“Please Lord, help me get just one more.” Quote from, World War II American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss in the movie Hacksaw Ridge.
I recently heard the phrase “occupy till I come” on a podcast where the speakers had been discussing the power of technology that can be used for good or evil. I was not familiar with the phrase, but I suspected it was a quote from the Bible and I was not sure what the person meant. My first thought was that they might have meant to “hunker down and hold onto what you have till Jesus returns”.
I looked the phrase up and found it be a quote from the King James Version (KJV) of Luke 19:13. The context of this verse is Jesus telling the Parable of the Ten Minas in Luke 19:11-27 in response to questions about when the Kingdom of Heaven would appear. In the parable, a man of noble birth was going to travel to a far country to have himself appointed king and then to return to his own country. Before he left, he called ten of his servants to him and entrusted each of them an amount of money and told them, “Occupy till I come”.
The phrase “occupy till I come” seemed odd to me since other translations used something like, “put this money to work until I come back”. The Greek word translated as the English word occupy in the KJV, is pragmateuomai, which means to do business, to enter into commerce with the intent to make a legitimate gain. The word also implies taking a risk rather than playing it safe.
In the parable, once the man returned as king, he called his ten servants to give account for how they had used his money. The ones who took risk to earn a legitimate gain were praised, but the one who played it safe and took no risk, was rebuked for not doing anything with the money to earn more.
As I pondered this, trying to understand why the KJV version used the word occupy, I began to think about the possible relationship between the word occupy and occupation. There are multiple meanings of the words, but I was drawn to one definition for occupation which is, “the act of moving into a country, town, etc. and taking control of it using military force; the period of time during which a country, town, etc. is controlled in this way”.
This set me to thinking about some of the things the Bible has to say about ruling, reigning and the Kingdom of Heaven. When God created Adam and Eve in his image, he told them “be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). The Hebrew word translated as subdue is kâbash, which is where the phrase “to put the kabash” on something comes from. It means to conquer and subjugate something. The command to fill the earth and to kabash it seems to mean to occupy it, in the sense of the occupation of a country by a conquering people from another country. At the time that God spoke this, Adam and Eve were the sum total of all mankind on the earth. Who was there then for them to put the kabash on? It could apply to the creation itself since they were told by God to work and take care of the Garden of Eden where he had placed them (Genesis 2:15). But I think it was in reference to Satan himself who had been cast out of heaven for leading a rebellion of other angels against God himself (Isaiah 14:12-14).
You probably know the sad outcome of Satan’s encounter with Adam and Eve, when he deceived them into joining his rebellion by essentially telling them that God was not worthy of their obeying him, that he did not really have their best interest in his heart. However, as Athanasius of old wrote, “With God being good, what was he to do when his entire creation was on the road to ruin?” God’s answer was that one of Adam’s and Eve’s descendants would put the kabash on Satan and his allies (Genesis 3:15). However, it was many years before this promise was fulfilled when the Eternal Son of God, through whom the creation was spoken into being, became flesh in the womb of virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit. He was given the name Jesus which means God is Savior. Jesus himself, as God, put the kabash on Satan and his allies when he triumphed over them by his death on the cross when he defeated them and made a public spectacle of them (Colossians 2:15).
So, what does all of this have to do with Jesus’ parable where the man of noble birth told his servants to “occupy till I come”? Remember, the parable was told in the context of asking when the Kingdom of Heaven would appear. God reconciled the entire cosmos unto himself by being one with Jesus when he was crucified on the cross and his is no longer counting our sins against us (2 Corinthians 5:17-19). Jesus is now seated at the right hand of our Father (Ephesians 1:19-21) where he has been made both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36) and all authority and heaven and earth has been given to him (Matthew 28:18). Those who have believed in their heart and confessed with their mouth that he is Lord (Romans 10:8-9) have also been seated with him in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 2:6) and he has made us ministers of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:19-20). Before Jesus ascended to his Father he said, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).
We get to work with Jesus to put the kabash on Satan and his allies by telling the good news of the Gospel of Jesus. The Apostle Paul said, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). In other words, we are to “occupy till he comes”, remembering that the government of his kingdom rests upon the shoulders of Jesus and that of the increase of his government and peace there shall never be an end. This is good news!
Ok, if you have read this far, you may be wondering what the reference means at the top of this article about Desmond T. Doss. His life story is told in the movie Hacksaw Ridge which is a bloody account of the invasion of Okinawa, Japan near the end of the World War II. His life story is a good example of one who lived their life to put the kabash on the works of the devil in the middle of a battlefield. If you have never seen it you can get an idea by following this link to watch the trailer for the movie Hacksaw Ridge (2016) Official Trailer – “Believe” – Andrew Garfield – Bing video . Jesus came to seek and save the lost and he desires that none be left wounded on the battlefield. May we give ourselves to the prayer of “Please Lord, help me get one more.”
Blessings,
Kevin