Are You Using What You Have?

"Talent," as we use the word today, denotes an ability, a partic­ular bent or a flair for doing something. Originally it was a balance or a weighing device. Eventually it came to mean the value of gold or silver that was equal to the weight of a talent. It seems that Jesus' parable of the talents, in which a talent was a sum of money entrusted to a servant, has fostered the present meaning of a "talent" as a gift or ability.

We shall look at "talent" in this essay as Jesus used it in the Para­ble of the Talents. We shall also consider the kindred Parable of the Pounds. In it the pound, like the talent, was a sum of money a lord gave to his servant for him to use wisely.

The Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30 and the Para­ble of the Pounds in Luke 19:12-27 are similar enough so that some authorities believe they are identical. These scholars believe the Gospel writers, Matthew and Luke, placed the respective identical parables in different chrono­logical order in the story of Jesus' life. This is not unprecedented. An example of it may be found in Jesus' lament over Jerusalem. Matthew places the occasion in Jerusalem on the Tuesday before His crucifixion. Matthew 23:37-39. Luke, however, recounts it as having occurred in Perea before the time Matthew assigned to it. Luke 13:34, 35.

The two parables in question, though, are probably separate events and have a slightly different lesson to be drawn from each. In the Parable of the Pounds, a pound, depending on the particular version relating it, was equal to $20 (MLV), $2000 (LBV), or "about three month's wages for a laborer (RSV)." It does not mat­ter because the value of a pound is not pertinent to the lessons implicit in the parable. Re­garding the Parable of the Talents, a talent has been respectively estimated to be worth $2,000 (MLV), $1,000 (LBV), and fifteen years' wages of a laborer (RSV)! Again, the respective estimates do not matter.

What does matter is the different way in which the master in each instance distributed his money to the servants. In both para­bles, of course, the servants are analogous to the children of God. Each of ten servants received the same amount in the Parable of the Pounds: one pound. In the Parable of the Talents the amounts the lord gave to the three servants differed: one received five talents, another two talents, and the last one received but one.

In the Parable of the Talents the amount of profit the two good servants received on their investments was the same: they doubled their original amounts. The first of the three servants added five talents to the five he had received, giving him ten. The second also doubled his two talents, thus giving him a total of four; but the third hid his one talent in the earth: no gain at all.

In the story of the pounds, the returns the servants received on their money varied. The first man gained back a tremendous ten times what he had originally. The second man gained five times his original amount, but the third did nothing positive at all with his pound: he wrapped it in a napkin and laid it aside.

The equal number of pounds given to the servants in the one parable may be likened to the equality of life and salvation that all of God's children possess. Some will do excellently with what they receive and will receive a reward commensurate with the gain they made. Others will do well and receive in ratio to the more modest gain they accrued. Some will do nothing at all and receive to themselves the wrath of their Lord. Although they too are children of God, the Lord will take from the last class the one pound they each received. He will give the respective pounds to the ones who gained the most with their pound. If the pound in the parable does represent life and salvation, the slothful children of God will then be in a critical situation.

The talents given to the servants (children of God) in the other parable relate to real life differently. They denote the disproportionate manner in which God allots abilities to His servants. In real life one person may have many talents or abilities while another has a few and another has only one.

Note that the lord of the servants in the story of the talents did not reward the two enterprising servants proportionate to the total talents each possessed.  In each instance the lord said an identical "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." . But the slothful servant gave some song-and-dance about knowing his lord was a hard and unjust man, and that he (the servant) was afraid to do anything with his one little talent. The truth was that the servant despised his one talent and disobeyed the lord’s tacit command to invest it. He was thoroughly berated by his lord and thrown “into outer darkness: [where] there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

In looking closely at the two parables, it ap­pears that God will not base the Christian's reward  on his aggregate abilities, but on the amount of gain he makes with what has been entrusted to him. Both parables contain two very important items: 1) encouragement to put whatever God has given us to good use; and 2) a stern warning of severe everlasting punishment if we fail to produce a profit for our Lord.

Use your abil;ities wisely and well -- you have only this brief stay on earth to do so. If you fail, the consequences will be utterly and eternally devastating.

Comments

[Diane]

This does make me think - am I using my talents? And, if I am using them, am I using them to the glory of God? Sometimes I'm not even sure if I know what my talents are. Lots to think about.