οὕτως, so, in the Kingdom of God: extremes meet. The service of the Kingdom is as unlike that of a slave to his owner as possible in spirit; but it is like in the heavy demands it makes, which we have to take as a matter of course. διαταχθέντα, commanded. In point of fact it is not commands but demands we have to deal with, arising out of special emergencies. δοῦλοι ἀχρεῖοι : the words express the truth in terms of the parabolic representation which treats of a slave and his owner. But the idea is: the hardest demands of the Kingdom are to be met in a spirit of patience and humility, a thing possible only for men who are as remote as possible from a slavish spirit: heroic, generous, working in the spirit of free self-devotion. Such men are not unprofitable servants in God's sight; rather He accounts them “good and faithful,” Matthew 25:21. Syr. Sin [135] reads simply “we are servants”.

[135]yr. Sin. Sinaitic Syriac (recently discovered).

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Old Testament