Parable of the Ten Virgins
Spiritual food with Jess – May 18, 2026
In the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25:1–13, Jesus describes ten people waiting for a bridegroom. On the surface, they all seem to belong; they are all present and they are all waiting. Jesus uses this to show that spiritual readiness isn’t something you can “borrow” or fake at the last minute. All ten looked identical on the outside, they all had lamps, and they were all waiting, but the delay revealed who had depth and who was just skimming the surface. Only half of them were actually ready when he finally arrived.
Five are called wise because they brought extra oil for their lamps, while the other five are deemed foolish for failing to do so. When the bridegroom is delayed longer than expected, the unprepared ones are caught off guard and miss his arrival entirely. The core message Jesus is delivering is simple: “Keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour” (Matthew 25:13). The focus isn’t on their outward appearance or the fact that they were all waiting; it’s about whether they were truly ready. Everyone shared the same situation, but not everyone was prepared for the duration of the wait.
The oil serves as a symbol of that readiness. Whatever it represents specifically, it is something that cannot be borrowed at the last minute or quickly fixed when it’s already too late. It must be in your possession before the moment arrives. The warning here is that because the timing is unknown, you cannot assume you’ll have time to sort it out later. When the moment comes, the opportunity closes.
Ultimately, the parable teaches that readiness cannot be postponed. You can’t wait until the last second to prepare; that foundation must already be laid. From a broader biblical perspective, this readiness is tied to genuinely knowing God and walking with Him, rather than just “looking the part” or being adjacent to the faith. While Jesus doesn’t explicitly define what the oil is in this specific passage, He uses it as a clear picture of preparation.
The main takeaway is this: not everyone who appears to be “in” is actually ready, and only those who are prepared when Christ comes will enter. On a symbolic level, it challenges the idea that mere association or the assumption of safety is enough. The parable is a call to be genuinely ready when the moment hits. In the original context of Matthew 25, “keeping watch” meant living in constant awareness of God, staying spiritually alert and remaining faithful despite the unknown timing.
So stop looking at the person next to you and look at your own jar. What is your “oil”? Is it a genuine, personal walk with God, or are you just running on the fumes of a religious reputation? If the door shut right now, would the Bridegroom recognize you, or would he say, “I never knew you”?
This raises a deeper concern. There is a growing number of believers who are faithful in attendance, consistent in behaviour, and willing in heart, yet unfamiliar with the voice, the presence, and the movement of the Holy Spirit in their own lives. They are not resistant. They are not rebellious. They are just untaught. We have learned how to gather, but we have not learned how to discern. Somewhere along the way, the visible has taken priority over the spiritual.
Do we know how to recognise the prompting of the Spirit? Do we know how to pray with authority and expectation? Do we know how to walk with someone through spiritual heaviness, through torment, through the unseen battles that suffocate the soul? If these things are absent, then something essential is missing, not in intention, but in formation. The very first thing Jesus sent His disciples out to do was to heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons (Matthew 10:7–8). And yet, how often do we actually see these things? How often do we step into them?
Houston, we have a problem: many do not even know their own spiritual giftings. What has been given remains dormant. What could be stirred is left untouched. There is uncertainty where there should be clarity. There are those who have experienced something real, yet lack the language to express it. Conviction becomes reduced to discomfort. Discernment becomes a vague sense of unease. The presence of God is left unnamed. Without teaching, spiritual experiences remain undefined. Without definition, they remain undeveloped. And what remains undeveloped is rarely spoken of. So silence grows, not because God is absent, but because understanding is.
Meanwhile, people sit in our churches carrying what they cannot explain: anxiety that presses like weight on the chest, intrusive thoughts that feel foreign yet constant, a heaviness that lingers unspoken. And when the moment comes to speak of spiritual reality, there is hesitation. Not because there is no hunger, but because there is no framework, no equipping, and no confidence in what they are sensing or experiencing.
This should unsettle us, not as condemnation, but as awakening. Because the issue may not be a lack of desire, but a lack of guidance. We have created spaces where people can belong, yet remain unequipped. We do not need to manufacture encounters or chase intensity, but we cannot continue to ignore what has been given. Are we teaching people how to recognise the Holy Spirit? Are we creating space for spiritual gifts to be understood, not feared? Are we equipping believers to walk in what they have been given?
Following the Spirit is not a concept. It is not language we borrow. It is a reality to be lived. And if we speak of Him, we must also know how to walk with Him. I recently attended a young adult night where the question was asked: “What was your first spiritual experience?” My soul felt almost sardonic as the deepest spiritual experiences shared were things like feeling a “haunted” presence in a house, or other small, surface level moments. If that is the depth we are reaching in our understanding of spiritual experiences, then we are failing to equip people with what is real, what is grounding, and what is actually of God.
I did not leave with judgment; I left with a weight. Not everyone will have the same experience. Not every encounter will look the same. But every believer should be able to say, with clarity and truth: “Yes, I know what it is to experience the Holy Spirit in my life.” If that cannot be said, then the question is not simply about individual faith, but about what we have taught, what we have modelled, and what we have made room for.