The words above form part of a verse which reads, “Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and SERVE THEM.” The apostle Paul, when writing to the Christians at Philippi, said of Christ, He took on ‘the form of A SLAVE!’ What grace! What humility! Christ said of Himself, “the Son of man did not come to be served, but TO SERVE, and to give his life a ransom for many.” [Matt 20:28]. His life was a life of obedient service culminating in the cross. One would expect that following the cross and upon His return to set up His Millennial Kingdom, His ‘serving’ would have finished, but not according to today’s verse, for, “He will gird himself … and will come and SERVE THEM” – i.e., serving those servants who had been faithfully watching and waiting for His return.
“Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us” -
Three unusual stones. (1) Peter likens Christians to ‘LIVING stones’ (1 Peter 2:5). They’ve come to Christ, Himself a ‘living stone’, and He begins to form them into a ‘spiritual house’ so they can ‘offer up spiritual sacrifices.’ (2) In Luke ch.19, as Christ enters the city of Jerusalem, the crowds greet Him, “Blessed the King that comes in the name of the Lord”. The Pharisees immediately demand of Christ that He silence the crowd, to which He replies, “If these shall be silent, the stones will CRY OUT!” (3) Joshua has led the children of Israel into the ‘Promised Land’. He is about to die [Joshua ch.24], but not before he calls upon the nation to “choose you this day whom ye will serve”, idols or the LORD. The people reply with, “the LORD is our God”. Joshua then ‘took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak’. “This stone … has HEARD [your pledge] and is a witness, lest ye deny your God.”
‘Redemption through his blood’ -
The Bambara people are an ethnic group native to much of West Africa, primarily southern
Mali, Ghana and Senegal. When missionaries were translating the New Testament into
the Bambara language, they struggled to translate the word ‘REDEEMED’. They appealed
to one of their West African translation helpers, who said, “We say, ‘GOD TOOK OUR
HEADS OUT.’” It dated back to the ‘slave trade’. The captured natives were forced
to wear a heavy iron collar around their necks and a long chain linked them to the
next captive, and so they formed a long line, all linked together by chains and steel
neck-
‘the LORD opened the eyes of the young man’ -
William Tyndale (1494 –1536) was an English Bible scholar and linguist. In 1523 he sought permission from the Bishop of London to translate the Bible into English. It was his desire that the common plough boy should know more of the Scriptures than the Pope himself! The Bishop refused Tyndale his request, so in 1524, he moved to Germany where, he completed a translation of the New Testament. Copies were then smuggled into England much to the annoyance of King Henry VIII and the church hierarchy. In 1535 he was hunted down, betrayed and arrested in Antwerp, Belgium. He was tried and sentenced to death by strangulation before being burnt at the stake. His final words were, “Lord! Open the King of England's eyes.” Within four years, four English translations of the Bible were published in England at the king's behest, but all based on Tyndale's work!
In the upper room, before His death upon the cross, the Lord assured His disciples He would not leave them as orphans but would ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to them. Estella Myers, who was attempting to translate the Bible for the people living in the Karre Mountains in the Central African Republic, struggled with the word ‘Comforter.’ A local assistant advised her to write, ‘‘He’s the one who falls down beside us”. Native porters, carrying heavy loads on their heads, would often become sick with malaria or dysentery, and in complete exhaustion would collapse on the trail. Such a person risked being killed and eaten by wild animals. If, however, someone with compassion saw him lying there, he would come to his aid, pick him up and transport him to the safety of the next village. Such a person is said to be “the one who falls down beside us.” This man is a ‘Comforter.’
‘[The Father] shall give you another Comforter’ -