The Full Storeroom

Imagine that you walk into a house where it smells of bread.

Not an empty house with a bare cupboard and crumbs on the shelf. A house where the storeroom is full — grain from past harvests in the sacks, oil in the jars, fresh bread still warm beside the old supply. And in that house lives a man who likes nothing better than to open that door. He brings out the old, and the new, and he sets it on the table, and he feeds everyone who is hungry. No miser brooding over his treasure. A master of the house who is rich — and who knows his riches as something to give away.

With that image Jesus ends the whole parable-chamber of Matthew 13. For seven parables long He has painted the Kingdom — the seed, the tares, the mustard seed, the leaven, the treasure, the pearl, the net. And then, when the crowds are gone and only the small circle is still within, He puts one question and gives one final image. "Have you understood all this?" And when they say "yes," the closing word falls: "Therefore every scribe instructed in the Kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his storeroom things new and old" (Matthew 13:51–52).

A strange ending. You would expect the chamber to end with the heaviest image — the net that drags everything in, the fiery furnace on the shore. But no. The last word is not the furnace, but the storeroom. Not the separation at the end, but the giving out in the present. Not what God will one day accomplish, but what you may do today with what you received. The chamber does not end with a threat. It ends with an open door and a full treasure.

And that is the glory I want to show you in this chapter — before a single word of admonition falls, for so is the order in this book. The glory first. And the glory is this: that an ordinary man, an unschooled fisherman if need be, can grow up through the school of Jesus into a master of the house with a full storeroom. Into someone who no longer needs only to be fed, but feeds others himself. One of the most splendid things a man can become in this life.

From Hearer to Expositor

Note that one question-and-answer. "Have you understood all this?" — "Yes." A passing little sentence, it seems. It is the examination question of the whole chamber.

For the verb Jesus chooses — syniēmi, to see through, to bring together, to understand — governs the chamber from beginning to end. The seed on the path is whoever hears the word "and does not understand" (13:19); the good soil is whoever hears it "and understands" (13:23). The whole of chapter 13 is one exercise in understanding over against not-understanding. And now Jesus asks it outright: have you understood it? The disciples say yes. With that they set themselves on the right side of the dividing line the sower drew. They are the good soil. They have heard and understood.

And then that one little word that changes everything: "Therefore." Dia touto — for that reason. No loose saying that Jesus tacks on at the end, but a conclusion. Jesus does not say: there exists somewhere an ideal scribe, and perhaps you will become that one day. He says: because you have heard and understood these mysteries, you are it. Here and now. Through this teaching you have been made from hearers into expositors.

That is the quiet reversal. For six parables long Jesus compared the Kingdom with something — a seed, a net, a treasure. But this seventh does not compare the Kingdom with something. It compares the schooled disciple with something. The gaze turns: from the treasure to the man who gets the treasure into his hands. And that man — that is you, if you have heard and understood.

A Scribe, and Yet Wholly Different

You have to know how provocative Jesus' choice of words is, or you miss half of it.

A scribe — grammateus, from gramma, the letter — was not a copyist alone. He was the highly trained expert and expositor of the Torah, the spiritual authority of village and synagogue, the man you came to with the hard questions. Scribes sat "in Moses' seat" (23:2). They were the men of the Book.

And precisely these men are, in Matthew, almost always Jesus' opponents. "The scribes and Pharisees" — you hear it through the whole gospel as a refrain, and in chapter 23 Jesus thunders "woe to you" seven times over their heads. For whoever reads Matthew, "scribe" calls up resistance sooner than admiration.

All the more astonishing what Jesus does here. He takes that loaded word and reshapes it. There also exists a scribe of another kind, He says — one who is "instructed in the Kingdom." And note the loveliest word of the saying. The Greek does not simply say "instructed." It says mathēteutheis: made a disciple in the service of the Kingdom. The scribe of the Kingdom is therefore no autodidact, no self-made expert of the law. He is a pupil who becomes a teacher.

Do you see what that means for the men sitting there listening? Peter, Andrew, James, John — fishermen. No scholars. No years in the houses of learning, never seated at the feet of a famous rabbi. By the standard of the Pharisaic scribe they amounted to nothing. And now Jesus says to them: you are scribes of the Kingdom. Not despite your discipleship, but through your discipleship. The unlettered fisherman is lifted up to something that the educated Pharisee with all his knowledge precisely is not: a master of the house who can feed the whole house.

