Mateus 25
R.C.H. Lenski · Citado em PreceptAustin
Mateus 25
Lenski says this and "adds him to the rest with whom he ought to belong but with whom he in reality does not belong." The one also who had received the one talent (talanton) came up and said, ‘Master (kurios - lord)- Received is perfect tense pointing to the fact that he still had what he had received from the master. Note that he does call the master kurios which means "lord" and which reminds me of "Lord, Lord" in Mt 25:11+ and Mt 7:22+. His address of kurios also recalls Jesus' question in Lk 6:46+ "why do you call Me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?" I knew (ginosko) you to be a hard (skleros) man - Excuses! Excuses! This man seeks to shift the blame from himself to the master. He claims he knew, the verb ginosko usually signifying to know experientially, and not just intellectually. This was his false perception of the master. He is projecting his own attitude as there is nothing in the parable to support the idea that the master is truly a hard man. This slave forgot to look in the mirror to see his real problem. He begins by accusing the master of being a hard man, (Skleros English - sclerosis as in arteriosclerosis ~ hardening of the arteries) presumably one who is difficult to please, unyielding, strict, unmerciful, and demanding. Had he looked in the mirror, this slave would have seen that "I" is the middle letter of sIn! He was pointing his finger at the master, forgetting that 4 fingers were pointing back at him! He was attempting to excuse the fact that he had made a willful, conscious chose to disregard the stewardship that had been entrusted to him. Leon
Mateus 25
Lenski explains reaping - He calls his lord “a hard man,” skleros, one who is like a dried stick that will no longer bend, he is hard in a moral sense, is set absolutely on obtaining his own advantage. As proof of the hardness he mentions the fact that this lord is “reaping where thou didst not sow, and gathering from where thou didst not scatter. The two present participles (reaping...and gathering) express usual and thus characteristic actions. The sense is: “Thou makest thy slaves sow in order that thou mayest get a fine harvest through their labor; and thou makest thy slaves thresh in order that thou mayest fill thy barns with the grain they have cleaned.”...What this slave says is true in a manner (Reaping where you did not sow): we do all the work for the Lord. Did not the first two slaves bring their entire gain to the master? The trouble is that half a truth may be the very worst kind of a lie; so it is here. We are the slaves of Jesus Christ, and that may sound as though he profited by our labor; but think what it cost him to elevate us to the position of being his slaves: the price of his own blood! If we labored for him a million years we could never repay him. Secondly, all our gifts are his, freely, generously bestowed upon us; and these were given us in order that with joy we may serve and honor our rightful Master—or shall we serve the tyrant Satan? (Borrow Interpretation of St. Matthew's gospel) Leon