Matthew 25

Jesus finishes His teaching on the end of the age with three pictures: ten bridesmaids, three servants given money, and a king dividing sheep from goats. Each presses the same question: what will you be found doing while the Lord is away? He asks for readiness, faithful use of what He has given, and love shown to the needy.

Matthew 25:1

Jesus compares the coming kingdom to a wedding. Ten young women take their lamps and go out to welcome the groom as he comes to his bride’s home. All ten look the same at the start. The question is who will be ready when he arrives.

BSA: bridegroom (“Jesus as the heavenly bridegroom”): Jesus Himself is the groom whose coming everyone waits for.

See also: John 3:29; Revelation 19:7.

Matthew 25:2

Five are wise and five are foolish. The difference is not in their looks, their lamps or their belonging to the group. It is in good sense: one group thinks ahead and the other does not.

BSA: foolish (“dull or stupid”): Their trouble is not wickedness but a dullness that never plans for the day that is certainly coming. wise (“thoughtful and discreet”): Wisdom here means careful, practical thought about what lies ahead.

Greek: φρόνιμοι (phronimoi, G5429) — “sensible, prudent, thinking ahead.” This is practical good sense that acts on what it knows. The foolish ones are called by a word from which we get ‘moron’.

Matthew 25:3-4

The foolish took lamps but no spare oil. The wise carried extra in flasks. Both groups had the outward show, but only one had a supply that would last. Oil is often read as the inner life with God, which cannot be borrowed at the last minute.

BSA: oil (“olive oil”): Olive oil was what kept a lamp burning, so it stands for what keeps a life of faith alive through a long wait.

Matthew 25:5

The groom is late, and all ten fall asleep. Sleep is not the failing here, because the wise sleep too. The delay tests whether the preparation was real. Jesus warns that His return may seem a long time coming.

BSA: delayed (“tarried, took a long time”): The wait is longer than they expected, and a long wait shows who prepared for the long haul.

Matthew 25:6-7

At midnight, when no one expects anything, a shout goes up that the groom is here. All ten wake and trim their wicks. The call comes suddenly, and there is no time left to get ready then. What matters is what was already in place.

BSA: midnight (“the time of darkness”): The hour is dark and unexpected, which is how the Lord’s return will find many.

Matthew 25:8-9

The foolish see their lamps flickering and ask to share. The wise refuse, not out of meanness but because there is not enough for both. Some things cannot be handed over. Each person must have his own living relationship with God.

See also: Psalm 49:7.

Matthew 25:10

While the foolish are away buying oil, the groom comes. Those who were ready go in to the wedding feast, and the door is shut. Being ready, not busy at the last minute, is what opens the way in, and a closed door means a real and final point.

BSA: ready (“prepared, made suitable”): They were not hurrying to get ready. They had been made ready beforehand. shut (“closed, locked”): The door is not merely pulled to. It is secured, so the moment of entry has passed.

Greek: ἕτοιμοι (hetoimoi, G2092) — “ready, prepared.” The word describes a state that already exists when the moment arrives. It is not a scramble that begins when the shout is heard.

Matthew 25:11-12

The other five come back and call him ‘Lord, lord’, but the groom answers that he does not know them. Calling Jesus Lord is not the same as being known by Him. The heart of this warning is a real relationship.

BSA: know (“have no knowledge of, do not recognize”): He is saying they are strangers to Him, with no personal bond, not merely that He has forgotten their names.

Greek: οὐκ οἶδα ὑμᾶς (ouk oida hymas, G3756) — “I do not know you.” To know someone in Scripture often means to have a close, living relationship. These women are outside it.

See also: Matthew 7:21-23.

Matthew 25:13

Jesus draws the lesson: stay awake. Since no one knows the day or the hour, the only safe way to live is to be ready all the time. The wise ones slept as well, so ‘awake’ here means watchful in heart and prepared.

BSA: keep watch (“stay alert, be vigilant”): The call is to ongoing alertness, a settled readiness that does not depend on knowing the date.

