I’ve heard this allegory before, but I still have a little trouble with it. If I understand it right, Jesus is saying how great it is to increase profits, and that money should be taken away from the poor and given to the rich who will make better use of it.
Matthew 25:14-30 (King James Version):
14 For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. 15 And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. 16 Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. 17 And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. 18 But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money. 19 After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. 20 And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. 21 His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 22 He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. 23 His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 24 Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: 25 And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. 26 His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: 27 Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. 28 Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. 29 For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. 30 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Any other interpretations? Discuss!
or talents is symbolic of… what do you know? actually talents! as in… im talented….
and therefore those that use their talents will get more talents.. and those taht dont will lose them….
For He that giveth also taketh.
The Lord has given us the foreight of his wrath. More so the foresight of his forgiving heart. The talent is but an Earthly gift. Heaven is God’s gift. Betrayal of the Law of God makes all Earthly gifts but a disgrace.
If you do the best you can do in everything that you do, God will say, “Good on you. Have some goodies and cash.” Whereas, if you rely on welfare like a dirty leech on society and do nothing with yourself, God says, “You will be fat and not get girls.” Or somesuch.
You do make a good point, however. Clearly, the rich make better use of what they’re given than the poor. Otherwise, wouldn’t the poor be not-quite-so-poor and the rich not so rich?
As uplifting an idea as that sounds, one must still keep in mind the Christian principles of helping your brother in need and whatnot… bah.
This is the second to last in a series of stories Jesus is telling his disciples in order to explain to them what the coming of the Son of Man/parousia (final judgement and book of Revelations scary stuff)will be like. Money has nothing to do with coinage, it is a metaphor for righteous action. Just like Jesus himself is coming at a time unlooked for, in a manner unexpected for the Pharisees and Sadducees, the end times will be surprising (see Matt 24 and 25: 1-13).
The point is, now that Jesus has revealed the fulfillment of the laws of the Old Testament, he better find people following them when he sneaks back to earth for his surprise judgement. Otherwise you’ll need a good dentist b/c of all the teeth gnashing you will be doing.
Since when does a good Catholic boy use the KJV? Oh, yeah, since a beautiful blonde entered his life. (Watch out, Frank, or Opus Dei operatives might be coming after you!!)
“or talents is symbolic of… what do you know? actually talents! as in… im talented….”
Or, since the English language was not around, and the word “talent” therefore did not refer to an ability, you’re probably wrong.
It could be that the talents are symbolic of the Gospel message. The servants are entrusted with a great treasure, and expected to do something with it, just as later on in the Gospel of Matthew we are given the Great Commission. Those who recieve the Gospel and invest it in others will be duly rewarded. Those who take the message and hide and distort it…well…reread verse 30.
Unfortunately, there are so many ways to interpret passages in the Bible, that one sentence could mean several different things depending on who is analyzing it and what they are looking for.
What Jesus is saying in this passage is that when he looks for people to be in charge of things, he wants people he can trust. He doesn’t want people who are untrustable to be in charge of accounting, so he ives that job to someone else who has already proven himslef capable. It’s more of Jesus as the anti-afirmative-action type.
If the moral to the story was really “take from the poor and give to the rich”, then all of the servants would have their talents taken away and given to the lord upon his return. After all, who else was richer than the lord? Instead, each one was tasked with being a steward over his master’s property until the master returned. Those who did a good job of it were rewarded and those who did poorly — he didn’t even put it into a bank to collect interest — were punished. We’re not here to be idle, but to be responsible stewards of all that is given to us.
He’s talking about your gifts. When you accept Him into your life you receive spiritual gifts. If you do nothing with them then you will still receive eternal life but your rewards in heaven will be much less than the person who used theirs greatly.
Frank J.
Did it take you two weeks to write this post? You must be really busy with that wedding stuff.
This passage comes after the parable of the ten virgins. (Matthew 25:1-13) I’d look at that passage as well for some understanding.
In that parable, all ten virgins prepared for the evening vigil but only five virgins brought extra oil. When the other five started running out of oil, they went into town to get more and missed out on being called in by the bridegroom.
