A parable of Jesus

The Parable of the Ten Virgins

Be ready now, because some things, like a heart prepared for God, cannot be borrowed at the last moment.

Where and to whom Jesus told it

This parable belongs to Jesus' great discourse on the Mount of Olives, given privately to his disciples in the last week before the cross, in answer to their question about the sign of his coming and the end of the age. It is one of three parables in Matthew 25, all about readiness and reckoning, and it addresses the long interval before Christ returns, and the temptation to grow drowsy in the waiting.

The picture is a village wedding. The bridegroom would come, often after long and unpredictable delay, to bring his bride to the feast, and the young women of the wedding party were to meet him with lamps and escort him in. To be caught unready when he finally arrived was a public disgrace and an exclusion from the joy.

The parable

The kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, is likened unto ten virgins who took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. Five were wise and five foolish. The foolish took their lamps but no oil; the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. The bridegroom tarried, and they all slumbered and slept. At midnight came a cry: Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. The foolish found their lamps going out and begged oil from the wise, who answered that there was not enough for both, and sent them to buy. While they went, the bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut.

Afterward the other virgins came, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. The oil they lacked could not be borrowed at the last moment or bought in the panic of midnight. All ten looked alike until the cry came; the difference between them appeared only when the bridegroom arrived. Jesus draws the lesson: Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.

What it means, and how it has been misread and rightly read

This parable has spawned much fanciful speculation about exactly what the oil represents, and lists of things the wise supposedly could not share. But its point is not to be decoded like a cipher; it is to press home one urgent truth. The oil stands for the real, inward readiness of a living faith, the kind of thing that genuinely cannot be lent from one person to another or improvised at the final moment. That is why the wise could not share.

Read rightly, the parable is not about sleeping; all ten slept, and the wise are not blamed for it. It is about preparation made in advance for a delay no one could measure. Readiness is a matter of what we have laid up before the cry comes, not what we scramble for when it does. The tragedy of the foolish is not that they rejected the bridegroom but that they assumed there would be time, and there was not.

The heart of God and the kingdom

This parable reveals a God whose coming is certain but whose timing is hidden, and who therefore calls his people to a readiness that does not depend on last-minute effort. The bridegroom tarries, but he comes; the delay is not cancellation. And the shut door is a sober revelation that there is such a thing as being too late, that the season of preparation, though long, is not endless.

It reveals, too, that the relationship the bridegroom desires is real and personal. The dreadful words to the foolish are not I punish you but I know you not. What matters in the end is not having belonged to the wedding party outwardly but being known by the bridegroom, having a living connection to him kept burning through the long night of his absence.

What it asks of us

This parable urges us to a readiness that cannot be borrowed or faked, a faith kept alive and supplied through the whole length of the waiting. We cannot live on someone else's relationship with Christ, a parent's, a church's, a friend's, and we cannot manufacture at the last moment what only grows over time in prayer and obedience. It asks whether our lamps have oil, whether our faith is a real and present thing or only an empty vessel that will fail us when the cry comes.

It also frees us from thinking the delay is a reason for carelessness. The long tarrying of the bridegroom is not evidence that he will not come but the very season in which our readiness is proved. We are called not to sleepless anxiety but to watchful preparation, so that whenever he comes, at whatever hour, we are found among those who go in with him to the feast.

How it points to Christ

Christ is the bridegroom whose coming the whole church awaits through the long night of this age. He calls us to be ready, not with dread but with a faith kept burning by his own Spirit, the oil that does not run dry in those who abide in him. Those who know him, and are known by him, will hear no shut door and no terrible I know you not, but will be welcomed in to the marriage feast of the Lamb, for the readiness he asks is finally a living relationship with himself.

Frequently asked questions

What does the parable of the ten virgins mean?

It calls for readiness for Christ's coming. Five wise women brought extra oil for their lamps and five foolish did not; when the bridegroom came at midnight, only the ready went in. Jesus concludes, 'Watch therefore' (Matthew 25:1-13).

What does the oil represent?

Interpreters differ, some say faith, some the Holy Spirit, some a life of genuine readiness. Jesus does not press the detail. The clear point is that some kinds of readiness are personal and cannot be borrowed at the last moment.