Mat 25:26 His lord answered and said unto him, [You] wicked and slothful servant, you knew that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed:
Alternative: Responding to this, his lord told him: Cowardly and timid servant: You saw that I harvested where I had not planted and pinching from what I hadn't harvested.

Two things are interesting here in the Greek that are lost in the English.

First, it brands the servant as cowardly and timid, rather than wicked and lazy. The "wicked" is from poneros, which is usually translated in KJV as wicked or evil, but which is better translated as "worthless." However, it also means "cowardly" and given the context of the master responding to the servant's statement that he is afraid, this seems like the better choice. Especially since it is coupled with a word that means primarily "diffident" and "timid" rather than lazy.

As we showed in the last verse, a major element of Christ's message is "fear not." He is saying here that those who act solely out of fear are worthless. An interesting question for readers: does this sentiment extend to those who act out of fear of damnation? My sense is that Christ wants us to be more concerned about accomplishing our purpose than about avoiding error. I maintain that many get this wrong simply because sowing fear is in the best interests of religious leaders. Remember, Christ accuses (Mat 23:4) the religious leaders of his era of putting burdens on people. The ideas of being burdened and being fearful and worthless come together in the word poneros.

The second interesting change here is in how the master repeats what the fearful servant said. The servant used one word for know, gignôskô, and the only change is that statement made by the master is to change that word to eido. The first indicates learning and reflection, but the second primarily means "to see." In other words, the master is saying that the servant didn't learn from reflection but that the servant only saw what he thought was obvious.

The timid servant's observation was right: the master did not sow or harvest for his share. However, what the servant refused to learn from reflection was that the master's contribution of land or money was as necessary ingredient in the result than the labor.

The deeper lesson here is that "doing" is not the same as accomplishment. Since Christ wants us to focus on being productive, we have to understand the complete recipe for productivity. This means we must think about ingredients and combine our actions with the desires and contribution of others. This bring us again to the three realms of the mental, physical, and emotional, the cycle of thought, action, and feeling.


"Wicked" is from ponêros (poneros), which we discuss extensively in this page. In a moral sense, "worthless," "base," and "cowardly."

"Slothful" is from oknêros (okneros), which means "diffident," "timid," "hesitant," and "shy."

"Know" is from eido (eido), which means "to see," "to examine," and "to know." It is not from gignôskô (ginosko) which means "to learn to know," "to know by reflection or observation," and "to perceive." Christ uses both words, sometimes in the same phrase, but he uses them to distinguish between what we can know from our senses--eido--and what we can know from reason (ginosko).