David H. Splane: I Do Not Know You (Matt. 25:12)

Matthew ch. 25 vv. 3–5 describes preparation and shared sleep, not the contrasting motives attributed to the women.

This is devotional characterization rather than a demonstrated explanation of the characters' motives. The speaker presents the motives confidently, although the narrative establishes only their differing preparations. The modern-store references and oil wordplay are plainly humorous illustrations, not historical claims.

Matthew says that the foolish take no additional oil, while the wise bring oil in containers. All ten become drowsy and sleep. The text does not say that the foolish demand an early arrival or that the wise carry oil because they love the bridegroom more.

Matthew ch. 25 vv. 5–10 explicitly locates the bridegroom's delay before the cry, not in a separately described extended period after it.

A brief narrative interval is real: the women prepare their lamps, converse, and some leave. Repeatedly emphasizing that the bridegroom still does not come adds a delay motif not explicitly supplied at this point. That embellishment becomes important when the speaker maps the announcement to 1914 and the arrival to a later event.

The explicit delay occurs in Matthew ch. 25 v. 5, before the midnight cry. In v. 6 the announcement directs the women to go out to meet the bridegroom. Verses 7–10 narrate preparation, discussion, departure, and arrival, without specifying elapsed time.

Matthew ch. 24 vv. 1–3 and 15–20 includes the temple's destruction and flight from Judea, rather than explicitly identifying every element with a modern invisible presence.

The chapters do provide an eschatological setting for the parable. They do not, merely by their location, establish the Jehovah's Witness distinction between a prolonged invisible presence and a subsequent coming. The argument depends on an organizational framework already accepted by the audience.

The discourse begins with the predicted destruction of the temple and the disciples' questions. References to Judea, flight, and the Sabbath give parts of it a concrete Jewish and Jerusalem-related setting. The Greek parousia can denote presence or arrival; translating it as 'presence' does not by itself establish a decades-long invisible phase.

Matthew ch. 24 vv. 29–30 places the Son of Man's appearance after the tribulation just described, complicating the claim that every coming reference explicitly means arrival at the Great Tribulation.

The common arrival imagery makes a shared eschatological application plausible. It does not prove the specific organizational timetable. The speaker moves from a count of references to certainty about their timing without addressing differences among the passages.

Matthew explicitly mentions great tribulation in ch. 24 v. 21. The Son of Man's appearance in vv. 29–30 follows 'immediately after' the tribulation of those days. The later parables do not independently label their arrivals as events within the Great Tribulation. How these descriptions relate is an interpretive question.

The rejection of a numerical forecast is reasonable. The analogy with the slave warning supports a cautionary application, but does not prove that no substantial number could fail or that 'any of the anointed' exhausts the parable's meaning. Those stronger conclusions exceed the literary evidence.

Matthew supplies equal groups of prepared and unprepared women and concludes with an instruction to keep watch. It does not explain the numbers as future proportions of believers. Unlike the slave passage, the virgins story narrates two actual groups within the fictional scene rather than explicitly phrasing both outcomes as alternatives for one character.

The broad application of watchfulness is well grounded. The speaker nevertheless treats the existence and identity of an additional great-crowd class as settled doctrine. Mark's inclusive 'all' does not establish that classification or the associated Great Tribulation timetable.

Mark ch. 13 v. 37 says that the watchfulness command applies to all, without mentioning anointed Christians or a great crowd. The latter expression comes from Revelation ch. 7, whose relationship to the numbered servants and whose location and destiny are debated in scholarship.

The speaker presents an organizational interpretation as something that can be proved from a cross-reference. Shared imagery of lamps, waiting, and a returning lord supports thematic comparison, but does not establish the proposed class identities. The distinction between all anointed Christians and a smaller faithful-slave body is imported into the comparison.

Matthew introduces the ten virgins as a comparison for the kingdom of heaven. Neither passage uses 'anointed' to identify these characters. Luke's waiting servants are awaiting a master returning from a wedding, whereas Matthew's women are awaiting a bridegroom going into the celebration.

This identification functions as an unargued premise for the subsequent proof about the virgins. Asking 'right?' elicits agreement rather than demonstrating that Luke teaches the Witness two-class framework.

Luke ch. 12 v. 22 identifies the audience as the disciples, and v. 32 promises them the kingdom. The passage gives neither a numerical limit nor an explanation of 'little flock' in terms of a heavenly class contrasted with an earthly great crowd.

Matthew ch. 25 vv. 6–10 contains no chronological marker identifying the announcement with 1914.

The speaker treats 1914 as a settled answer shared by the Bethel audience, rather than supplying a historical source or chronological argument. A historical announcement could be documented; identifying it as fulfillment additionally requires a theological argument. Neither is provided here.

Matthew gives no calendar date for the cry. Russell's nineteenth-century writings located the beginning of Christ's invisible presence in 1874, illustrating that the movement's expectations cannot simply be projected backward as a uniform 1914 interpretation. That earlier chronology does not itself disprove a later theological application, but it makes historical documentation necessary.

The count is defensible under a selected lexical or thematic convention, but is not an unqualified total of every reference to the master's arrival. It also cannot establish that all the selected references concern precisely the same chronological event.

The commonly selected eight occur in Matthew ch. 24 vv. 30, 42, 44, 46 and ch. 25 vv. 10, 19, 27, 31. Matthew ch. 24 v. 50 also describes the master's coming, using a different Greek verb. Thus an English-language count of references to coming requires an explicit inclusion rule.

The textual observation is sound: Luke's conditional 'if that servant' supports a warning about how the entrusted servant might behave. It does not, however, establish that the servant symbolizes a particular modern governing body. The marginal reference is an editorial aid; the substantive evidence is the wording of Luke itself.

Luke introduces the faithful and prudent manager, describes the reward for faithful service, and then continues with a conditional involving 'that servant.' Matthew's 'that wicked servant' can likewise describe the negative alternative. Standard translations preserve this basic structure; the point does not depend on a distinctive NWT rendering.