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Didache

About this book

Be Ready for the End

Chapter 16

1 Protect your life, keep your lamps burning, and always be ready. You do not know when the Lord will come.⁠ 2 Frequently gather together and seek what benefits your souls.⁠ The entirety of your faith won't be of value unless you're found perfect at the end. 3 In the last days, false prophets and corruptors will increase, the faithful will be led astray, and love will turn into hate.⁠ 4 As lawlessness grows, people will hate, persecute, and betray each other. The world's deceiver will appear as the Son of God,⁠ performing miracles,⁠ and unprecedented sin will be committed. 5 Humanity will face a fiery trial, and many will fall away. But those who remain steadfast in faith will be saved from under the curse.⁠ 6 Then, the signs of truth will appear: the sign in Heaven, the sound of the trumpet, and the resurrection of the dead. 7 However, not all the dead will rise, as it was said, 'The Lord will come, and all His saints with Him.'⁠ 8 Then, the world will see the Lord coming on the clouds of Heaven.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Luke 12:35 and Didache 16:1

New Testament · Early Christian

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Summary

In Luke, Jesus tells his disciples to keep their lamps burning and be ready, since the Son of Man comes at an unexpected hour. The last chapter of the Didache, an early church manual, begins with the same call to keep lamps lit and stay ready.

Passages

Luke 12:35

New Testament
35 “Get dressed for service and keep your lamps burning; 36 be like people waiting for their master to come back from the wedding celebration, so that when he comes and knocks, they can immediately open the door for him. 37 Blessed are those slaves whom their master finds alert when he returns! I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, have them take their place at the table, and will come and wait on them! 38 Even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night and finds them alert, blessed are those slaves! 39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
75–85 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Luke

Didache 16:1

Early Christian
1 Protect your life, keep your lamps burning, and always be ready. You do not know when the Lord will come. 2 Frequently gather together and seek what benefits your souls. The entirety of your faith won't be of value unless you're found perfect at the end. 3 In the last days, false prophets and corruptors will increase, the faithful will be led astray, and love will turn into hate.
90–120 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Didache

References

“... More difficult to assess is the possible parallel between Did. 16. 1a and Luke 12. 35. Some have seen this as clear evidence of the Didache’s dependence on Luke. Others have disagreed, arguing variously that Luke 12. 35 may be Q material, so that the Didache here is dependent on Q rather than Luke, that the language and imagery is stereotypical (cf. 1 Pet. 1. 13; Eph. 6. 14), that the verbal agreement between the Didache and Luke is not close enough to imply direct dependence, or that the Didache nowhere else shows knowledge of Luke’s gospel and hence is unlikely to do so here. Others again have been agnostic. It must be said that none of the arguments against dependence on Luke is fully convincing. ...”
Andrew Gregory and Christopher Tuckett, eds., The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 111.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Luke 12:35 and Didache 16:1

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