The Unworthy Servant – Luke 17:7-10

There is question about the connection between this passage and the previous passages about avoiding temptation, offering forgiveness, and having mountain-moving faith.  Jamieson-Fausset-Brown‘s commentary seems the most likely: The connection here is: “But when your faith has been so increased as both to avoid and forgive offenses, and do things impossible to all but faith, be not puffed up as though you had laid the Lord under any obligations to you.”

“Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”  (Luke 17:7-10 ESV)

A servant’s duty is to serve.  He or she serves at the discretion of the master.  It is the master’s needs that are of most importance and it falls to the servant to ignore his or her own needs until the master’s are met.  Jesus is not saying this is the way it should be, but the way it is.

He likens this relationship to our relationship  with God.  At bottom He is the Master to whom we owe obedience.  Yes, He loves us and He is concerned about our needs.  But from our perspective He is the one we serve, to whom we owe everything and from whom we deserve nothing but to serve Him.