Over the 35 years I’ve been a Christian, I’ve heard pastors and Bible teachers interpret Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids in a wide variety of ways. Lately, this parable has become quite popular among the end-times watcher community on YouTube.
Unfortunately, many end-times watchers are misusing this parable to threaten their hearers by warning them to make sure they are not a “foolish bridesmaid.” I frequently hear these end-times watchers claim that ‘foolish’ Christians who do not have enough “oil in their lamps” will not be taken to heaven in the Rapture.
So although I discuss this parable in my book A Detailed Biblical Introduction To The End Times: The Pre-Tribulation Rapture, Seven-Year Tribulation, and Pre-Millennial Return of Jesus Christ available at Amazon, I want to analyze this parable in more detail here in this article.
In this parable in Matthew 25:1-13, Jesus tells a story about ten bridesmaids. These ten girls are apparently together in a room at night waiting for someone called the ‘bridegroom’ to come. Each girl has her own oil lamp. However, the bridegroom is delayed, and so the girls all fall asleep. At midnight, someone calls out that the bridegroom is coming, and so the girls wake up and trim their lamps (i.e., adjust the wick and re-fill the oil reservoir to ensure the lamp burns brightly again).
The ‘wise’ bridesmaids brought extra oil for their lamps, however, the ‘foolish’ bridesmaids did not, so their lamps are on the verge of going out. The foolish bridesmaids ask the wise bridesmaids to share their extra oil, but the wise bridesmaids refuse to share since there wouldn’t be enough oil for anyone. The wise bridesmaids tell the foolish bridesmaids to go buy extra oil for themselves. But while the foolish bridesmaids are away, the bridegroom arrives, and the wise bridesmaids go into the marriage feast with him.
When the foolish bridesmaids return, they knock on the door and ask to be allowed into the feast. However, the bridegroom tells them “Truly, I do not know you.” The conclusion of the story is “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Some Bible translations add “in which the Son of Man is coming.”
On the surface, it could appear that this parable is teaching that not all true Christians will be taken to heaven when the Rapture happens. This idea is called the partial-rapture theory.
Yet as I wrote about in my last article here on Rapture Ready, the partial-rapture theory is a false teaching. The easiest way to refute this theory is to see how Paul clearly says in 1 Corinthians 15:51-53 that, at the Rapture, all true Christians who are alive will be instantly transformed from mortal to immortal.
Paul also never warns in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 or anywhere else that only some living Christians will be caught up together with all resurrected Christians when the Rapture happens. If a partial Rapture were going to happen, Paul would surely have been very clear about what Christians have to do in order to be included in it. Instead, Paul simply tells Christians to encourage one another by reminding each other of the coming Rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:18).
The fact that the very first moment anyone believes in Jesus’ promise that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life (John 3:16, 5:24, 6:40), that new Christian is immediately sealed with the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of his or her future bodily redemption (Ephesians 1:13-14, 4:30). This redemption will happen at the day of the Rapture (Luke 21:28, Romans 8:23, 1 Corinthians 15:50-53, 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17).
Therefore, we know that whatever this parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids is teaching, it is not teaching that some true Christians will be left behind at the Rapture. This is still true even if these Christians who are not currently watching for the Rapture are ‘backslidden,’ are sinning, are living in ‘habitual sin,’ or at worst, have lost their faith. Likewise, this parable also cannot teach that any true Christian can lose his or her salvation for any reason.
All Scripture was inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16), who is the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9), and God never lies (Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18). Therefore, every word of the Bible is true, and no part of Scripture can ever contradict itself since, in a contradiction, one of the two conflicting statements must be false.
This truth means that no verse of Scripture can ever teach that people gain eternal life by their own efforts to do good works or follow God’s laws, and no verse can teach that true Christians can lose their salvation. Such a teaching would contradict other Bible verses, such as those listed above, as well as others like Romans 3:21-28, 4:5, 6:23, and Galatians 2:16. These verses all clearly say that people are eternally saved only by putting their faith in Christ alone as their Savior, apart from any good works they might do — including watching for the Rapture, avoiding sinning, or anything else.
Therefore, careful interpreters of Scripture cannot use the parable of the bridesmaids to threaten that some true Christians can lose their salvation, or to claim that some true Christians will not be included in the Rapture.
