Mark 13:34-36 For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work… Consider what an amount of drudgery must be performed — how much humdrum and prosaic labour goes to any work of the least value. There are so many layers of mere white lime in every shell to that inner one so beautifully tinted. Let not the shellfish think to build his house of that alone; and pray what are its tints to him? Is it not his smooth close-fitting shirt merely, whose tints are not to him, being in the dark, but only when he is gone or dead, and his shell is heaved up to light, a wreck upon the beach, do they appear. With him, too, it is a song of the shirt — "Work — work — work!" And the work is not merely a policy in the gross sense, but, in the higher sense, a discipline. If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating, as a ladder, the means by which we are translated? (Thoreau.) Parallel Verses KJV: For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. |
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