Loofs on the Christology Views of the New Testament

Loofs on the Christology Views 

of the New Testament

Thomas Allen

In What Is the Truth about Jesus Christ? Problems of Christology Discussed in Six Haskell Lectures at Oberlin, Ohio (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913), pages 177-184, Friedrich Loofs presents and discusses five points that show that orthodox Christology does not agree with the New Testament views. Dr. Loofs is a professor of church history at the University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. His discussion of the Christological views of the New Testament follows.

[1] It is a view of vital importance to orthodox Christology that the historical Jesus is the preexistent Son of God. Do we find anything about this in the New Testament? Certainly many New Testament passages assert the pre-existence of Christ; that is, they assert or assume that Jesus did not begin to exist when his earthly life began. “O Father,” Jesus says in the high priestly prayer in the Gospel of John, “glorify me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” (John 17:5.) But where in the New Testament is this prehistoric, yea, this antemundane, Christ called the “Son of God”? Where are we told that he is as such begotten of the Father before the world? In the prologue of the Gospel of John, the pre-existent Christ is not called the “Son” but the “word,” and we are told that “this was in the beginning.” (John 1:1, 2.) Only one passage in the Pauline epistles might be suspected of referring to an antemundane birth of Christ. In Colossians 1:18 Paul calls Christ “the first-born of every creature.” But here the Greek equivalent for first-born only means that he was before every creature and above all creatures. Then the only remaining support of the later doctrine is Jesus’ title “Son of God,” which, as we all know, occurs very often in the New Testament. But in the New Testament it is applied to the historical Jesus, either with reference to his birth out of the Spirit of God, (Luke 1:35.) or because the Spirit came down upon Jesus at his baptism, (Mark 4:11.) or without reference to a date of its entrance because the Spirit of God lived in him, (Rom. 1:3.) or because Jesus was the Messiah, (Matt. 16:16.) or because he stood in a unique position of love toward God. (Matt. 11:27.) The term, “the only begotten Son,” too, only signifies what was mentioned last. For the Greek equivalent for “only begotten” does not mean anything else than unique or peerless. And it was not modern exegesis that first interpreted the term “Son of God” thus. In the first half of the fourth century Marcellus of Ancyra emphatically pointed out that in the New Testament Jesus is called the Son of God only after the incarnation, and not in his pre-existence. And the older apostolic fathers, the so-called first epistle of Clement, dating from about 95 A. D., and the Ignatian letters interpret the term “Son of God” in this manner only.

[2] It is easier to show, secondly, that the idea of the triune God, as dogmatized later, is foreign to the New Testament. We surely find the belief in the New Testament that God was in Christ, and that the Holy Spirit that lives in the single Christians and in the whole community is the spirit of God. That God the Father reveals himself also in the Son and in the Spirit, that is a conviction which is in accordance with the New Testament. But there cannot be the least doubt, nor can we alter the fact, that when  the New Testament speaks of “God,” it is thinking only of the one God whom Jesus called his Father and the Father of the faithful, too. This is shown without the shadow of a doubt by the apostolic greeting: “Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 1:7; I Cor. 1:2; II Cor. 1:1; Eph. 1:1.) And the case is not different throughout the New Testament. In the Gospel of John, in the high-priestly prayer of Jesus, we even read: “This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ.” (John 17:3.) Also the well-known prayerful wish of the apostle Paul: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all”(II Cor. 13:13.) points in the same direction. For the apostle does not speak here about three persons in the one God, but about the love of the one God, and in addition thereto, or better: in connection with it, of the grace of Jesus Christ and the communion of the Holy Ghost.

[3] It is easier still to show that orthodox Christology does not agree with the New Testament views in a third respect. According to the  orthodox Christology, the personal subject, the supreme I, of the historical Jesus is the second person of the holy Trinity. Does the fact that Jesus prayed harmonize with this? Does the circumstance that he said to Mary Magdalene: “I ascend unto my Father and your Father and to my God and your God,” (John 20:17.) harmonize with it? We have seen, indeed, that the self-consciousness of Jesus surpassed the measure of a human self-consciousness. But can we deny that in the whole New Testament a human self-consciousness is the frame in which the inner life of Jesus first comes to our notice? His humility, his obedience, his trust in God cannot be interpreted differently. We shall discuss in the last lecture how this view can be reconciled with the fact that the frame of a human self-consciousness proves to be too strait to make the personality of Jesus intelligible. Here it will suffice to have shown that the orthodox Christology which considers a divine person as the personal subject in Christ does not correspond with the New Testament views. 

