying this example too far because although Joseph would naturally be thought of in the parable of the good and faithful servant, Yeshua’s description was of someone who was faithfully serving and providing for the entire household, not someone who was providing only for themselves and their own household. I am not saying you can’t prep, I am just saying that we see nothing about that in any of these four parables about being awake and ready for the return of Messiah. I mentioned Joseph, Yeshua didn’t.

That’s actually a problem that we moderns get into with parables, is that we want to read too much into them, on one hand, and we want every little detail to match up. But that isn’t how parables worked. If you listened to my teaching on the parable of the four soils, I covered the rules of the parable in detail and perhaps it would be best to review those briefly. Also, remember, I mentioned Joseph, Yeshua didn’t—that was my way of showing what a faithful servant looked like.

Now, we have had a wise and faithful servant described and a wicked servant. Both of them were caught unawares by the return of their master—no warning was given. But one was living a lifestyle of doing the will of his master constantly and the other was living wickedly. One was caring for and providing for others while the other was abusing and oppressing his fellow servants and only caring for himself.

That phrase, “fellow servants” is key. The wicked servant is still just a servant but he is behaving like a tyrant, like he is the master, gorging himself and drinking. Why did the Master set the servant over the house?

⁴⁵“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time?

He was set over the household for one reason and one reason only, to feed his fellow servants at the proper time. He was put there in order to be a servant to all of them, his leadership was about meeting needs. I tell you, I see a lot of folks out there really concerned with having their needs met—but Yeshua is directing us to meet needs according to the level of responsibility he has placed us in. There is no reason on earth for anyone who is not in a coma or incredibly ill not to be serving someone else in some capacity. Each servant in the house is there to serve, not to be served—but we are really a demanding bunch, demanding our food in season while refusing to care for others. What happens when we abuse our brothers and sisters in social media and in the congregations and out in the world, and we gorge ourselves with internet teachings all day? We’re wicked servants. It feels righteous. That wicked servant in the parable wasn’t doing what he was doing because he felt unjustified. He was in charge and that was what power looked like to him and how he felt he ought to wield it. He wasn’t actually doing his job, however, he was just taking and taking and dishing out abuse.

It was the faithful and wise servant who kept representing his master’s interests and making sure that everyone else was cared for.

The wise and faithful servant will, in the future, be set over all his master’s possessions according to this parable—but he isn’t there yet. The wicked servant is presumptuous and is already acting as though he has been set over all his master’s possessions—and he is misusing them.

He is cut in pieces, dang—that’s pretty clearly a bad thing. He is put with the hypocrites, a word that meant “actors”—he was a servant acting like a master—he was not acting like the servant he was. He was playing a part in the presence of his master, or his master never would have left him in charge. Let’s face it, if Yeshua was here, we would all behave ourselves and so it is good that He is not here so that we can be tested to find out what kind of servants we are—those who serve faithfully or those who are grasping, abusive, and power-hungry.

We have to be very honest with ourselves about what abusive, oppressive behavior looks like nowadays. Legally we can’t beat on each other anymore, and slavery is illegal in the civilized world. It’s easy to push this lesson back in time and credit ourselves with not physically beating and abusing other people, and the food and drink we consume are our own purchases, right?

Well, in the ancient world of slaves, the greater would beat on the lesser with impunity. That’s how it worked. That’s what authority gave someone the right to do. A master in the Roman Empire could have a slave crucified for absolutely no reason at all—and I talked about that in greater detail in Episode 5: “A Slave’s Death—The Cost of our Freedom.” Sure, we can’t legally physically pummel other believers (although abusive spouses and parents ought to read this section of Scripture and tremble in their boots in mortal fear), but verbally, psychologically, and otherwise, we can tear down and destroy fellow servants of God over the slightest offense, or just because we want to. We do it in congregations, through prayer chains and most especially on the internet. And even those who don’t do it themselves—well they listen and watch and sometimes with a lot of enjoyment. It’s fun to pass around memes of politicians we disagree with, right? It’s a blast to pass around stories of dubious authenticity just because we want to believe they are true. We want to call people idiots for daring to disagree with us on Bible matter, right? Oh, and we love to demean those who are struggling with sin issues. Truth is, we just love beating and abusing our fellow servants, neighbors, and strangers. Westerners share a very cruel culture, and very much like ancient people, we again have come to see people outside our immediate circle as less than human. We’ve fallen asleep in the areas of caring, compassion, kindness, self-control, and gentleness. We are not trustworthy with our calling when we beat and abuse people over minor issues publicly, endlessly and brutally.

Certainly, I am not the only one who has experienced this—heck, I used to do it to people myself before God smacked me down hard. But I was being a wicked servant—even if I never laid a finger on my fellow servants but I sure laid hands on their reputations and dignity—and publicly. And I always had a reason why I was justified, is the most revolting part of it.

I think this might very well have been a dig at the Sadducees, who didn’t believe in the Resurrection and so lived lives of wealth and oppression over and against their fellow Jews. They were acting as though their Master was never returning.