Daily Bible Reading 24th September 2026 // Luke 12:35-48
35 “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, 36 and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. 37 Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. 38 If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! 39 But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
41 Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” 42 And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? 43 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 44 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. 45 But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming’, and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, 46 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful. 47 And that servant who knew his master's will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. 48 But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.
Our Lord now takes up the subject of confessing or denying Him, which He touched on briefly in 8-10. Faithfulness to Christ in one's testimony, and the fulfilment of the solemn stewardship committed to us in the gospel is the theme of these verses, and it is in this connection that we see the forthright emphasis on the dimension of eternity, for Jesus sets the disciplines of discipleship against the backcloth of His second coming and the dawning of eternal day: 'loins girt and lamps burning, as men waiting for their master to come' (35, 36). We are to live life as a stewardship committed to us by God, and as those that will give account on the great day, living as those who are making their future now. What Jesus means is that we need more 'eternity' in our lives and in our thinking! And we see from what is said just how practical this is for daily life. There is no thought here of being 'so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly use', but rather the opposite. The tragedy about so much discipleship is that it is so earthly minded that it is of no heavenly use! These verses make clear that such an emphasis is a most salutary and practical stimulus to faithfulness and diligence in daily living. In the parabolic saying in 36-40 and 42-48, the fact of the Master's expected return is an incentive to watchfulness and industry, and to the servants being diligently involved in the work committed to them. This is the whole point. We should note, in passing, Peter's interruption in 41. Jesus says, in effect: 'Whether I am speaking to you or to the crowds depends. I am speaking of, and to, My stewards. Of course you are My stewards, but the door is open. Others may come into My kingdom, if they will, and accept the stewardship as from Me, and become My servants and stewards'.