Mt 24:42-51
[Jesus said to his disciples,] 42“Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. 43Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. 44So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.
45“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant, whom the master has put in charge of his household to distribute to them their food at the proper time? 46Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so. 47Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property. 48But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is long delayed,’ 49and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with drunkards, 50the servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour 51and will punish him severely and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”
Servant In Charge Of The Household: Slavery was common in Jesus’ time, especially in Rome. In Israel, the elites had servants/slaves (Greek douloi) who were employed in agriculture, but most often in domestic service. A slave who shows competence and faithfulness may be assigned as the head servant or slave overseer (Greek oikonomos). Usually, he is a man hardened by farm work and tested by experience. If he has a retentive mind and can manage affairs, he may be chosen for the task, even if he may be illiterate. In the Gospel parable, the faithful and prudent oikonomos has been put in charge of his master’s household.
This is an image of true discipleship. A disciple, most especially if he is a leader of a community of believers, must be prudent and dependable in fulfilling his obligation towards believers. He must exercise his duties “at the proper time” and not at his own convenience. Authority is conferred only for a time and is meant for the good of others; otherwise its abuse will lead to a loss of sense of others, which is tyranny, and loss of sense of self, expressed in excesses and bad company. Matthew here points out a practical concern: the disciple must not bother with the exact timing of the final coming of Christ; rather, he should concentrate on living the life of a faithful and prudent servant. On this he will be judged.