Matthew 25 Bible study: Those who were ready

Jesus is still answering the question the disciples asked him on the Mount of Olives (24:3). Favor's Matthew 24 shows, in its catch His answer doesn't stop at the chapter's end, that in the WEB his words run on from 24:4 to the end of 25:46. He goes on: "Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise." (25:1-2) (tap foolish, wise). The foolish "took no oil with them" (25:3), "but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps" (25:4). "Now while the bridegroom delayed, they all slumbered and slept." (25:5). "But at midnight there was a cry" (25:6), and the foolish asked the wise for oil and were told to go and buy (25:8-9). "While they went away to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast, and the door was shut." (25:10). When the others came, saying, "Lord, Lord, open to us" (25:11), "he answered, ‘Most certainly I tell you, I don’t know you.’" (25:12). Then Jesus says, "Watch therefore, for you don’t know the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming." (25:13) (tap Watch). Here is what almost everyone misses: ready in 25:10 is the word Jesus used earlier in the same answer, "Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don’t expect, the Son of Man will come." (24:44) (tap ready). Matthew tells of no explanation of the story beyond 25:13, and these notes don't say what the virgins, the oil, the lamps or the bridegroom stand for.

Exodus 22:21→leads toMatthew 25:35

"You shall not wrong an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt" (22:21). In Jesus' words about the King's judgment, the King says, "I was a stranger and you took me in" (Matthew 25:35), and "because you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40). Jesus doesn't cite Exodus 22, so linking the two is a reading: some hear the law's care for the alien in his words; others read them on their own.

ἕτοιμοςhetoimossay HET-oy-mos

Strong's: "adjusted, i.e. ready". Thayer gives it, of persons, as "ready, prepared", and lists this verse and 24:44 together under "to receive one coming". "While they went away to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast, and the door was shut." (25:10). Earlier in the same answer Jesus said, "Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don’t expect, the Son of Man will come." (24:44). Matthew's Greek has the word four times (counted in RP2018): these two, and twice in the story of the wedding feast, "all things are ready" (22:4) and "The wedding is ready" (22:8).