I have heard that the oil in this parable represents faith, and the talents are a measure of a person’s good works over their life. Some would believe that the Talents parable follows the Ten Virgins parable to remind the disciples and us that faith is not the end game. Faith is a building block in which good works can be built upon.
The best interpretation I have ever heard was that it represented how much God has worked on your heart. The more God works on you, the more you are expected to respond, the more is expected of you. “The kingdom of heaven is like” kinda suggests that the whole thing is a parable about entry into heaven, more than about various unrelated earthly acts.
Economicaly, it is more a statement of fact, than an optimal plan to follow.
First of all this descibes the economic system under a monarchy not capitalism. It is the Kings choice to give or take according to his own judgements. On a person to person basis. The word talent refers to a measure. These servants were given goods, not money. I believe this is a direct connection to faith. Since all are given a measure of faith and faith is the goods that believers are to be operating in. The word trade is a little off. The Greek word is closer to the word, “work.” So if you work your faith, it will grow. As James wrote, I will shew thee my faith by my works. From my own experience, faith grows when you work it, it gets stronger. If you hide it, you will not live by it. You might as well not have it at all.
Sounds like a guy who is trying to test out fund managers. The last guy sounds like my last fund manager, except instead of burying the money so I would at least get it back, he lost it all. Perhaps the point of the story is: Never give your money to an untalented fund manager?
He’s teaching these guys about playing the stock market of the Gospel, as been said, He gives us all this good information and we should spread it around, but this is also pratical knowledge as well. Remember, Jesus hung out with some tax guys; He might have been trying to put this in a light they would understand.
This is about both service to God and Money. (I teach a class on this at my church).
God gives you talents, and if you don’t use them, or worse, hide them, you will be cast out.
God allows you to have money, and if you do nothing with it other than hide it, God will not bless your hoarding.
Tons of lessons in this. Maybe my favorite passage and why I became a stockbroker.
Let me know if you want to know more.
OldManWinters
I tend to agree with Ken’s interpretation. While there are many different smybolic parallels you can draw from the parable, I think that the message simply tells us to be active stewards of what God has given blessed us with. Connecting it to the overall theme of the nearby parables, we should be actively working until He comes back – we can’t just sit on our hands in endless anticipation, unlike them lazy felines.
Dixie Darlin’, there is no way he got the KJV thing from me. i’m firmly against any translation written in the King’s English. it’s a foreign language for all except those who speak it, which are none. now, had he used the NKJV and referenced some Thompson chains, then yeah. he’da got that from me.
If you read later in Acts, they use a communal form of wealth. Not Communism, mind you. This verse is a great example of the concepts behind this process. Wealth is to be used and expanded- just like talents.
As you see in Acts, some people sold what they owned, and then tried to keep a portion back- and were condemned for it.
When God gives us talents, we should expand them. We should magnify our gifts- and that includes material wealth.
Sigh.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/stbenedict/5433.html?mode=reply
If you’ve never heard of Robert Farr Capon I suggest some further reading.
A talent is a Hebrew weight measurement, typically for gold or silver. It is usually a measurement of wealth.
For example from the Olt Testament:
1 Kings 10
14 The weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred sixty-six talents of gold, 15 besides that which came from the traders and from the business of the merchants, and from all the kings of Arabia and the governors of the land.
Because of this parable though, the word talent in English has come to mean skill or ability.
And Endless Steven, as for the communism in Acts 2
44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds F17 to all, as any had need.
This is a descriptive verse, not prescriptive (ie. not a command to do likewise). This was a temporary situation. Some believe it was like a Christian University so the first believers could get up to speed. Others say that these new believers mistakenly believed in Christ’s immediate return, so they were eating up their seed corn as it were.
In any case, St. Paul wrote to correct the idea that we should just live off of our own or other’s posessions until Judgement day.
In 2 Thessalonians:
10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. 11 For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. 12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living
This does not mean we should not generously help the poor and disabled, which is a consistent theme throughout the Bible, but that all who can work should do so.
Note also the capitalism would not be possible without the personal property rights derived from the Jewish Law including the 10 Commandments and land law provisions.
