Five Morons

In Matthew 25 Jesus tells the parable that is commonly referred to as the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. In our Lord’s story there are ten young ladies that have been invited to a wedding celebration, and they are waiting for the festivities to begin. All ten ladies have their lamps in hand, a necessity in the pre-electricity era, but only five thought to bring enough oil to keeps their lamps burning. The forethought required to pack extra oil earns praise from Jesus as He shares this story; in their culture wedding invitations were common, but they never included a start time, but they were always after sundown.

The wedding would not begin until after the mother of the groom had sufficiently prepared the wedding feast, and she had the final say as to when they got things going. Those in the wedding party, such as these ten ladies, had to be dressed and ready in a minute’s notice. Part of the preparation would be making sure there was enough oil to get them through the event. In the parable half of the ladies find themselves without enough oil to make it, and when the bridegroom appeared, they were not able to follow him. Jesus called them foolish, and their counterparts He praised as being wise.

The Greek word for wise is sophos, from which we get our English name Sophia and the term sophisticated. In contrast, the Greek word here translated as foolish is moros, which gives us our word for moron. Jesus literally called these unprepared girls moronic in their approach to the wedding. This may sound harsh, but if we are wise we would learn from this parable and see if there is anything we need to change about ourselves.

This parable is a picture of heaven (25:1), but it is given in the context of end-times prophecy. The point is that people need to always be prepared for the rapture since no one knows when it will be. Like the ladies awaiting the bridegroom, we need to have everything in order for when Jesus calls the church home. Only a moron would live with no thought of eternity.  

“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.”

Matthew 25:13