[4] The fourth point I wish to mention is, that the experiences of Jesus, like his self-consciousness, are at variance with orthodox Christology. Orthodoxy of all ages was worried by the fact that we are told of Jesus, with regard to his youth, that “he increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.” (Luke 2:52.) Could this be harmonized with the assumption that the real subject of the historical Jesus was the eternal Son of God? Orthodoxy of ancient times considered these two statements as being harmonized by the assertion that the eternal Son of God grew, suffered, and died only according to his human nature. But who will deny that our very self itself is growing during our life? And certainly it sounds very forced to say that the Son of God, who by his own nature could never suffer, suffered nevertheless in his human flesh and in his human soul! Surely such forced constructions are quite foreign to the New Testament.

[5] Fifthly and lastly, I shall have to point out that in the New Testament Jesus, even after his exaltation, appears in such an organic connection with the human race as hardly to agree with orthodox Christology. Especially those very writers of the New Testament who most obviously do not assume that the life of Jesus was a purely human one viz., Paul and John make this very clear. For Paul the risen Lord “is the first-born from the dead,” (Col. 1:18.) “the first-born among many brethren.” (Rom. 8:29.) The faithful, in Paul’s opinion, are predestinated by God “to be conformed to the image of his Son as heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” (Rom. 8:29 and 8:17.) Very similarly we read in the high-priestly prayer in the Gospel of John: “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:16.)  and: “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; (John 17:24.) “that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, . . . that they may be one even as we are one; (John 17:21.) and “Thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me.” (John 17:23.) In Revelation we find the same thoughts. Here the exalted Christ says: “He that overcometh I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father in his throne.” (Rev.  3:21) . . .  

These five points show that orthodox Christology does not agree with the New Testament views. And those who are impartial enough to see this are thereby convinced that the old orthodox Christology cannot give us the correct interpretation of the historical person of Jesus.

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Trump’s Pardons

Trump’s Pardons

Thomas Allen

In a letter to the editor, Mr. S, who suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome, criticized Trump’s pardons. Like him, I find several of Trump’s pardons questionable. For example, Trump pardoned Larry Hoover, who was serving multiple life sentences for his crimes of leading the Chicago-based drug syndicate operating in at least 35 states, selling more than $100 million of drugs each year in Chicago alone. Also, Trump pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando, a drug trafficker, who was sentenced to 45 years for moving hundreds of tons of cocaine from his country into the United States. However, I fervently disagree with Mr. S about Trump pardoning the January 6 protestors.

Trump pardoning these drug kingpins shows that he is not warring against Venezuela because of narcotics. It is about oil, regime change, and imposing American hegemony. (As recent events have shown, narcotics were the excuse; confiscating Venezuelan oil, changing the regime, and making Lindsey Graham, who appears to be Trump's primary foreign affairs advisor, happy were the reasons.) Obviously, he is acting like a neoconservative. Many people voted for him because they thought that he opposed the neoconservative foreign policy, but he fooled them. Like most presidents in the last 100 years, Trump is a lying hypocrite. 

Letter

Mr. S and Democrats who suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome distort Trump’s pardoning of 1500 political prisoners, the so-called insurrectionists of January 6, 2020.

The so-called insurrection that occurred on January 6 was the strangest in history. The insurrectionists showed up disorganized and without weapons. Moreover, the palace guards opened the doors and let them in. Some of the guards even escorted some of the insurrectionists around the building. If anyone were convicted of a crime, it should have been the guards.

