November 25, 2009
Not a Time to Share
Being well organized and usually over-prepared for most situations, I can picture myself as being one of the five wise women in the Parable of the Ten Virgins. That is until it comes to the point in the story where the foolish women ask me to share my oil because their lamps are going out. Rather than sending these clueless girls to town to buy more oil for themselves, I’d probably be saying, “OK, let’s share.” Isn’t that the way many of us are when it comes to the Kingdom of Heaven. We want everyone to go to the wedding banquet so we think sharing our oil with them will somehow make them prepared for the Bridegroom. This is one of those times when we are released from the charge of ‘do unto others…’
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Gail;
-----I thought the greatest love was to lay your life down for another. I thought the widow’s gift of her last mite was the greatest because it was all she had. But these five wise virgins were not willing to even incur additional risk for their friends, let alone give the last oil they had. The paradox of this parable confuses me, but only because I do not yet know its solution. (I am not idiotic enough to berate God’s Word just because I do not yet understand it fully.)
-----My first guess is that this parable is a good demonstration of the limited message of parables. Allegorical interpretation of the Bible especially tries to find special meaning in every word and phrase. And a few years ago the Bible Code craze claimed God even deliberately encoded a secret message into the Bible’s text which could be found by selecting every tenth letter, or every thirty-fourth letter, etc. One of these code people proposed that the lives of every human alive were predicted in detail in this code of the Bible. But I asked, “Which translation do you use to get these messages. And if you use the Bible’s original language, which accepted text do you use? And which ordering of Its books?” The difference of just one additional or absent letter in the middle of the searched text would render an entirely different message. Since no one has the exact duplicate of the manuscript as it was penned by the author’s inspired hand, then so much for that theory of infinite meaning in the Word! We tend to get ridiculous when we think the Bible is chocked with infinite meaning in every word and phrase. Jesus’ point of this parable was not about giving, it was about being ready. Maybe He can be excused from needing to create a parable with impeccable accuracy in every one of it’s sideline issues.
-----And maybe He does not need to be excused. Maybe there is accuracy in the wise virgins holding on to their oil. The objective of their preparation was to meet their bridegroom, which we know of course is actually about meeting the Lord for going home (since no man in his right mind would marry ten women.) Preparation for going home with the Lord is a spiritual and behavioral thing. Whether the oil for their lamps was to each their portion of the Spirit of God, or their spiritual character built by godly living, or their knowledge and understanding of the Word, there is no way they could give theirs of these possibilities to another. You can not give another the Spirit’s coming into you, or your character, or the way you understand things as only you know them. And the life risked even if they could be given would not be the temporal life we can lay down; it would be (if it could be) the eternal life given to or taken from us by God. Furthermore, laying down or risking that life can benefit no one, as possibly the laying down of our temporal life can do. Therefore generosity with the oil is not possible since the oil is personal preparation, and self-sacrifice is impossible because eternal life is something personally received.
-----But I liked my first guess more. It is simpler, even though it sounds like a cop-out.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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