{"id":5257,"date":"2014-04-19T00:05:20","date_gmt":"2014-04-19T07:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5257"},"modified":"2014-04-18T18:30:34","modified_gmt":"2014-04-19T01:30:34","slug":"being-prepared-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/04\/19\/being-prepared-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Prepared"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\u201cThen the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cAnd at midnight a cry was heard: \u2018Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!\u2019 Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, \u2018Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.\u2019 But the wise answered, saying, \u2018No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.\u2019 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cAfterward the other virgins came also, saying, \u2018Lord, Lord, open to us!\u2019 But he answered and said, \u2018Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.\u2019
\n\t\u201cWatch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.\u201d (Matthew 25:1\u201313)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tThe Boy Scout motto is \u201cbe prepared.\u201d Jesus\u2019 parable about the ten virgins was about being prepared. Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to ten virgins with lamps who went out to meet the bridegroom so that they could lead him to his bride. They had oil for their lamps, but only half of them carried extra. <\/p>\n

\tNotice that all the virgins, both wise and foolish, fell asleep as they awaited their delayed bridegroom. Jesus\u2019 point was not that we should be on constant alert. Rather, we need to always be ready. <\/p>\n

\tThe foolish virgins who did not bring any extra oil, ended up excluded from the wedding that followed. Paul writes that the wisdom of the world is foolishness while what seems foolish to the world is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:20-21). In Jesus\u2019 parable, the wise virgins are those who burdened themselves with what seemed to the foolish virgins unnecessary extra baggage. There was no reason to anticipate running out of oil. <\/p>\n

\tParables are not allegories, with each bit in them standing for something else. Rather, there is a \u201cmoral to the story.\u201d The moral to the Jesus\u2019 parable is simple: Jesus wants us to be prepared to wait for him a long time, however long that might be. And while we wait, he expects us to live according to his law of love. <\/p>\n

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\u201cThen the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5257"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5259,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5257\/revisions\/5259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}