The Parable Of The Talents Series

The Parable of the Talents

Matthew 25:14-18:

Parables can be as exciting and challenging as detective stories. Even more so, for in the end they turn out to be dealing with real life, while detective stories can be pretty far-fetched. Also parables, like detective stories, are filled with half-hidden truths and secret meanings and yet with clues to these secrets scattered liberally throughout. So parables found in the bible are God's exciting way of challenging us to a mystery hunt, and the treasure we are after is a new insight into the nature of the kingdom life which will enrich us in a thousand ways if we act upon it once it is discovered.

The parable of the talents is the last in a series of three which Jesus gave his disciples to illustrate what he meant by the command, "Watch!" (Matt 24:36-44 ; 25:1-13) Its opening words link it to the same time period as the first two, and it reflects the same basic pattern of a master who goes away and leaves a certain company to fulfill a task till he returns. Here is the text from Matthew 25:14-18:

"For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them; and he made five talents more. So also, he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money."

In many ways this is a deeply puzzling parable. The central question of course, is: What do the talents represent? There is a common, but quite shallow, understanding of this parable that it teaches the need for us to put our natural gifts to work for God. Someone says, "I play the piano and I would like to devote my talent to the Lord." Another says, "I think I have a gift for speaking (or teaching, or making money, etc.,) and I would like to develop that talent and devote it to Christ."

But when we think of the parable in this way we are being misled by the modern meaning of talent. To us the word means ability-a natural gift which we possess. But it definitely did not mean that in biblical times. In the Bible a talent was a unit of measurement for weighing precious metals, usually gold and silver.

Another easy pitfall we must avoid is to interpret this parable as though it dealt only with the matter of ultimate rewards for service. This concept often accompanies the idea that the talents represent natural gifts. We must use our natural gifts to the full for Christ, we are told, lest in the end we lose our reward, though of course, we will not lose our salvation. But salvation is the very thing that is at stake in this parable. It is the ultimate destiny of a professed servant of Christ which is the issue. The last line of the story makes this crystal clear. Of the man with one talent, the returned master says, "Cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth." The final scene therefore reveals that the worthless servant was not really a believer at all.

Now, having gotten our perspective straight, we turn to the inevitable question, "What are the talents, in our experience?" There are several clues given to us in the account which will guide us in this search. We shall discover and assess them one by one.

The first clue is found in the opening verse, "For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property." The last two words are the key: "his property." That is another term for the talents which are distributed. They are the Master’s property, God's property. They are then, not something which man can give, but something which God alone controls. The talents are not distributed, like natural gifts, to all men freely, but are given only to those who in some fashion have the relationship of a servant to the Lord

The second clue is found in the next verse, "to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability." Again, the last phrase is extremely helpful. Here we learn that the talents are clearly not natural abilities but are actually distributed on the basis of natural ability. To one man the Lord gave five talents because he was a man of great natural ability. To another he gave two talents because he was not as gifted as the first, and to the third man he only gave one talent because he had few abilities.