Additionally, if we pay close attention, the details of this parable do not even fit with a partial-rapture situation. Today, least some small fraction of all true Christians is actively watching and/or longing for Jesus to return at the Rapture. Those who cling to this “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) are promised that we will be rewarded with an eternal heavenly crown (2 Timothy 4:8).
But in the parable, all of the girls fall asleep, and all their lamps need to be trimmed. None of the sleeping bridesmaids were actively watching for the bridegroom’s return. Yet as end-times watchers see the signs in the world that clearly show the start of the Tribulation is drawing very near (e.g., Matthew 24:3-13, Mark 13:3-13), we should become even more watchful, not less (Luke 21:25-28). We also tend to become more willing to take risks and speak out to warn others about the coming Tribulation, and share the gospel. We do this so that hopefully more people can be saved now before the Rapture, so that they do not have to go through the worst seven years in the entire history of the world (Matthew 24:21, Revelation 3:10).
So it does not make sense to say that all Christians today who are watching for Jesus’ return at the Rapture will ‘fall asleep’ in the future and need to be suddenly ‘woken up’ to somehow get our ‘lamps’ burning brightly again before the Rapture happens.
Indeed, based on everything that we see going on in the world at the start of 2026, most end-times watchers I follow (and myself included) believe that Rapture could happen literally any second now. Thus, there is simply no time for the above misinterpretation of the parable of the bridesmaids to make any sense, unless the Rapture and Tribulation are somehow still years away. Even then, such a claim makes no sense, because many end-times watchers alive today have been watching for thirty years, forty years, fifty years, and some even longer than that. So the mere passage of time is no guarantee that end-times watchers will lose their hope or passion for watching for Jesus’ return at the Rapture.
Another misinterpretation of this parable is to say that the oil in the bridesmaids’ lamps is the Holy Spirit. If this were correct, then we would have to say that when the bridesmaids fall asleep and their lamps go out, they lose the Holy Spirit, and only some of them re-gain the Holy Spirit due to their own wisdom, effort, or level of spiritual preparation. But this idea is not taught anywhere else in the Bible, and indeed, it blatantly contradicts Ephesians 1:13-14 about all true Christians being permanently sealed with the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our eternal salvation and our future inclusion in the Rapture. Christians do not have to do anything to preserve their own eternal salvation, or else they could boast about it (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Furthermore, in this parable we must note that the bridesmaids are not the bride! The bridegroom is not a polygamist, and he is not planning to marry either all or any of the bridesmaids. The ESV Bible translation even specifies in a footnote that some ancient Bible manuscripts say that the bridesmaids are waiting for both the bridegroom and the bride to arrive (Matthew 25:1).
After all, the Church is the spiritual body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-27, Romans 12:4-5) and is also Christ’s spiritual bride (Ephesians 5:23-32, Revelation 19:6-9). A dispensational understanding of Scripture typically teaches that the Church is made up of all true believers in Christ who have ever lived from the day of Pentecost to the day of the Rapture.
Old Testament saints were therefore not part of the Church. Even John the Baptist, who Jesus said was the greatest man ever born (presumably, besides Jesus himself — Luke 7:28, Matthew 11:11) did not see himself as being part of the bride, but only as the friend of the bridegroom (John 3:29). John was executed by Herod before Jesus was crucified, so unlike Jesus’ other disciples, John never got the opportunity to experience the special empowerment of the Holy Spirit that formed the Church at Pentecost to enable us to fulfill Jesus’ great commission (Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 1:4-8, 2:1-13).
Abraham was also called a friend of God due to his faith (James 2:23), and Abraham rejoiced in his knowledge that the Messiah would one day come (John 8:56). But Abraham was not part of the Church, even though he was eternally saved by putting his faith in God (Romans 4:1-25), just as people in every dispensation are eternally saved only on the basis of their faith in God/Christ (Job 19:25-26, Hebrews 11:6, Revelation 7:13-14). This faith is then expressed in many different ways depending on individuals’ situations and their level of knowledge about God (Hebrews 11:1-40).
So just like how the Church does not include the Old Testament saints, the Church also does not include the Tribulation saints who will only believe in Jesus after the Rapture happens. We know this is true because Jesus promised that the gates of hell will never overcome the Church (Matthew 16:18) and that the Church will not even be on Earth during the time of the Tribulation (Revelation 3:10, Isaiah 26:19-21). Yet the Antichrist will make war upon and largely conquer the Tribulation saints (Revelation 13:7).
