Opportunity

Scripture treats opportunity as a measured thing — a season, a door, a day. It opens and closes; the harvest passes; the master rises and shuts the door. The same passages that warn what is lost when the moment is wasted also press the corresponding charge: where the door stands open, walk through it, and the responsibility a person carries rises with the chance afforded.

The Acceptable Time

Yahweh names the season himself. Through Isaiah he answers, "In an acceptable time I have answered you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you" (Is 49:8); Paul takes that oracle up and presses it on his hearers — "look, now is the acceptable time; look, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor 6:2). The psalms set the same posture in prayer: "let everyone who is godly pray to you in a time when you may be found" (Ps 32:6), and "as for me, my prayer is to you, O Yahweh, in an acceptable time" (Ps 69:13). The summons is dated: "Today, oh that you⁺ would [accept his Speech]!" (Ps 95:7).

The wisdom voice frames this as proper attentiveness to the moment: "observe the time and season, and be afraid of evil" (Sir 4:20); "From morning until evening the time changes, And all things move swiftly before the Lord" (Sir 18:26); "everything shows its strength in its season" (Sir 39:34). Speech itself is governed by the same rule — unseasonable talk is "[as] music in time of mourning" (Sir 22:6); "When the music begins do not pour forth talk" (Sir 32:4); "At the time of departure do not be the last" (Sir 32:11).

The Open Door

Where the season turns toward kingdom work, the figure shifts from time to threshold. Paul finds at Ephesus that "a great and effectual door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries" (1 Cor 16:9), and at Troas "a door was opened to me in the Lord" (2 Cor 2:12). To Philadelphia the risen Christ says, "look, I have set before you a door opened, which none can shut" (Re 3:8). The opportunity is not earned by capacity — Philadelphia has "a little power" — but it is given to be used.

Sirach reads the same pattern from beneath: "there is a time when success is in his power" (Sir 38:13). The door swings open; the question is whether it is walked through.

The Harvest That Passes

When opportunity is lost, the lament is the harvest figure: "The harvest has passed, the summer has ended, and we are not saved" (Jer 8:20). Jesus turns the same image into present command — "Don't you⁺ say, There are yet four months, and [then] comes the harvest? Look, I say to you⁺, Lift up your⁺ eyes, and look at the fields, that they are white to harvest" (John 4:35). The grief over Jerusalem comes in the same shape: "If you had known in this day, even you, the things which belong to peace! But now they are hid from your eyes" (Lu 19:41-42).

Hosea names the further loss — those who go searching too late: "They will go with their flocks and with their herds to seek Yahweh; but they will not find him: he has withdrawn himself from them" (Ho 5:6). Wisdom puts it as a sealed verdict: Esau "afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place for a change of mind" (Heb 12:17). The door, once shut, does not reopen on demand — "When once the master of the house has risen up, and has shut to the door, and you⁺ begin to stand outside, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, open to us; and he will answer and say to you⁺, I don't know you⁺ or where you⁺ are from" (Lu 13:25).

The historical examples carry the same weight. Joash strikes the ground only three times when he was called to strike five or six, and Elisha's anger names the cost — "then you would have struck Syria until you had consumed it, whereas now you will strike Syria but three times" (2 Ki 13:19). The wisdom's appeal in Pr 1:24 — "Because I have called, and you⁺ have refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man has regarded" — runs out into the verdict of Pr 1:25-33: "I also will laugh in [the day of] your⁺ calamity… Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me… For the backsliding of the simple will slay them, And the careless ease of fools will destroy them. But whoever harkens to me will stay securely, And will be quiet without fear of evil" (Pr 1:26-33).

Refusing the Invitation

The lost-opportunity passages most often place the refusal inside an invitation. Luke's great-supper parable lays this out as a procession of excuses — a field, five yoke of oxen, a new wife — until the master concludes, "I say to you⁺, that none of those men who were invited will taste of my supper" (Lu 14:24); the seats are filled instead from "the streets and lanes of the city" and the highways and hedges (Lu 14:21-23). The closed-door scene that follows in Lu 13:25-28 brings the same refusal to its end: "There will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth… and yourselves cast forth outside" (Lu 13:28).

