Luke 17:7-10 But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say to him by and by, when he is come from the field… A sentence which requires thought. At first sight we might be inclined to say, "If a servant does all which he is deputed to do, can that servant in any way be an unprofitable servant?" But look at the matter a little more closely, and see how the balance lies. All service is a covenant between two parties. The servant covenants to do certain works, and the employer covenants to provide for his servant certain wages, food, and accommodation. If the agreement be a just one, and if both do their duty according to the agreement, neither can truly say he is a gainer or a loser in respect of the other. What the servant gives in work he receives back in money, food, and accommodation. What the master pays he receives back in the benefit and comfort which he derives from the servant's work. Each gets back what he gave; his own in another shape. But how is it between a man and his Creator? Let me for a moment suppose a ease — quite impossible I fear — but the case of a man who has fulfilled all the ends for which he was created. How does the case now stand? God has endowed that man with life, and all its powers of body, mind, and soul; with all its influences and opportunities; and God has watched over him and kept him and blessed him. Now if that man be a kind and useful man to! all his fellow-creatures with whom he has to do, and if he uses rightly all his possessions, and if he honours God and loves his neighbour, that man has done his duty. But is God the gainer? He has only received back His own. It is all His own property, His gift; it is but His right. The creature hath done his duty; but the Creator has not benefitted. How can a man be "profitable" to his Creator? But "profit" is to have your own back with increase; and if that be profit, there is no profit here. The man is still, in reference to his master, "an unprofitable servant." Now let us look at it as a matter of fact. So far are we, even the best of us, from having "done all these things" which are commanded of us, and so fulfilled our duty, that the question is, Have we really kept any one single commandment that God ever gave? Or put it in another way, in which Christ placed it, Is there a person in the world to whom your conscience will tell you that you have really done your whole duty in everything? (J. Vaughan, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? |
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