That is grace breaking through you. You need not be a born scholar. You need have no titles. You need only be a pupil who hears and understands — and in the school of Christ you grow into someone with a full storeroom.

In Depth — Mathēteutheis: the Scribe and the Disciple in One Person

The verb Jesus chooses carries the whole reversal. He does not say didachtheis ("taught") but mathēteutheis — from mathēteuō, "to make a disciple," derived from mathētēs, pupil. (A well-documented linguistic fact.) Literally: "made a disciple in the service of the Kingdom." The Kingdom-scribe is no autodidact and no self-made expert of the law — he is someone to whom something has been done.

The force shows from the place where the word returns. Matthew uses mathēteuō three more times, and the weightiest is the Great Commission: "make disciples of all nations" (mathēteusate, 28:19). What Jesus, at the end of the gospel, charges the world to do, He here already names the origin of the scribe himself. The circle closes: whoever has been made a disciple makes disciples in his turn. (A weighed reading that 13:52 and 28:19 are deliberately linked by the same word; the linguistic bond is certain, the intended echo is an interpretation.)

Here lies the quiet shock for the fishermen. Grammateus and mathētēs were in Jesus' world almost opposites: the one had spent years in the houses of learning and gained authority, the other was still on the way, still unformed. Jesus sets them side by side in one person. The unlettered Peter becomes a scripture-expert of a new kind — not despite his discipleship, but through it. You do not come in by learnedness, but by letting yourself be taught. And precisely that the educated opponent refused.

The Master of the House and His Treasure

And then the image itself: a master of a house who brings out of his storeroom things new and old. Three words, and each counts.

"Master of a house" — oikodespotēs, from oikos, house, and despotēs, lord. The man responsible for the supply and the welfare of the whole house. No chance image in Matthew: the oikodespotēs keeps returning as an image for God or for whoever manages the house on His behalf — the lord of the vineyard (20:1), the lord at the tares (13:27), the watchful master of the house (24:43). The scribe is therefore not compared with a scholar in a study, alone with his books, but with a manager who feeds his household. Someone who cares.

"Out of his storeroom" — thēsauros. Treasure, storeroom, the place where valuables and provisions are kept. The same word stood a few verses earlier as "the treasure in the field" (13:44), for which a man sold everything. And it returns in the Sermon on the Mount: "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (6:21). The master of the house therefore brings out no strange possession that he manages, but his own treasure — out of what the teaching has stored up in him. And where that treasure is, there is his heart too.

"Brings out" — and here a word falls that you may not miss. Ekballei, literally "throws out." The same root-word, ballō, as in the net that a few verses earlier was "cast" into the sea. But see the difference. The net throws inward, drags the whole sea up onto the shore. The master of the house does the reverse: he throws outward. He gives out. A treasure that only lies stored up feeds no one. But this treasure is opened.

Do you feel the movement? The whole life of the disciple lies in those two words. First there was a hauling inward — everything that came into the heart through the school of Jesus. And then it is brought outward. First to be fed, then to feed. The storeroom is not the final destination. It is the station from which the table is set.

In Depth — The Storeroom (thēsauros): What the Image Told a First-Century Hearer

For us "treasure" is something gleaming in a chest; for Jesus' hearers the thēsauros was first of all the storeroom of the house — the space where the master of the house kept what the household needed. (Well documented about the world of the time.) No display case of valuables, but sacks of grain, jars of oil, dried fruit, the bread of that week. The word spans both: valuable possession and provision, what you put away because it has worth and what you live from.

And a good master of the house knew his room. He did not let the old supply spoil by setting only the fresh on the table, and he did not live solely off the old while the new lay unused. He gave the household "food in due season" (cf. 24:45) — according to need, out of the full riches. (A weighed reading that the image of the provision-room ties in with the "food in due season" of the faithful steward in Matthew 24.) So the spiritual master of the house is no scholar with a cupboard full of books that he cherishes, but a manager of provisions, with his room beside a table full of hungry mouths.

Things New and Old

And what does he bring out? "Things new and old" — kaina kai palaia.

