Sin, Faith And Humility
SIN, FAITH AND HUMILITY
LUKE 17:1-10
Is the number of times we should forgive others limited by our calculators?
Verses 1-4. These crowded chapters in which Luke presents material from the last discourses of Christ read sometimes like notes taken by hearers or disciples. Indeed that is what they may have been. Much of the teaching of the philosopher Aristotle survives in what appear to be notes taken by his students, and only roughly edited. Luke, eager to record and to preserve the precious words of the Lord, packed this portion of his book with all the sayings he could find, and the connecting thread is not always to be found. It is, however, there, more often than not. Forget the artificial intrusion of a chapter heading, and let the story run on. Woe, indeed, to such men as the merciless rich man who allowed a helpless beggar, one of God’s “little ones,” to lie in unrelieved and unpitied misery. Better by far had he been drowned before the years piled guilt’s weight or burden on his soul.
17:5-6. This section, as the opening words show, is part of a discourse between the Lord and the Twelve. The language is Eastern. Rooting up a tree (the sycamine had deep roots) and planting it in the sea is an impossible process. It is intended to underline the vast power of faith: its reality, rather than its quantity, is what matters.
17:7-10. This difficult little parable can only be rightly understood if the principles of interpretation already stressed are rigidly applied. Note first that this is a picture from life. This is what happens, or happened in that world of master and man, and before such assumptions of superiority produced the egalitarian reactions of today. The servant had to be prepared to “labor on, spend and be spent.” This is not a picture of God, nor of God’s way with men. It merely stresses the fact that one who serves goes on serving past the point of weariness. The servant of God must be prepared to serve as doggedly, to expect no special rewards, to know and realize that his performance is nothing more than he owes. The lesson is humility. Surely we should give to God without grumbling that which man, without complaint, gives man. The rest of the story is not told here. See Revelation 3:20.
Notes 17:3: note there is a place for the loving rebuke. RSV omits “against thee.” 17:4: “seven”—see Matthew 18:21; the rabbis said that a man was perfect if he forgave three times. 17:6: “sycamine” = mulberry. 17:10: “unworthy servants”—see 19:17, and compare Paul’s experience (1 Corinthians 9:19; 2 Timothy 4:7-8).