If our Representatives and Senators thought that a disorganized, unarmed mob was trying to overthrow the federal government, why did they flee? Since they heavily outgunned the insurrectionists, why did they not stand and fight to save the government? Were they cowards? Did they believe that the federal government was not worth defending? Or, did they know that this was no instruction and, therefore, lied about it being one? At least one of these three options must be true. If they are cowards, they should not be in Congress. If they believe that the government is not worth defending, they should not be in Congress. If they have lied, they should not be in Congress. Consequently, none of these Representatives or Senators should be in Congress.

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Jews’ and Lincoln’s Treatment of Negroes

 Jews’ and Lincoln’s Treatment of Negroes

Thomas Allen

The following are some comments on the Jewish treatment of freed slaves and Lincoln toward Blacks and slaves.

Jewish Treatment of Freed Slaves

In “We Thought They Were White,” Dontell Jackson discusses the prominence of Jews in the slave trade during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He provides some interesting information about Jewish exploitation of Blacks during Lincoln’s War and Reconstruction:

Writing in the journal of his travels throughout the South in the mid 19th century, author Fredrick Law Olmsted noted: “There is a considerable population of foreign origin, generally of the least valuable class; very dirty German Jews, especially, abound, and their characteristic shops (with their characteristic smells, quite as bad as in Cologne) are thickly set in the narrowest and meanest streets, which seem otherwise to be mainly inhabited by negroes. . . . A swarm of Jews has, within the last ten years, settled in every Southern town, many of them men of no character, opening cheap clothing and trinket shops, ruining or driving out of business many of the old retailers, and engaging in an unlawful trade with the simple Negroes, which is found very profitable.” Similarly, Mark Twain commented: “In the U. S. cotton states, after the war, the Jew came down in force, set up shop on the plantation, supplied all the negroes’ wants on credit, and at the end of the season was the proprietor of the negro’s share of the present crop and part of the next one. Before long the whites detested the Jew.”

Civil War Union William Tecumseh Sherman on arriving in the South was astonished by the number of Jewish carpetbaggers and scalawags that he encountered operating in the Confederate states, saying: “I found so many Jews & speculators here trading in cotton and secessionists had become open in refusing anything but gold that I have found myself bound to stop it.” General Ulysses Grant wrote to the Assistant Adjutant General of the US Army on December 17, 1862, : “I have long since believed that in spite of all the vigilance that can be infused into post commanders, the specie regulations of the Treasury Department have been violated, and that mostly by the Jews and other unprincipled traders. So well satisfied have I been of this that I instructed the commanding officer at Columbus to refuse all permits to Jews to come South, and I have frequently had them expelled from the department. But they come in with their carpet-sacks in spite of all that can be done to prevent it. The Jews seem to be a privileged class that can travel anywhere. They will land at any woodyard on the river and make their way through the country. If not permitted to buy cotton themselves, they will act as agents for someone else, who will be at a military post with a Treasury permit to receive cotton and pay for it in Treasury notes which the Jew will buy at an agreed rate, paying gold.”

Lincoln on Blacks and Slaves

Abraham Lincoln is the most idolized President of the United States. Although he never freed any slaves and did not want to live among freed Blacks, he is known as the Great Emancipator and the forefather of racial equality. Furthermore, he is praised for saving the Union, although he destroyed the Union organized under the Constitution that the Founding Fathers gave the country and converted it into a consolidated empire primarily for the benefit of big business and big finance.

In “The Consolidation of State Power Via Reconstruction, 1865–1890,” Thomas J. DiLorenzo provides some interesting yet little-known information about Abraham Lincoln.

– Lincoln was a White supremacist and believed that the races should be segregated.

– As a supporter of African colonization, he wanted to repatriate freed slaves to Africa or send them to another country; they should not be allowed to remain in the United States as social or political equals of Whites. They certainly should not be allowed to settle in the territories because they were reserved for Whites.

– He married into a slave-owning family, and slave labor from the family’s plantation subsidized him and his wife.

– Lincoln supported the Illinois “Black Codes,” which restricted the trades and occupations of Blacks. (During Reconstruction, the federal government prevented Southern States from adopting such codes.)

– Moreover, he ordered Union officers to return runaway slaves to their owners and required his cabinet to sign a pledge to support the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution.