The most-supported reading, tying in seamlessly with the whole of Matthew: the old things are the Scriptures of the Old Testament — the law and the prophets, the whole history of salvation of Israel, the treasure the old scribe already managed. The new things are the revelation of the Kingdom that has now, in Jesus, come — the mysteries that have been unfolded in these seven parables.

The schooled disciple brings out both, because they belong together. Precisely what Jesus declared in the Sermon on the Mount: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17). The new does not abolish the old. It fulfills it. Therefore the Kingdom-scribe cannot choose. Whoever has only the old knows the law but lacks the Fulfiller. Whoever thinks he has only the new cuts himself off from the root, and is left with a gospel that hangs in the air.

Note the order. You would expect "old and new" — first the old, then the new, in the course of time. But Jesus says "new and old." The new first. For the disciple who has just come to know the Kingdom, the new stands foremost — the fresh light in which now the old too first begins to shine. It is as though someone had for years seen a painting hanging in the half-dark, and a lamp goes on, and suddenly he sees what is on it. The painting did not change. But in that new light the old is first seen as it was meant to be. And at the same time the old is not thrown away — it is carried along. "And old." The lamp does not replace the painting; it makes it shine.

In Depth — "New and Old" (kaina kai palaia): No Rupture, but Fulfillment

The most-supported reading ties in seamlessly with the whole of Matthew: the old things (palaia) are the Scriptures of the Old Testament — the law and the prophets — and the new things (kaina) are the revelation of the Kingdom that has now, in Jesus, come. (A weighed reading; broadly supported, but an interpretation.) The master of the house brings out both because they belong together, and that is the rule Jesus already gave in the Sermon on the Mount: "I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17).

Yet there is a second voice that is honestly set beside this one. Jesus also spoke of new wine in old wineskins and a new patch on an old garment (9:16–17), and there the emphasis lies precisely on the difference: the new will not let itself be pressed into old forms. (A weighed reading that 9:16–17 and 13:52 do not contradict each other but light up two sides of one matter.) No contradiction. Jesus' message is truly new and does not fit in the old vessels, and it is the fulfillment of the old and will not let itself be detached from it. The wise master of the house knows both lines of tension.

Some interpreters fill in "old and new" more broadly — everything a ripe teacher draws from his experience, tested and fresh. (Disputed which nuance stands foremost; the readings do not exclude each other.) What stands: the scribe of the Kingdom is a man of the whole of Scripture, not of one book against the other.

The Riches of Being Rich in the Word

There is a glory in all this, for this chapter is above all a chapter about glory.

There is something inexpressibly rich about being rich in the Word. Not rich because you own many books, know many facts, win arguments. But rich the way a master of the house is rich whose room is full and whose door stands open — you have something in your hands that people live from. You see hunger, and you have something to still it.

Think of the moments when you tasted that yourself. Someone sat across from you in the pit, and you heard a word from Scripture come up, old and tested, and you passed it on, and you saw the light return to his eyes. Or a child asked you something about God, and you gave out what you yourself once received. One of the purest joys there is: to see that the treasure you received comes to life in another.

And that treasure is inexhaustible. An ordinary storeroom grows empty as you give out of it — the more you give, the less you have. The storeroom of the Word works the other way. The more you give out, the more you yourself discover what is in it. Whoever teaches learns double. Whoever feeds another is fed himself. No pious exaggeration; the experience of everyone who ever fed another out of Scripture. You give away, and you keep more than you had.

The Hebrews Line: from Milk to Solid Food

And now the heart of this chapter, the core around which everything turns. For the scribe of the Kingdom is above all the grown-up steward. He is no baby anymore. And to understand that, the letter to the Hebrews is needed.

The writer has something deep to tell his readers — something about Melchizedek, about the high priesthood of Christ. But he stalls. And he says why: "Concerning this we have much to say, things hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you again need someone to teach you the first, simplest elements of the words of God; and you have become like those who need milk and not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, who by use have trained their senses to discern between good and evil" (Hebrews 5:11–14).

Hear what stands here. Given the time, you ought to be teachers — you should long since have stood on the other side of the table, not as mouths that are fed, but as hands that feed. And instead you again need someone to teach you the very first, simplest things. You have remained babies. You still drink milk. Worse: you ought to be giving others solid food.