Furthermore, the resurrected/raptured Church will return with Jesus in the clouds, riding on white horses, as part of Jesus’ heavenly army at his Second Coming at the end of the seven-year Tribulation (Revelation 19:14, Jude 14-15). This is certain because the Bible clearly promises that raptured Christians will always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Yet the Tribulation saints who will lose their lives for refusing to take the Mark of the Beast or for refusing to worship the Image of the Beast will only be resurrected shortly after the Second Coming and the battle of Armageddon are over (Revelation 20:4).
For all of these reasons, I am convinced that the parable of the bridesmaids cannot be referring to the Church. Therefore, Christians should not use this parable to teach either the partial-rapture theory, or to claim that true Christians can ever lose their salvation. But then, what does
this parable mean?
The wedding feast seems to represent the Millennial Kingdom, because Jesus used wedding feasts in other parables to also represent the Kingdom of God/Heaven (Matthew 22:2, Luke 14:15-24). There may also be a literal feast at the start of the Millennial Kingdom called the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6-9, 19:17-18, Matthew 26:29).
Therefore, we can confidently say that the people who this parable symbolically represents as bridesmaids must be the Tribulation saints. They will be the ones who are waiting for Jesus (the bridegroom) and his raptured Church (the bride) to return at the Second Coming to save them from the Antichrist and inaugurate the Millennial Kingdom.
In fact, Luke 12:35-40 parallels the parable of the bridesmaids quite closely. Here, Jesus mentions similar themes of servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding, with the instructions to keep their lamps burning, and a warning to be watchful due to not knowing the exact time of their master’s return.
Just as Christians today do not know the exact day or hour of Jesus’ return at the Rapture, these saints will also not know the exact day or hour of Jesus’ official Second Coming. Even though it seems that the Tribulation saints could theoretically know exactly how long the Tribulation will last due to the information provided in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 11:3, 12:6, 13:5), in practice, they may be too busy simply trying to survive to keep an accurate day count. It will also be impossible for anyone to know exactly what day it is when the sun goes out at the very end of the Tribulation before Jesus’ Second Coming (Matthew 24:29-30).
But why would only some of these Tribulation saints be permitted to enter into the Millennial Kingdom?
As noted earlier, the Tribulation saints who become martyrs during the Tribulation will be resurrected after the Second Coming. They will be rewarded by becoming part of Jesus’ government during the Millennial Kingdom (Revelation 20:4), along with the Church. But not all of the Tribulation saints will be martyred. Jesus said that the days of the Tribulation would be shortened for the sake of the elect, or no one would be left alive (Matthew 24:21-22, Revelation 8:12). This verse reveals that there will indeed be some elect Tribulation saints who manage to survive until Jesus’ Second Coming.
The fact that there will be a mixture of believers and unbelievers left alive on Earth after Jesus defeats the Antichrist’s armies at the battle of Armageddon reveals the need for Jesus to judge these Tribulation survivors to see who will be permitted to enter the Millennial Kingdom. This will happen at the Judgment of the Sheep and the Goats, which takes place after Jesus’ Second Coming when he will sit on his throne in Jerusalem (Matthew 25:31-46, Jeremiah 3:17, Zechariah 14:16-17, Isaiah 2:3-4). Thus, this judgment should not be confused with the final Great White Throne Judgment which only happens after the Millennial Kingdom is over, and involves a different group of people (Revelation 20:11-15).
The perplexing thing about the Judgment of the Sheep and the Goats, however, is that there seem to be only two categories of Tribulation survivors at this judgment:
– The ‘sheep’ who did good works by caring for Jesus’ ‘brothers.’
– The ‘goats’ who did not care for Jesus’ ‘brothers.’
Jesus will say that the good works which the Tribulation survivors did toward his ‘brothers’ will be considered as if they had done these things to Jesus himself. So who are Jesus’ brothers?
During Jesus’ earthly ministry, Jesus said that anyone who does the will of God can be considered as being his family members (Mark 3:33-35, Matthew 12:48-50). In the Gospel of John, Jesus specifies that doing God’s will means believing in Jesus for eternal life (John 6:28-29).
Therefore, during the Tribulation, Jesus’ ‘brothers’ will include everyone who believes in him during this time. Specifically, this will include the Tribulation saints (Revelation 7:13-14), as well as the 144,000 elect Jews (Revelation 7:1-8, 14:1-5), and the one-third remnant of Israel who will call out to Jesus and recognize him as their Messiah at the Second Coming (Zechariah 13:8–9, 12:10–14, Matthew 23:37-39).