– When he was in the Illinois Legislature, he supported amending the Illinois Constitution to forbid the immigration of Blacks into the state. Also, when he was in the Illinois Legislature, he voted to deny blacks the privilege to vote. Further, he opposed Negro citizenship and opposed allowing them to serve as jurors or hold public office. Moreover, he favored taxing Blacks to help pay for schools for White children.

– As an Illinois lawyer, Lincoln defended slave owners, but he never defended a fugitive slave.

To DiLorenzo’s list, Clyde Wilson, in “Getting Right With Abe,” adds that instead of emancipating the slaves that his wife inherited, he sold them. Additionally, in “Erasing Black Confederates,” Wanjiru Njoya notes that Lincoln personally supported an irrevocable constitutional amendment, commonly called the Corwin Amendment, that protected slavery forever.

(For more on Lincoln’s attitude toward Blacks, see “Lincoln on the Negro Race” and “Some Nineteenth Century Thought on the Negro” by Thomas Allen.)

With their rapine, Jews, Yankees, and Republicans impoverished the South so severely that more than a century elapsed before Southerners and Southern Blacks recovered from the poverty caused by Lincoln’s War and Reconstruction. 

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Trump and Evangelicals

Trump and Evangelicals

Thomas Allen

Below is a letter to the editor that I wrote in response to another published letter on Trump and evangelicals. This person, whom I refer to as Mr. S, has written several letters criticizing Trump and evangelicals. Mr. S suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Also, he loathes evangelicals as much as he loathes Trump — perhaps, even more.  Some of my comments in brackets provide additional context for my response.

The Letter

Mr. S’s letter displays more prejudice toward evangelicals than evangelicals show toward brown people. Moreover, his letter speaks of love, yet it shows more hatred toward evangelicals and Trump than either shows toward brown people and foreigners.

If Trump ceases being a Zionist, he will lose the support of most evangelicals. Supporting Israel and Zionism is of the utmost importance to them. [Mr. S is convinced that both Trump and evangelicals hate brown people, and the primary reason that evangelicals support Trump is because he hates brown people. Much of his lengthy letter is filled with derogatory remarks about evangelicals.]

Unlike the justice that Biden appointed to the Supreme Court, who does not know the difference between a man and a woman, at least Trump’s appointments do. [Mr. S faults Trump’s Supreme Court appointments.]

Moreover, Obama and Biden were much more fascistic than Trump has been. [Like all good Democrats and left-wingers, Mr. S declares Trump to be a fascist. I would be surprised if he really knew what a fascist is.]

If Trump is trying to eliminate political opposition, he is just following Biden and other Democratic leaders. They came close to succeeding. By calling for the arrest of Democrats, Trump is just following Biden and the Democrats. They arrested and tried Trump and imprisoned many of his supporters. Moreover, Biden and the Democrats crushed the freedom of speech of their opposition.

All these Democrats yapping about Trump deporting illegals never remonstrated when Clinton and Obama were deporting illegals. Apparently, they do not object to deporting illegals; they only object to who is doing it.

When it comes to following the Constitution, Trump is in good company. No president since Coolidge has even attempted to follow the Constitution. Based on their actions, most have less understanding of the Constitution than the typical kindergartner. [Mr. S criticizes Trump for failing to follow the Constitution; however, I have never seen him criticize a Democrat for failing to follow it.]

All the Constitutional safeguards that Mr. S refers to ceased to exist with the Lincoln administration. As for the rule of law, it means no resistance to the Democratic Party's agenda under Obama, Biden, and whoever is the next Democratic president. The rule of law is whatever their arbitrary whim dictates. [Mr. S accuses Trump of abandoning the rule of law.]

In short, almost everything that Trump has done since he has been in office, Democrats have done before.

Nearly all of the founding fathers despised democracy and believed that it was one of the worst forms of government. H.L. Mencken wrote, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Allan Pinkerton

Allan Pinkerton

Thoms Allen 

In To the Victor Go the Myths & Monuments: The History of the First 100 Years of the War Against God and the Constitution, 1776 - 1876, and Its Modern Impact (Appleton, Wisconsin: American Opinion Foundation Publishing, 2016), Arthur R. Thompson provides some interesting information about Allan Pinkerton of the Pinkerton detective fame.

