But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to eat?
All Commentaries on Luke 17:7 Go To Luke 17
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
But who is there of you, having a servant ploughing or keeping sheep. Christ represses the vainglory of the Apostles, lest, when by their exalted faith they had performed wonderful and stupendous Acts , they might glory in them and not ascribe to God, whose it Isaiah , the honour. " Hebrews ," says Euthymius," who attains the result, plucks up the effect of boasting. The servant was not a slave as the heretics say, but one who was hired, and who, in addition to the service agreed upon or ordered by his master, might perform another for him to which he was not bound." Here observe that the heretics abuse this passage to the opposing of good works, but wrongly. For this servant, as clearly appears, truly deserved the daily payment due to him by agreement, but did not deserve that his master should render him thanks; for masters are not accustomed to bestow thanks upon those whom they pay for their labour. Thanks are only given to assistance rendered gratuitously and without payment. We who are the servants of God, through the works ordered by Him, if we offer them, merit eternal life, as the hired servant who has laboured throughout the day deserves his daily payment. Mark 9:41; Matthew 10:41; Revelation 11:18. For although our works, as far as they are ours, are of little or no value, yet so far as they flow from the grace of Christ, and are therefore the works of Christ, our head, they are of great worth and desert, and do merit, as such, eternal glory; for grace is the seed of glory; especially as God, of His immeasurable goodness, has been pleased to promise to them, as done by the grace of Christ, eternal glory.