These groups of persecuted believers will certainly need help from others during the Tribulation, since these faithful believers will not take the Mark of the Beast. Without the Mark of the Beast, they will be cut off from all ability to perform any financial transactions (Revelation 13:16-18). They will also be hunted down by the Antichrist, who will try to exterminate them all (Revelation 13:7, 12:17).
Therefore, for anyone to provide food, water, clothing, shelter, or medical care to believers who the Antichrist is intent on destroying would likely be to put one’s own life at risk. The same would be true for anyone who would dare to go visit a fellow believer who had been captured and put in prison (Matthew 25:35-40).
For anyone to share their own limited resources with someone else during the Tribulation would certainly demonstrate faith that God will provide for them in the future. Also, the Bible says that whoever loves others (and especially loves other believers) in some way also loves God, because God is Love (1 John 4:7-8, 3:14, 4:16, 5:1). Thus, anyone who helps these persecuted believers during the Tribulation will be demonstrating their love for God.
Such people will also demonstrate that they reject the Antichrist’s claim to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4) because of how they will disobey him by helping persecuted believers. Furthermore, the ‘sheep’ will likewise not take the Mark of the Beast. This must be true because the people who will be welcomed into Jesus’ Millennial Kingdom also receive eternal life (Matthew 25:34, 25:46) which is only given to believers in God/Christ on the basis of faith, not good works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Eternal life is also obviously not compatible with the terrible fate of eternal punishment which is guaranteed for everyone who will take the Mark of the Beast (Revelation 14:9-11).
In contrast, everyone who takes the Mark of the Beast during the Tribulation and who survives until Jesus’ Second Coming will be gathered up by angels to be thrown into the Lake of Fire along with the Antichrist and the False Prophet after the battle of Armageddon (Matthew 13:37-43, Revelation 19:19-20). As a result, this category of people will obviously not be at the Judgment of the Sheep and Goats.
Therefore, we can conclude that all of the ‘sheep’ at this judgment will be either explicit or implicit believers in Jesus who refused the Mark of the Beast and who did good works during the Tribulation to help other persecuted believers survive. In contrast, the ‘goats’ will be unbelievers who, although they did not take the Mark of the Beast, they selfishly refused to help persecuted believers. As a result of demonstrating their lack of faith in God, these unbelievers will be thrown into the Lake of Fire to face eternal destruction (Matthew 25:41-46).
How does this judgment relate to the parable of the bridesmaids? You may have noticed that logically, it seems there is a third group of people who are missing from the Judgment of the Sheep and Goats: believers who did not do good works toward other believers.
It seems that there are only two options that could explain why this group of people is missing:
- The Holy Spirit will ensure that all true believers in Christ who live during the Tribulation will do good works toward other believers in order for them to qualify to pass the Sheep and Goats judgment.
- All true believers in Christ who did not do good works toward other believers will die at some point before the Sheep and Goats judgment.
I believe it is this second option which is true. This group of unfaithful believers are represented as the foolish bridesmaids, and so the parable of the bridesmaids explains what happens to them.
These foolish bridesmaids start off with lit lamps, just like the wise bridesmaids do. Thus, the ten bridesmaids represent all people who will initially believe in Jesus after the Rapture happens. However, the five foolish bridesmaids may lose their faith during the intense suffering and persecution of the Tribulation that will begin in the Fifth Seal judgment (Revelation 6:9-11). Their loss of faith will be demonstrated by their unwillingness to share their limited resources with persecuted believers, and they may even be tempted to take the Mark of the Beast to be able to buy and sell (Revelation 13:16-18).
So just as the wise bridesmaids cannot share any of their oil with the foolish bridesmaids, the Tribulation saints cannot share any of their own faith or their own good works with others. Each person will be judged for their own faith and their own actions.
However, since these unfaithful believers will still be sealed by the Holy Spirit the moment they first believe the gospel, they will still be eternally saved (Ephesians 1:13-14). This means they cannot suffer eternal punishment like all those who do take the Mark of the Beast. One way for God to prevent selfish and cowardly believers from taking the Mark would be for God to directly take these unfaithful believers’ lives, or for God to allow them to be killed in one way or another before they could go through with taking the Mark of the Beast.