Greek: γρηγορεῖτε (grēgoreite, G1127) — “be awake, stay alert.” It is a present command, meaning keep on being watchful. It describes a steady habit, not a single effort.

See also: Matthew 24:42.

Matthew 25:14-15

A man going abroad entrusts his property to three servants, giving each a share suited to his ability. Everything the servants have belongs to the master, and no one gets the same amount. The question is what each will do with what he has been given.

BSA: entrusted (“delivered, handed over”): The master puts his own wealth into their hands, so they are managers, not owners. talents (“a large sum of money or gold”): Each amount is large, so even the smallest gift is a serious trust.

Greek: τάλαντα (talanta, G5007) — “talents, a very large weight of silver.” A talent was worth many years of a labourer’s wages. Even the one-talent servant held a great deal.

Matthew 25:16-18

The first two servants get to work at once and double what they were given. The third digs a hole and buries his master’s money. He does not steal it or waste it, but he does nothing with it. Doing nothing is the failure.

BSA: put them to work (“traded with them, invested”): The faithful servants took risks in business on the master’s behalf instead of keeping the money safe. hid (“concealed, kept secret”): The third servant kept his trust out of sight, where it could do no good.

Matthew 25:19

After a long time the master comes back and asks for an account. The delay was real, but it did not cancel the reckoning. Everyone who has been given something will be asked what was done with it.

BSA: settle accounts (“reckon, compute together”): It is a personal meeting in which each servant sits down with the master and the books are laid open.

See also: Romans 14:12.

Matthew 25:20-21

The first servant brings back double, and the master’s praise is warm. He calls him good and faithful, gives him greater responsibility, and welcomes him into his own joy. Faithfulness in small things leads on to more, and the reward is sharing the master’s happiness.

BSA: faithful (“trustworthy, dependable”): What the master prizes is steady reliability, not brilliant results. joy (“deep happiness, heavenly delight”): The reward is a share in the master’s own delight, not wages.

Greek: χαράν (charan, G5479) — “joy, gladness.” It is the joy of the master himself. The servant is invited into it as a companion, not paid off at the door.

Matthew 25:22-23

The second servant, with fewer talents, receives exactly the same words of praise. God does not measure us against each other. He looks for faithfulness with what each person was actually given.

BSA: Well done (“you have done well, good job”): The master’s approval is personal and generous, and it is the same for the two-talent servant as for the five-talent one.

Matthew 25:24-25

The last servant blames the master. He calls him hard, says he was afraid, and hands back the money untouched. His picture of the master was wrong, and fear of that picture kept him from doing anything. A false view of God can shut a person down.

BSA: hard (“severe, harsh, demanding”): He saw his master as a harsh man to be avoided, not one to be trusted and served.

Matthew 25:26-27

The master turns the servant’s own words against him. Even if he believed that, he should have put the money in a bank and earned at least some interest. His excuse does not hold. He did not do even the least he could have.

BSA: lazy (“slothful, idle”): His real problem was not harshness in the master but his own unwillingness to act. interest (“profit from lending”): Even the safest use of the money would have produced some gain.

Greek: ὀκνηρέ (oknēre, G3636) — “slothful, shrinking back.” The word carries the sense of hanging back out of reluctance, not merely being tired. Jesus pairs it with ‘wicked’ because doing nothing was a choice.

Matthew 25:28-30

The talent is taken from him and given to the servant who has the most. Those who use what they are given grow in it, and those who hide it lose it. The idle servant is cast out into darkness, a picture of being shut away from the master’s presence, with grief and anguish.

BSA: worthless (“unprofitable, useless”): He is not called a thief but unprofitable, because he gave his master nothing. darkness (“the absence of spiritual light”): The picture is of being cut off from the light of the master’s presence.

See also: Matthew 13:12.

