Matthew 25:14-30
What does this parable mean? Who is the man with the servants who goes on a journey? What are the talents he gives his servants? And how does the parable apply to us?
What does the parable mean?
An important rule when we’re looking at Scripture is to look at the context. Of course, that rule doesn’t just apply to Scripture! Politicians regularly complain that someone has taken their words out of context.
Can you turn in your Bibles to the start of this parable? It starts with Jesus saying: ‘For it will be like…’ What’s the ‘it’?! Jesus is clearly referring to something he’s been talking about. We need to understand the context.
So, let’s take a look. Jesus has been talking about one subject from the end of chapter 23, through the whole of chapter 24, and into the beginning of chapter 25.
Let’s start with chapter 23. Can you please turn to verse 37? Jesus says, “For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’”. The people can see Jesus now. He’s standing in front of them speaking. But he says, ‘You will not see me again, until…’ In other words, Jesus will be leaving and coming back.
Let’s now go onto the start of chapter 24 and look at the opening three verses. The disciples ask Jesus, ‘When will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’ The disciples understand that Jesus will come again. Look at verse 27: ‘For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man’. Now look at verse 30: ‘Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’. Now verse 44: ‘Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect’. It’s the same theme: Jesus will come again.
Now let’s move on to chapter 25, which is where the parable of the talents comes. First, Jesus tells a parable about ten virgins. The virgins are expecting the bridegroom to come, but they don’t expect him to take so long. The bridegroom is clearly Jesus. The parable is telling us, ‘Jesus is coming’. And the message of the parable of the ten virgins is ‘Be ready’.
So, for more than a chapter Jesus has been saying, ‘I will come again’.
I said that the message of the parable of the ten virgins is ‘Be ready’. So, it would be natural for Jesus to move on to answer the question, ‘What does it mean to be ready?’ That is what the parable of the talents answers.
So now we have reached the parable of the talents. When Jesus says, ‘For IT will be like…’ we understand what the ‘it’ is. It’s the fact that he will come again. That is the context of this parable.
Who is the man with the servants who goes on a journey?
Now that we have seen the context, we see who the man is, who goes on a journey. Jesus has been talking about going away and coming back. So that man is clearly Jesus. In that case, the servants are us.
What are the talents he gives his servants?
In everyday life a talent refers to skills and aptitudes. But the word ‘talent’ here is a transliteration of the Greek word ‘talanton’. It was initially the word for a unit of weight – about 30 kilograms. But later, the word came to mean that weight of gold or silver, in other words, a sum of money. We don’t know whether the master gave talents of gold or talents of silver. If he gave talents of silver they would be worth a lot. If he gave talents of gold – each talent being 30 kilograms of gold – then they would be worth a huge amount!
That’s the meaning of ‘talent’ in the parable. But what does ‘talent’ refer to in real life?
There are two main possibilities. The most obvious meaning is that ‘talent’ means money in the parable and it means money, or material wealth, in real life. Another possible meaning is that ‘talent’ refers to spiritual wealth.
In reality, Jesus expects us to look after both. Let’s have a few cross-references to make that point.
Luke 16:11. ‘If you have not been faithful with worldly wealth, who trust you with true riches?’ Here Jesus is talking about material wealth and he expects us to look after it. So, the talents could certainly refer to material wealth.
Matthew 13:10,11. The disciples ask Jesus, ‘Why do you speak in parables?’ He tells them, ‘You have been given the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given’. In the Letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes himself and the other apostles as ‘stewards of the mysteries of God’. We have also been entrusted with knowledge. So, the talents could also refer to spiritual wealth – the precious knowledge of the gospel that followers of Jesus have.
The parable isn’t specific, and it’s probably best to assume that Jesus expects us to be faithful and responsible with both.
We now know that the master represents Jesus, the servants represent us, and the talents represent material or spiritual wealth. The master gives his servants some money. It means, Jesus gives us resources. The master doesn’t tell the servants what to do with the money. It means, Jesus doesn’t tell us what to do with the resources he gives us. The master goes away. It means, Jesus goes away. He ascends to heaven. He is no longer present on earth.
The first two servants get on and do some sort of business and increase the money they’ve been given. The third servant buries it.
Then Jesus says, ‘After a long time the master of those servants came’. Note the ‘After a long time’. Some people say that the early church expected Jesus to come back very soon. But in this parable Jesus said, in effect, that he would come back after a long time. The danger is that we completely forget that he’s coming back. But he will come back.
What happens? Two servants get commended – and get greater responsibility! But the servant who had buried the money does not get commended. He is told, ‘You wicked and slothful servant!’ The master also asks him, ‘Why didn’t you at least put the money in the bank, and I could have got some interest?’ It seems that the master would have been satisfied with that. But nothing at all? That won’t do. They take the talent from him and give it to the servant who has five. Finally, they take the servant and throw him into outer darkness.
How does the parable apply to us?
When the master gave the talents to the three servants, they didn’t know what would happen when the master came back. But we know what the result was. Two of them used the talents well and got a hearty ‘well done’ from Jesus, and greater responsibility. One of them squandered the resources he’d been given and was thrown into outer darkness.
The parable shows us what could happen to us. We could get a reward. Or, we could be thrown into outer darkness. Not a good outcome!
How do you think you would do if you were one of those servants? What would you do if Jesus, the master, gave you five talents or two talents or one talent?
I suspect some of us would squirm and say, ‘I don’t want the responsibility’. Some of us might say, ‘I haven’t got the time to look after your money’. But some of us would say, ‘That sounds like fun. I like the idea of getting a ‘well done’, and greater responsibility.’
Which category would you put yourself in? The squirmers? Or the ‘let’s give it a go’ group? I hope you would choose the latter.
I asked, ‘How do you think you would do if you were one of those servants?’ But that was a bit of a trick question. I should not have said, ‘If you WERE one of those servants.’ The reality is that we ARE those servants. We are already in the parable of the talents. God has already given us all sorts of resources. We need to reflect on what we ARE doing. When the master comes back, will he say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’? Will he set us over much? That outcome is there if we want it!
Note: the teaching on the parable was followed by a practical exercise involving the whole church. We did a re-enactment of this parable in which we gave money (up to £500 each) to three groups, and left it to them to choose some areas of ministry to invest it in. They followed this through over a period of four months.
