Biblion Bible Commentary
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The One Who Serves
Luke 22:24-30
24 A dispute also arose among them, which of them was considered to be greatest. · WEB
At that table, on that night, they argue about which of them is the greatest.
A dispute also arose among them, which of them was considered to be greatest Luke 22:24.
Only this Gospel puts the argument here. The others record it on the road Mark 9:34; this one has it break out at the supper, minutes after the bread and the cup and the announcement that one of them is a traitor.
That placement is the hardest thing in the chapter. It is not offered as a comment on their character so much as a plain record of what happened, and it is worth registering that the men who did this are the ones who went on to write and preach and die for him.
"The kings of the nations lord it over them, and those who have authority over them are called 'benefactors'" Luke 22:25.
Benefactor was a formal honorific, inscribed on monuments to rulers who had funded a temple or a granary. The word is chosen with some care: the system he is describing is not naked tyranny but power that has arranged to be thanked for itself.
"But not so with you. Rather, the one who is greater among you, let him become as the younger, and one who is governing, as one who serves" Luke 22:26.
The alternative keeps the categories and inverts them. There is a greater, and there is one who governs; what changes is the direction the office faces. And the younger is the person at the bottom of a household's order, the one sent for things.
"For who is greater, one who sits at the table, or one who serves? Isn't it he who sits at the table? But I am among you as one who serves" Luke 22:27.
The question is answered conventionally — of course the guest outranks the waiter — and then the convention is broken by a statement of fact. He is saying this at a table, having just handed round bread and a cup with his own hands. The demonstration and the sentence are the same act.
It is also the promise of chapter twelve arriving early: the master who returns and finds his servants watching will dress himself, make them recline, and will come and serve them Luke 12:37.
"But you are those who have continued with me in my trials" Luke 22:28.
This is the astonishing sentence. Said to men who are arguing about rank, who will all run within hours, and one of whom has been paid — and what he says is that they stayed with him. It is a generous reading of their record, offered before their worst night.
"I confer on you a kingdom, even as my Father conferred on me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom" Luke 22:29–30. The argument about greatness is answered by giving all of them the thing they were competing for, and the picture is again a meal — the one he said two paragraphs earlier he would not eat until it came.
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