Here the Kingdom-scribe lies open before you. For what is he other than someone who has, over the course of time, grown up from baby to teacher? The master of the house with the full storeroom is precisely the mature one of Hebrews 5 — who no longer drinks only milk, but eats solid food, and who out of his storeroom feeds others. The image of Matthew and that of Hebrews are the same, seen from two sides. Both say: this is the goal. Not to remain stuck at the milk, but to climb up to the table — and there not only to sit, but to set the table oneself.

Note the last word of that passage. The mature are those "who by use have trained their senses." Discernment does not come of itself, and not by hearing something once — it comes by chewing for yourself what was first chewed for you. The master of the house did not become it in one night. He became it through years of hauling in and digesting, until his room was full and his discernment sharp. Maturity does not fall out of the sky. It is a growth, milk after milk, dish after dish, until you can feed others yourself.

In Depth — From Milk to Solid Food: the Line of Maturity as the Core of Stewardship (Hebrews 5:11–14)

The letter to the Hebrews draws the line that lies beneath this whole chapter, and it draws it sharply. The writer does not reproach his readers for not knowing the doctrine, but for the fact that, "given the time," they ought already to have been teachers and are not (Hebrews 5:12). (Well documented: the text stands plainly in the letter.) The measure is not how much you know, but whether you have, over the course of time, grown along from receiving to giving.

Two words carry the image. Milk (gala) is for the immature, "unskilled in the word of righteousness"; solid food (sterea trophē) is for the mature one (teleios) — not whoever collected more facts, but whoever became trained. For the mature are those "who by use have trained their senses" (5:14). Discernment comes "by use" (dia tēn hexin) — through training, not through hearing once. (A weighed reading that this "by use" is the heart of the line of maturity and not a subordinate clause.)

And see how the image of Hebrews and that of Matthew coincide: two faces of one reality. Matthew paints the full-grown steward as a master of the house who gives out; Hebrews as the mature one who eats solid food — and gives to others. The full-grown one has "old and new," the law and the Kingdom-revelation, digested and can now, chewed and lived through, pass them on to whoever cannot yet take them. Here lies the core of the stewardship of the Word: not to remain stuck at the milk, but to climb up to the table — and there to set the table oneself.

The Eternal Baby

And here the tone tilts, for over against this glory stands a shadow — and precisely because the glory is so great, the shadow is so sharp. Let me say it straight in the eye, for this book gains nothing by evading it.

There exists a believer who never grows up. Not because he is not saved — that is not the issue here, his salvation is sure. But because he, year after year, remains a baby. He is fed, and fed, and fed, and he never feeds anyone back. He has been sitting in the pew for thirty years and still drinks milk. He consumes the umpteenth service, the umpteenth sermon, the umpteenth podcast, the umpteenth book — and he does not grow, and he never rises to set the table for another. Measured by the time, he should long since have been a teacher. And he has become a baby with gray hair.

This is one of the quietest tragedies of the Western church, and that is why it must be said aloud here. We have raised a generation that is unrivaled in how well it is fed. Never before was there so much teaching within reach — sermons on your phone, conferences in every city, books in abundance, the best teachers always available. And yet the room stands empty with many. Not because nothing came in, but because nothing ever went out. We have become connoisseurs of the good service, the good speaker, the good music — we soak up the umpteenth edifying service, and we edify no one ourselves. We are left sitting with the milk in hand, while the world around us starves, and we wait for the next meal for ourselves.

That is the comfortable sin of this chapter. Not the gross deed. Not the drunkard who squanders his life. But the respectable, pious, well-grounded believer who receives everything and passes nothing on. Who attends one conference after another and never takes a single person by the hand. Who knows Scripture as a connoisseur and never gives it out to a hungry one. It seems so innocent. He does nothing shameful — he only leaves something undone.

And precisely that leaving undone is the second face of the hoarder. Picture the master of the house who has his storeroom full — grain, oil, bread — and keeps the door locked. He counts his supply, he is proud of it, he knows exactly what is in it. But he gives nothing out. The household goes hungry on the other side of the door, and he sits on his treasure. The grain grows old, the oil rancid, the bread moldy. And in the end he stands with a room full of spoiled supply, while he could have fed everyone. So is the believer who hoards knowledge and keeps it for himself. Perhaps laziness — giving out costs effort, being fed is more comfortable. Perhaps fear — whoever gives out makes himself vulnerable, may say something wrong. Perhaps even a piety gone off the rails: who am I to teach another. The result is the same. The treasure spoils in the room.