As a consequence for their unfaithfulness, these disobedient believers will not be resurrected along with the faithful Tribulation saints who suffered martyrdom during the Tribulation (Revelation 20:4). That means these unfaithful believers will be denied the opportunity to participate in the thousand-year celebration of the Millennial Kingdom.
Jesus will deny unfaithful believers this privilege because of how these unfaithful believers denied him (Matthew 10:32-33, 2 Timothy 2:12) by giving up their faith and refusing to love fellow persecuted Tribulation saints. But these ‘foolish bridesmaids’ will still be resurrected at the Final Judgment, and they will be eternally saved because –the moment they believed— their names were permanently written in the Book of Life (2 Timothy 2:13, Revelation 20:15).
Thus, in Matthew 25:12, Jesus the bridegroom says to the foolish bridesmaids, “I do not know you” (present tense) at the time of the start of the Millennial Kingdom, because these unfaithful believers lost their faith in him during the Tribulation. This is not the same group of people to whom Jesus will say at the Final Great White Throne Judgment, “I never knew you” and will throw them into the Lake of Fire because they never truly believed in Jesus but trusted in their own good works to try to earn their way into heaven (Matthew 7:21-23).
This possibility of believers losing their faith and their lives during the Tribulation also explains why Jesus warns that the Tribulation saints will need to endure in faith to the end of the Tribulation in order for their lives to be physically saved (Matthew 10:22, 24:13, Mark 13:13). Those Tribulation saints who do not endure in faith will lose their lives, both as God’s judgment on their lack of faithful endurance and obedience, as well as a merciful way of preventing them from taking the Mark of the Beast.
At least, that is my current best understanding of how to make sense of the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids. In this way, the parable does not teach the false partial-rapture theory that only some true Christians will be taken to heaven in the Rapture. It also does not teach that either Christians today or future Tribulation saints must either earn or prove their eternal salvation by doing good works.
The parable does, however, teach that physical salvation during the Tribulation will depend on the Tribulation saints having enough faith to help their fellow persecuted believers, and to either face martyrdom or to persevere in their faith until the Second Coming. In both cases, faithful Tribulation saints will receive the privilege of entering the Millennial Kingdom along with Jesus and the resurrected/raptured Church.
It will be the faithful Tribulation saints who physically survive and enter the Millennial Kingdom in their mortal bodies who will marry and have children who will repopulate the world during the Millennium. They will be blessed to enjoy long, healthy, peaceful, and prosperous lives due to God’s removal of the curse of nature (e.g., Isaiah 65:19-25, 35:1–7, Amos 9:13-14).
Thus, correctly interpreting the parable of the bridesmaids fills in a potential gap in our understanding of God’s plans for both faithful and unfaithful believers during the upcoming seven-year Tribulation. This parable does not teach that some true Christians will be left behind at the Rapture. It also does not teach that Christians have to preserve our eternal salvation by doing good works, avoiding sins, persevering in faith until death or the Rapture, or whatever else someone might try use this parable to threaten Christians with.
Of course, no one has perfect theology in this life (1 Corinthians 13:12). Thus, I am not saying that this is the only possible interpretation of this parable, even though I do believe I am correct that there are certain things this parable definitely cannot mean, for the sake of theological consistency. So if anyone has a better or additional understanding of this parable that is consistent with the rest of what the Bible teaches about eternal salvation by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone and which upholds eternal security for all true believers in Christ, I would like to hear it.
I hope this interpretation of the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids can encourage all Christians to continue sharing the gospel with our loved ones and acquaintances while there is still time, so that they can hopefully believe in Jesus and be saved now before the Rapture happens. Then they will not need to face the severe persecution of believers that will happen during the Tribulation. But if they do not believe now, then hopefully they will remember what we told them and will believe in Jesus after the Rapture, and will become a Tribulation saint. Then, regardless of whether they are a wise or foolish bridesmaid, they will still experience eternal life in the amazing New Heaven and New Earth.
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If you are interested in reading an easy-to-understand introduction to what the Bible teaches about the end times and the gospel, check out Arden’s book, A Detailed Biblical Introduction To The End Times: The Pre-Tribulation Rapture, Seven-Year Tribulation, and Pre-Millennial Return of Jesus Christ.
Links to Arden Kierce’s books and other writings can be found at https://ardenkierce.com.