Matthew 25:31-33

Now Jesus pictures the final day. The Son of Man comes in glory with His angels, takes His throne, and gathers all nations. He divides people as a shepherd divides sheep from goats, and the sheep stand at the place of honour on His right.

BSA: nations (“Gentiles, non-Jewish people”): Every people on earth stands before Him, so no one is outside His judgment. separate (“set apart, divide”): The judge Himself makes the division, and He makes it with a shepherd’s clear knowledge.

See also: Daniel 7:13-14; Ezekiel 34:17.

Matthew 25:34

The King speaks first to those on His right, calling them blessed by His Father. He invites them to receive a kingdom that was prepared for them long before they were born. It is described as an inheritance, a gift from the Father, not wages that were earned.

BSA: inherit (“receive as a gift, possess”): An inheritance comes because of belonging to the family, not from payment for work. blessed (“highly favored, praised”): The Father Himself has favoured them, and that is the source of all that follows.

See also: Ephesians 1:4.

Matthew 25:35-36

The King names six kinds of need: hunger, thirst, being a stranger, having no clothes, sickness and prison. These are plain, everyday acts of mercy that anyone can do. He says they were done for Him.

BSA: stranger (“foreign”): It points to the outsider who has no home or family to care for him. looked after (“visited, cared for Me”): The care meant going to the sick person and attending to his needs, not just wishing him well.

Greek: ἐπεσκέψασθε (epeskepsasthe, G1980) — “you looked upon, you visited with care.” The word means to look in on someone in order to help. It is more than a polite call.

See also: Isaiah 58:7; James 2:15-16.

Matthew 25:37-39

The righteous are surprised. They never saw the Lord in need and do not remember serving Him. Their kindness was natural and unselfconscious, done for the person in front of them without thought of reward.

BSA: righteous (“just, fair, and innocent”): They are the ones whose lives show that they belong to God.

Matthew 25:40

The King answers that whatever was done for the least of His brothers was done for Him. He counts what is done to His people as done to Himself. Christians read ‘brothers’ differently: some take it as His disciples, others as all in need. Either way, He takes it personally.

BSA: least (“smallest, humblest”): The ones who count for least in the world’s eyes are the ones He identifies with. brothers (“fellow believers, disciples”): It points to those who belong to Him as family.

Greek: ἐλαχίστων (elachistōn, G1646) — “smallest, least important.” It is a superlative, the very least. Nobody is too small to be counted as Jesus’ own.

See also: Proverbs 19:17; Matthew 10:42.

Matthew 25:41

To those on His left the King says ‘Depart from Me’. The fire was prepared for the devil and his angels, not for people. Those who turn away from Him end up where they chose to be, apart from Him.

BSA: cursed (“under God’s judgment, doomed”): Unlike the first group, they are not described as blessed by the Father. eternal (“everlasting, age-during”): The fire belongs to the age to come and has no end on this side of it.

Matthew 25:42-43

The same six needs are listed again, but this time they were passed by. The charge is not about open crimes. It is about doing nothing for the hungry, the stranger and the prisoner when help was close at hand.

See also: James 4:17.

Matthew 25:44-45

The goats are surprised too and say they never saw Him in need. The King gives the same answer as before in reverse: what they refused to the least, they refused to Him. Neglect of those in need is neglect of Christ.

BSA: minister (“serve, care for”): They think of serving as something done for the Lord. He says it is done in the face of the needy.

Matthew 25:46

The chapter ends with two destinies, eternal punishment and eternal life. The same word ’eternal’ describes both. Jesus does not soften either one, and He sets them before us so that we will take our lives and our neighbours seriously.

BSA: eternal (“lasting forever, age-during”): It is the life and the judgment of the age to come, with no fixed end. punishment (“penalty, condemnation”): It is a real penalty for a real failure to love.

Greek: αἰώνιον (aiōnion, G166) — “eternal, belonging to the age to come.” Jesus uses the same word for the life of the righteous and the punishment of the wicked. Whatever length one has, the other has too.

See also: Daniel 12:2; John 5:28-29.