Do you hear how this completes the whole chamber? The sower-parable painted three ways in which the word did not come to fruit: the seed on the path, the rocky ground, the thorns. And the good soil was whoever heard the word, understood it, "and bears fruit and produces" (13:23). The hoarder is the soil that received the seed and kept it to itself. He has heard, he has even understood, but he bears no fruit — for fruit is what feeds others. An apple that never leaves the tree feeds no one. A treasure that never leaves the room feeds no one. The question at the end of the chamber is not: what have you hauled in? The question is: what have you given out?

Become a giver, says Jesus in this closing word. No hoarder. A master of the house, no baby with gray hair.

Do I Still Drink Milk?

Here I turn the pen on myself, for it would be dishonest and proud to write this chapter as though it were about someone else.

I know the hoarder from the inside. I know the quiet pride in a room that fills up — the reading, the studying, the collecting, the enjoying of good teaching — and the cunning voice that says it is enough. I have consumed more services than I can count, and I ask myself honestly: how many people have I fed? I know how comfortable it is to choose the receiving side, to hide behind the pious "I still have so much to learn." And if I am really honest: the milk I keep drinking is sometimes no modesty but laziness — I would rather be fed than feed, because it feels safer to remain a consumer than to become a master of the house.

Do I rise to set the table, or do I still sit with the bottle? Have I already taken someone by the hand and fed him out of what I received, or do I still keep my treasure for myself, and does it grow older and dustier with the year?

I do not ask that question to beat you or myself down. I ask it because the turn inward takes the pride out of the admonition. Whoever points the finger at the eternal babies and forgets himself is himself the biggest baby of all — a connoisseur who judges others and feeds no one himself. The question is not for the other. It is for me, today, and for you, today. And the lovely thing is: it is still today. The room is not yet spoiled. The door can still open. And there is a hungry one within reach who can be fed out of the treasure you have.

The Steward of the Word

It must become practical, for the glory and the admonition must land somewhere — in hands that give out.

What does the steward of the Word do? He brings out things old and new. No man of one book against the other; a man of the whole of Scripture. And that means three things.

First: you do not let the old things lie. The law and the prophets, the psalms and the histories — that is your treasure, and it is not outdated. It is "old" the way good wine is old, not the way moldy bread is old. Many believers feed themselves and others only with the new, with half the room, and leave the old in the shadow.

Second: you do not hide the new things. The revelation of the Kingdom in Christ, the mysteries unfolded in these parables — that is the fresh bread, still warm, and it belongs on the table. Some remain stuck in the old alone, in the letter without the Spirit. But the master of the house brings both: he lets the old shine in the new and the new take root in the old.

And third, the heart of the image: give out. Teach. Feed. The treasure is not to be kept but to be spent. Begin where you are, with what you have. You need not become a teacher for thousands; most masters of the house simply feed their own house. A father who opens the Scriptures to his children at the table is a master of the house of the Kingdom. A woman who takes a younger woman by the hand and passes on what she received is a master of the house of the Kingdom. Someone who visits a lonely neighbor and leaves behind an old word from the psalms is a master of the house of the Kingdom. Only open the door and give out — and you will find that the room, in the giving out, stays full.

For the Lord did not fill you to let you sit full. He filled you to let you give out. And every time you open the door and bring something out — an old word, a new insight, a comfort from Scripture — you yourself grow up from baby to teacher, from consumer to master of the house. That is the way to maturity. Not by receiving more, but by beginning to give.

The Self-Portrait Behind the Mirror

There is a last layer in this image, and it makes the whole chapter deeper. For who is, in the whole of Matthew, the perfect master of the house? Who, in this chamber, literally brings out "things new and old"?

Look back. Who brings forward there the old words of the prophets — Isaiah 6, about hearing and not understanding (13:14–15), the psalm that says "I will utter things that were hidden" (13:35)? And who unfolds there the new mysteries of the Kingdom, that no eye had ever seen? That is Jesus. He is the master of the house par excellence, the oikodespotēs out of whose treasure all this comes. The perfect expositor of the old and the perfect bringer of the new. When He says "every scribe instructed in the Kingdom is like a master of a house," then He is painting first of all Himself — and therefore a norm for the pupil.