In Scotland, Allan Pinkerton (1819–1884) became a leader of the Chartists and formed the Glasgow Democratic Club. (Chartists were communistic revolutionists.) As a young man in Scotland, he was involved in radical activity and frequently disobeyed the law. Because of his involvement in the communist Chartist movement, he fled to the United States to avoid arrest.

In 1843, Pinkerton left Scotland and settled in Chicago, where he became the first police detective in Chicago. In 1850, in response to problems that various railroad companies were having that required a security system, Pinkerton partnered with E.G. Rucker to form Chicago’s first detective agency. A year later, the partnership dissolved, and Pinkerton provided the security for the railroads with his own agency, which became known as the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Lincoln, who was an attorney for the Illinois Central Railroad, became a friend and patron of Pinkerton while he was providing security.

Since Pinkerton was a contact for John Brown, Brown was often a guest at Pinkerton’s house. Frequently, he disobeyed the law and aided and abetted the terrorist Brown. He aided Brown in his move to Kansas. After Brown’s arrest, Pinkerton developed a plan to free him. Disguised as a Southern planter, he learned the layout of the prison and concluded that he could not free Brown. Consequently, the plan never came to fruition. 

As a participant in the Underground Railroad, Pinkerton aided in moving escaped slaves to Canada. Furthermore, he was instrumental in creating the psychological basis for the events that brought Lincoln’s War into being. 

At the beginning of the war, Pinkerton became the Union’s main intelligence officer and helped form the US Secret Service. “As one wag of the day quipped, ‘While Pinkerton's right hand caught lawbreakers, his left hand broke the law.’” (P. 352.)

Pinkerton warned Lincoln that an assassination attempt would be made on him as he journeyed to Washington for his inauguration. As a result, Lincoln disguised himself and switched trains. However, no evidence existed that such an assignation attempt was planned — except in Pinkerton’s mind.

If he were alive today, Pinkerton would be a leading supporter and spokesman for the Democratic Party. His radicalism would have melded effortlessly with that of today’s Democrats.

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Blue Cities’ Response to Deporting Illegal Immigrants

Blue Cities’ Response to Deporting Illegal Immigrants

Thomas Allen

Several blue cities, cities controlled by Democrats, have become notorious for trying to prevent the apprehension and deportation of illegal immigrants. Instead of using the constitutional method to stop the enforcement of immigration laws, they prefer an unconstitutional approach. The political leaders of these cities support violent protests against federal agents attempting to apprehend illegal immigrants.

The constitutional approach is to have the State, i.e., the people of that State, through their legislature or special convention, find the federal immigration law unconstitutional and nullify or veto it in that State. Thus, the immigration law would no longer be valid in that State because it would not exist in that State. Any federal agent who tried to enforce the federal immigration law would violate the Constitution and could be subject to penalties. (See “Nullification and Interposition” by Thomas Allen.)

At least that is the way it would work under the Constitution that the Founding Fathers gave us. Under that Constitution, the people of each State were sovereign. As sovereigns, they decided whether the acts of their agent, the federal government, were contrary to the agreement (the Constitution) that they had entered into with the other sovereigns, i.e., the people of the other States.

However, Lincoln and the Republicans usurped the sovereignty of the people of the States and gave it to the oligarchs who control the federal government.

Unfortunately, today, the country operates under the constitution that Lincoln as furthered developed by Presidents Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and carried to fruition by the Warren Court gave it. Under the Lincoln constitution, States have only those rights that the federal government grants them. (For the difference between the Constitution of the Founding Fathers and Lincoln’s constitution, see “What Is Your View of the US Constitution?” by Thomas Allen.)

President Trump, most Republicans, many conservatives, and all Democrats, when they control the federal government, have little use for the Constitution of the Founding Fathers. They prefer the Lincoln constitution because it gives them more power and will ignore any nullification. Consequently, since the peaceful method of nullification is not available, blue cities are reduced to violence to try to stop the enforcement of what they perceive as unconstitutional laws. 

