The Parable of the Ten Virgins: Being Ready

Among Jesus' parables about his return is the story of ten virgins waiting for a bridegroom — five wise, five foolish. It's a vivid call to spiritual readiness, to living prepared for a day we cannot predict. Here's its meaning.

The story

Ten young women take their lamps and go to meet a bridegroom for a wedding. Five are wise and bring extra oil; five are foolish and bring none. The bridegroom is delayed, and all of them fall asleep. At midnight the cry goes up that he's coming. The wise trim their lamps and are ready; the foolish, out of oil, rush off to buy more — and while they're gone, the bridegroom arrives, the door is shut, and they're left outside.

The point: be ready

Jesus made the lesson explicit: 'Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.' The parable is about his return, and the call is to readiness. The bridegroom's delay and midnight arrival picture the truth that Christ will come at an unexpected time — so we're to live prepared, not caught out.

The oil you can't borrow

The telling detail is that the wise couldn't share their oil — each had to have her own. Some things in the spiritual life can't be borrowed at the last minute: a real relationship with God, a faith that is genuinely yours. You can't lean on someone else's faith when the moment comes. Readiness is personal, and it's cultivated in advance.

Readiness is now, not later

The foolish weren't wicked; they were simply unprepared, assuming there'd be time to sort it out later. There wasn't. The parable gently warns against spiritual procrastination — putting off until 'someday' the faith and readiness that belong to today. The time to prepare is before the cry goes up.

The parable of the ten virgins is a call to be ready for Christ's return — to cultivate a genuine, personal faith now, rather than assuming there will always be time later. We don't know the day or the hour, so we live prepared, lamps burning, oil in hand. Readiness isn't panic; it's the steady, daily faithfulness of those who are watching for their Lord.