Verse 35
And he sat down, and called the twelve; and he saith unto them, If any man would be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all.
Alas, the disciples of the Lord in all ages have invariably lost their spirituality in just such a manner as this, falling into all kinds of vanity in the pursuit of human ambition. There has hardly ever been a congregation on earth in which the question of who would be the "greatest" did not at one time or another hinder the work of God. Against such ambitions, the Lord has imposed a standard of greatness that depends upon service and not upon position. However this was not a problem that the Lord confronted only once. A comparison of several New Testament references (Luke 9:48; 22:26; Matthew 20:26; 23:11; and Mark 10:43) indicates that this question came up frequently in different situations, the instance before us being, in all probability, "an independent saying."[18]
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