Endless Steven sed:
As you see in Acts, some people sold what they owned, and then tried to keep a portion back- and were condemned for it.
Not quite right. In fact they were condemned for lying about the fact they were holding some back. The Bible explicitly says they had the right to do so.
From Acts 5
4 While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.” 5 Then Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and breathed his last. So great fear came upon all those who heard these things.
Ah. Good stuff, this. I think Ken and Overwhelmed got it right. And M1A1 gave the proper correction to Endless Steven. So there’s nothing left for me to comment on. Maybe a synopsis?
Ahem: God gave us our money/position/talents, so we should use them. Not doing something constructive with what we’ve been given defeats our purpose in life and makes us useless. Useless things get thrown out at clean-up time.
And of course, there’s secondary lessons and applications, such as what Old Man Winters commented. Who knew there were so many Bible scholars reading IMAO?
This might also very well be a warning to the Jews to whom Christ spoke, namely that their status and received gifts wouldn’t be enough to save them if they weren’t productive. (Think of the story of the fig tree that Christ cursed because it was bearing no fruit.)
Otherwise, it’s a fairly commensensical statement: more is entrusted to those who have shown they can perform.
We are all given different levels of gifts and talents. Those who exercise their talents will receive more. Those who ignore their talents and fail to use them will have their talents diminished.
Notice it is severely condemned to not use your talents.
As an ex-spots fanatic, I find this to be absolutely true. The harder you work at a sport or discipline, the better you get. The less you work the worse you get.
Classes in the US can be arranged along these lines. Those who take education and hard work seriously improve their lot. Those who think education and hard work is “white” end up mopping the floors at hospitals and restraunts or worse. Yet being a contentious redneck seems more important than getting ahead in life.
I found this one in 2Corinthians 8, another verse against communism and welfare, verse 13…”For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened” That chapter talks about generosity, but the apostle points out that he doesn’t mean that others should lay around while you’re working.
They must have had hippies back in Biblical times as well.
It is about Stewardship and responsibility. Take what resources God has given you wether “in” your person or “to” your person and use wisely in an attempt to multiply. If you do this work for Him and with His goals/law in mind God will bless you for your effort and with more responsibility.
It aint ez and I aint perfect either. We have the teller of this Allegory to remind us daily of our shortcomings lest the ego take over. As a husband I try think about giving back to God in time and money, living and showing my fam that I love and try to do what is right in God’s eyes, try to get to debt free, provide for my family in future or if I were to die, if we make it to retirement, education for kids… we are but a grain of sand.
Mostly “What nick said”, though it is more of an issue of the heavenly economy and the rewards in Heaven.
It isn’t (as the left would piously have it) about materialism, consider both the “rich young ruler” that was told in answer to his question of what must I do to go to Heaven (Jesus told him to sell all thta he had accumulated and to give it to the poor) and the disciples who once were told to go with just the clothes on their backs to spread the word, that God would provide for them.
Rick Warren does a better job of explaining this, but the poor can’t help the poor and outside legislated largesse it is a Christian’s obligation, to God’s glory to help them. Take for example the greatest number of people in the field in response to Katrina, secular agencies (e.g.the Red Cross and FEMA) are dwarfed in comparison by the Churches response. On reflection, which groups did you see more in the spotlight and which ones have you seen taking the heat?
God blesses America and we usually seem to move to the good and faithful servant category. Remember, the assignment of the talents was in addition to the existing duties of the three servants, it was over and above the master’s expectations of them.
It is also the obligation of the poor not to go and bury their talent in the dirt…
If you look at the original Hebrew it’s even more explicit.
The guy with one talent actually spent his time on an anti war, pro Pharisee discussion forum. G!d called him @@$51 which is translated as “dirty Democratic Underground Hippie”.
G!d also pointed out that he wants low taxes, small deficits and Israeli domination of the Middle East. Additionally, G!d tells people to bear arms at all times, and vote for @@$£11 which is translated as “The Republican Party”.
You can look it up yourself, in the Book of Small Arms if the Hebrew comes out ok on this site. Otherwise, you’ll just have to accept that G!d is a Republican. Fact.