Nevertheless, the US Supreme Court allows city, county, and State officials to refuse to aid the federal government in the enforcement of federal laws. (A State may require local officials to cooperate with the federal government in enforcing federal laws.) However, they cannot actively interfere with the federal government enforcing federal laws.

(Personally, I believe that the federal government has the constitutional authority to apprehend and deport people who have entered the country illegally. However, that is a decision that the people of each State have the right to make for themselves.)

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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The Wise and the Foolish

The Wise and the Foolish

Thomas Allen

In Matthew 25:1-13, Jesus gives a parable of ten virgins. Five virgins were wise, and five were foolish. (See the appendix for the text of this parable.)

The five wise virgins were prudent and future-oriented. If the bridegroom tarried, they had hoarded a reserve of oil to keep their lamps burning. As the story goes, they had to use their saved oil because the bridegroom arrived late.

The five foolish virgins were imprudent and present-oriented. Consequently, they had failed to save any oil for their lamps and, therefore, could not keep their lamps lit. As a result, they missed the bridegroom. (If a compassionate government following liberation theology existed then, it would have forced the wise virgins to give part, if not all, their oil to the foolish virgins.)

Clergymen understand this parable spiritually. Jesus is the bridegroom, whose arrival is unknown. The “oil” represents spiritual readiness and faithfulness. Like the wise virgins, Christians should always be prepared for the coming of Christ, whenever that is. Thus, they should be diligent in their faith, continuously seek to grow closer to God, and strive to live according to His will.

Nevertheless, this parable also has a practical, earthly explanation. Once, farmers would hoard part of their harvest to feed themselves until the next harvest. Foolish farmers failed to hoard enough and went hungry; thus, they depended on the charity of their neighbors to feed them. (According to an old saying, Southern farmers sold what they could not eat, and Northern farmers ate what they could not sell.) Likewise, wise people stockpile food and other supplies to carry themselves through natural and manmade disasters and lean times. Foolish people do not; they rush to stores just before the disaster strikes, only to find empty shelves. Sometimes, they have no warning and have to do without.

In the twenty-first century, this parable has been turned on its head. Now, the prudent are the foolish, and the imprudent are the wise. When a natural or manmade disaster strikes, the imprudent will steal the savings (food, water, money, or whatever) from the prudent, either directly or, more likely, through the government.

For example, according to a highly reliable source, following Hurricane Helene, the government stole food in the disaster area that the prudent had saved and gave it to the imprudent. (Some prudent people had their supplies washed away, but many who received the stolen goods were imprudent people. In any event, the government did not steal from the imprudent because they had nothing to steal.)

Thus, the prudent were foolish to sacrifice some of their resources to establish supplies of food and other necessities. Instead of using their resources to establish emergency supplies, the imprudent used them for present merriment, knowing that if disaster struck, the government would take care of them. Consequently, the imprudent acted wisely, albeit dishonestly.

When the prudent are penalized for saving, and the imprudent are rewarded for not saving, people eventually stop hoarding for future emergencies and disasters. When most people become present-oriented and do not hoard, their lack of savings causes enormous stress on charities, which, because of imprudence, receive significantly less support, and on governments.

(This reminds me of the story of the little red hen. Wanting to bake a cake, the hen asked the other farm animals to assist her. All refused. However, after she had baked the cake, all came to her and demanded their share. Never again did the hen bake a cake, and the other animals wondered why.)

Appendix

The following is Matthew 25: 1–13 from the World English Bible.

25 “Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 Those who were foolish, when they took their lamps, took no oil with them, 4 but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. 5 Now while the bridegroom delayed, they all slumbered and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Behold! The bridegroom is coming! Come out to meet him!’ 7 Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9 But the wise answered, saying, ‘What if there isn’t enough for us and you? You go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’ 10 While they went away to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast, and the door was shut. 11 Afterward the other virgins also came, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us.’ 12 But he answered, ‘Most certainly I tell you, I don’t know you.’ 13 Watch therefore, for you don’t know the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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