“But One Thing Is Needful”
By T. E. Bowen
ONE day Jesus was enjoying the quiet of the home at Bethany. It was near the meal-time hour, and something must be prepared for the honored Guest. Mary sat near her blessed Lord and Deliverer, listening to the words falling from His lips. “Martha was cumbered [distracted, margin A.R.V.] about much serving; and she came up to Him; and said, Lord, dost Thou not care that my sister did leave me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.” It will be observed that this remark of Martha’s really contained a rebuke to the Master, that He did not appreciate the domestic situation sufficiently to thus hold Mary with His teaching from helping in preparing and serving the meal. In answer to her remark Jesus said, “Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful; for Mary hath chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” This lesson still comes with force not only to those who serve in the kitchen and dining-room in our homes, but to the husbands and fathers who till the farms and carry on the business of the shops and stores. “But one thing is needful.” Not that Jesus would have us give no attention to the common duties of life, for He knows we have need of temporal things, and gives instruction to be diligent in business; but He does rebuke that feverish anxiety, that “distraction,” that comes from much serving and despoils the Christian’s peace. All this is of the world and should be overcome. The Lord puts it in other words when He says, “For a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” “But one thing is needful.” And that one thing is obtaining just what Mary that very hour was securing—the assurance in her own soul that Jesus was to her a personal Saviour, her divine Redeemer. Having Him, she possessed all things. Losing Him, all would eventually be lost. And so of her, He said: “Mary hath chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” In this hour of mad rush for perishable things so soon to pass away, shall we catch the spirit of the world and with that miss obtaining the one needful thing? Surely we shall do well to heed the words of admonition addressed to Martha in Bethany, also those spoken on Mount Olivet to the disciples, after taking their minds down over the history of time to the last generation that should witness the signs which were to precede His second coming, when Jesus said: “But take heed to yourselves, lest haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come on you suddenly as a snare.” “But watch ye at every season, making supplication, that ye may prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” Surely it will be found then that “but one thing is needful.”