Luk 17:10, 1Cor 3:7, Eph 3:8 | Barnes | STEP | Verse 10. Are unprofitable servants . We have conferred no favour. We have merited nothing. We have not benefited God, or laid him under obligation . If he rewards us, it will be matter of unmerited favour. This is true in relation to Christians in the following respects: 1st. Our services are not profitable to God ( ); he needs not our aid, and his essential happiness will not be increased by our efforts. 2nd. The grace to do his will comes from him only, and all the praise of that will be due to him. 3rd. All that we do is what is our duty ; we cannot lay claim to having rendered any service that will bind him to show us favour; and 4th. Our best services are mingled with imperfections. We come short of his glory ( ); we do not serve him as sincerely, and cheerfully, and faithfully as we ought; we are far, very far from the example set us by the Saviour; and if we are saved and rewarded, it will be because God will be merciful to our unrighteousness, and will remember our iniquities no more, . (f) "unprofitable"

Luke 17:10

Verse 10. Are unprofitable servants. We have conferred no favour. We have merited nothing. We have not benefited God, or laid him under obligation. If he rewards us, it will be matter of unmerited favour. This is true in relation to Christians in the following respects:

1st. Our services are not profitable to God (Job 22:2); he needs not our aid, and his essential happiness will not be increased by our efforts.

2nd. The grace to do his will comes from him only, and all the praise of that will be due to him.

3rd. All that we do is what is our duty; we cannot lay claim to having rendered any service that will bind him to show us favour; and

4th. Our best services are mingled with imperfections. We come short of his glory (Rom 3:23); we do not serve him as sincerely, and cheerfully, and faithfully as we ought; we are far, very far from the example set us by the Saviour; and if we are saved and rewarded, it will be because God will be merciful to our unrighteousness, and will remember our iniquities no more, Heb 8:12.

(f) "unprofitable" Job 22:3, Ps 16:2,3, Is 64:6, Rom 11:35, 1Cor 9:16,17

1 Corinthians 3:7

Verse 7. Any thing. This is to be taken comparatively. They are nothing ia comparison with God. Their agency is of no importance compared with his. 1Cor 1:28. It does mean that their agency ought not to be performed; that it is not important, and indispensable in its place; but that the honour is due to God. Their agency is indispensable. God could make seed or a tree grow if they were not planted in the earth. But he does not do it. The agency of the husbandman is indispensable in the ordinary operations of his providence. If he does not plant, God will not make the grain or the tree grow. God blesses his labours; he does not work a miracle. God attends effort with success; he does not interfere in a miraculous manner to accommodate the indolence of men. So in the matter of salvation. The efforts of ministers would be of no avail without God. They could do nothing in the salvation of the soul, unless he should give the increase. But their labours are as indispensable and as necessary, as are those of the farmer in the production of a harvest. And as every farmer could say, "my labours are nothing without God, who alone can give the increase," so it is with every minister of the gospel.

(a) "neither" Jn 15:5, 2Cor 12:9-11

Ephesians 3:8

Verse 8. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints. This is one of the class of expressions peculiar to Paul. The ordinary terms of language do not express the idea which he wishes to convey, and a word is therefore coined to convey an idea more emphatically. Comp. 2Cor 4:17. The word here used--ελαχιστοτερος--does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. It is a comparative made from the superlative. Similar expressions are found, however, in later Greek writers. See Bloomfield and Rosenmuller for examples. The word means here, "who am incomparably the least of all the saints; or who am not worthy to be reckoned among the saints." It is expressive of the deep sense which he had of the sinfulness of his past life; of his guilt in persecuting the church and the Saviour; and perhaps of his sense of his low attainments in piety. 1Cor 15:9. Paul never could forget the guilt of his former life; never forget the time when he was engaged in persecuting the church of God.

The unsearchable riches of Christ. On the word riches, as used by Paul, see Eph 1:7. The word rendered unsearchable-- ανεξιχνιαστον occurs but once elsewhere in the New Testament, Rom 11:33, where it is rendered, past finding out. Rom 11:33. It means that which cannot be traced out, or explored; Which is inscrutable, or incomprehensible. The meaning here is, that there was a sufficiency in Christ which could not be traced out or explored. It was wholly incomprehensible. The fulness of the riches in him could not be appreciated. There is no more emphatic expression in the New Testament than this. It shows that the heart of the apostle was full of admiration of the sufficiency and glory that was in the Saviour; that he wanted words to express it; and that he considered it the highest honour to be permitted to tell the world that there were such riches in the Redeemer.

(d) "less than the least" 1Cor 15:9 (e) "riches of Christ" Col 1:27