The procrastination figures in Sirach and the prophets press the same charge in the imperative: "Do not delay to turn to him; And do not put it off from day to day. For suddenly his indignation will go forth" (Sir 5:7). Lot's deliverance survives only because the angels seize him while he hesitates — "But he lingered; and the men laid hold on his hand… Yahweh being merciful to him; and they brought him forth, and set him outside the city" (Gen 19:16). The would-be disciple's "I will follow you, Lord; but first allow me to bid farewell to those who are at my house" (Lu 9:61) belongs to the same pattern of deferred response. So does Israel's reversal at Kadesh-Barnea: refusing the appointed entry, they then "rose up early in the morning, and got up to the top of the mountain, saying, Look, we are here, and will go up to the place which Yahweh has promised: for we have sinned" (Nu 14:40); Moses warns, "Why now do you⁺ transgress against the mouth of Yahweh, seeing it will not prosper?" (Nu 14:41); they "presumed to go up… nevertheless the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, and Moses, didn't depart out of the camp" (Nu 14:44), and the Amalekite and Canaanite "struck them and beat them down, even to Hormah" (Nu 14:45). Saul's confession likewise comes after the refusal that costs him the kingdom: "I have sinned… Now therefore, I pray you, pardon my sin… And Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you; for you have rejected the word of Yahweh, and Yahweh has rejected you from being king over Israel" (1 Sam 15:24-26).

Responsibility According to Opportunity

The corollary is that the chance afforded sets the standard of accountability. Ezekiel's watchman charge fixes this directly: "Yet if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he will die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul" (Eze 3:19). The fuller exposition repeats the figure of the trumpet — "if, when he sees the sword come upon the land, he blows the trumpet, and warns the people; then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet, and does not take warning… his blood will be on his own head" (Eze 33:3-4) — and turns the same logic on the watchman who fails to sound it: "if the watchman sees the sword come, and doesn't blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned… he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand" (Eze 33:6). The chapter then opens the door for the wicked who turns: "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Eze 33:11), and the day of turning is itself the day of opportunity (Eze 33:12-16).

Jesus puts the same principle in the master's verdict: "And that slave, who knew his lord's will, and did not prepare, nor did according to his will, will be beaten with many [stripes]" (Lu 12:47). The parable of the minas works it out across degrees of return — "Well done, you good slave: because you were found faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities" (Lu 19:17); the slave who hides the mina hears, "Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked slave… then why didn't you give my money into the bank, and I at my coming should have collected it with interest?" (Lu 19:22-23); and the closing rule names the asymmetry — "to everyone who has will be given; but from him who has not, even that which he has will be taken away" (Lu 19:26).

Sirach observes the same calculus from the opposite side: where the chance to sin is removed, the inclination is unchanged. "And if, for lack of power, he is hindered from sinning, He will do evil when he finds opportunity" (Sir 19:28); "One is hindered from sinning through lack [of opportunity], And when he rests he is not troubled" (Sir 20:21). The disposition outruns the occasion; the occasion measures only what is exposed.

Redeeming the Time

Where opportunity is recognized, the prescribed posture is to spend it deliberately. Paul names this as wisdom's mark: "Look therefore carefully how you⁺ walk, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil" (Eph 5:15-16); "Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time" (Col 4:5). The ground for the urgency is given in the next breath — "the time is shortened, that from now on both those who have wives may be as though they had none" (1 Cor 7:29), "those who use the world, as not using it to the full: for the fashion of this world passes away" (1 Cor 7:31). The psalm's prayer trains the heart for it: "So teach us to number our days, That we may get us a heart of wisdom" (Ps 90:12); the Preacher applies it to the young: "Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw near, when you will say, I have no pleasure in them" (Ec 12:1). Sirach reinforces the deadline: "Remember that death does not delay; and the decree of Sheol has not been declared to you" (Sir 14:12).

Jesus models the same attitude: "We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day: the night comes, when no man can work" (John 9:4). The 1 Maccabees narratives capture it in action — "And Jonathan saw that the time served him, and he chose certain men, and sent them to Rome, to confirm and to renew the friendship with them" (1Ma 12:1); "But we, having opportunity, claim the inheritance of our fathers" (1Ma 15:34).

Timely Service

The same principle, in its quieter register, names the value of help offered at the right moment. Mary of Bethany's anointing is praised exactly because it cannot be repeated — "She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for the burying" (Mark 14:8); the Galilean women had been serving him through the days that allowed it (Mark 15:41). Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus arrive when Paul most lacks: "I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus: for that which was lacking on your⁺ part they supplied" (1 Cor 16:17). The Macedonian brothers come "when I was present with you⁺ and was in want… [and] supplied the measure of my want" (2 Cor 11:9). Epaphroditus is sent as "your⁺ messenger and minister to my need" (Php 2:25). And Onesiphorus is remembered for service rendered in season: "in how many things he served at Ephesus, you know very well" (2 Tim 1:18). Where the door of need stands open, those who walk through it are commended — and the recognition follows the work that was done while the time allowed.