No either-or. A self-portrait of the Master that becomes a charge for the pupil. Jesus does not only say: become such a master of the house. He says: become like Me. He has, the whole chamber long, opened His storeroom for you, old and new, and fed you until you understood. And now He says: do you the same.

Feel how that lifts the matter up. If giving out were only a duty, it would be heavy. But it is no strange burden. It is joining in with what the Master Himself does — treading in His footsteps, doing the same thing He did when He opened His treasure for you. Whoever gives out of the Word continues nothing less than the work of Christ. That is the highest honor a servant can receive: to be allowed to do the work of his Lord.

The Circle Is Closed

See now how the whole parable-chamber closes itself, and why Jesus closes it precisely with this image and not with the furnace.

The chamber began with a sower who scatters. And it ends with a master of the house who gives out. No coincidence; the circle that is made round. At the beginning the sower throws out the seed, and some falls on good soil and bears fruit, thirty-, sixty-, a hundredfold. At the end it appears what that fruit is: the good soil becomes itself a giver. Whoever heard well goes to sow himself. Whoever was fed goes to feed. And between the two lies the whole life of the disciple, who heard, understood, grew up, and went to give out himself.

And it even binds the net to the whole — the heavy image that precedes this closing word. The net hauls "everything" in, and the separation comes later, on the shore. The master of the house hauls "everything" — old and new — out, and gives it out now. The one image looks to the end, the other to the present. And between those two the disciple lives: waiting for the separation that God accomplishes, and meanwhile giving out of the treasure that God gave him. The pilgrim who lives for the city does not sit still in the inn with his treasure on his lap. He has the door open and the table set, with an eye to the Master who can return at any moment.

Therefore the chamber ends not with a mystery and not with a threat, but with a charge and an open door. The mysteries were not given to be hoarded. They were given to be given out.

In Depth — The Scribe-Saying as the Reading Key to the Whole of Matthew 13

Why does Jesus end the parable-chamber not with the fiery furnace of the net, but with the master of the house? Because the closing saying is no addendum but the key that fits the lock of the whole chamber — it tells what you are to do with all those images. (A weighed reading; broadly supported among interpreters.) Three things lift it above a loose saying: it literally closes off the chamber (13:53 follows directly with the fixed closing formula), it indicates what the disciples have just become, and it gives the reading rule for the whole.

And that reading rule is a movement: from the sower who scatters (13:3) to the master of the house who gives out (13:52) — the first and the last parable of the series, with everything in between. (Well documented that these are the opening and closing parables.) And so the saying even binds the heavy net to the whole: the net hauls "everything" in and the separation comes later, on the shore; the master of the house hauls "everything" out and gives it out now. (A weighed reading that the net and the scribe stand deliberately as counterparts: hauling in over against giving out, consummation over against the present.)

The Open Door and the Full Treasure

Let me end where I began: at the house that smells of bread.

Imagine that it is your house. That your whole life of learning and receiving — all the sermons and books and quiet hours in Scripture, all the milk you drank and all the solid food you learned to digest — lies stored in a room that is yours, a treasure you truly possess. Old and new, everything the Master has opened up for you. And beside that room a table, and around that table hungry people — your children, your neighbors, the younger believer who looks up to you, the seeker who does not know where he is to find bread.

And the door stands open.

That is the glory that lies before you, and it is no distant dream but your real destiny. Not to remain an eternal consumer, a baby with gray hair who only waits for the next meal for himself. But to grow up into one who gives out — a master of the house with a full treasure, who feeds the whole house out of a richness he received for nothing and passes on with joy. There the Master draws you, not with a whip but with an invitation: become like Me, give out like Me, feed as I have fed.

And it is still today. The room is not yet spoiled. The treasure still lies there. The hungry are within reach. And the door — the door still stands open, and waits only for a hand that pushes it open and begins to give out. For a life of giving out lies ready for you, and at the end of it, at the table of the Master, lies the word this whole book longs for already on His lips: well done, good and faithful steward — you have fed the house; enter into the joy of your lord.