Episode 25: Be Therefore Ready Part 3–The Parable of the Talents

This is the third of a four-part teaching series on the “readiness” parables of Matthew Chapter 24/25 concerning what we are and are not to do in order to be ready for our Master’s return. In this installment, we are going to explore the Parable of the Talents. Whereas the Parable of the Ten Virgins suffers much violence from wild interpretations, the Parable of the Talents is rarely taught from the perspective of a first-century Greco Roman Jewish peasant. It makes it a lot more interesting!

Here’s the transcript, and as usual it is not really edited so unless I accidentally wrote something really profane, just don’t worry about it:

It’s really too bad when some Greek words are transliterated into English and sound enough like completely unrelated English words that we go overboard with our eisegesis—which is a fancy word for reading stuff into the Bible that isn’t there.  This week we will be talking about the Greek word talanta, transliterated to talents. Of course, talanta was seventy-five pounds of something, like gold or silver. But in English, talent means an ability—which really obscures the meaning of this parable and completely subverts how it would have been read by Yeshua’s/Jesus’s first-century audience.

Hi, I’m Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where we explore the historical context of Scripture and talk about how it bears on our own behavior and witness as image-bearers. You can find my teachings on my websites theancientbridge.com and contextforkids.com as well as on my youtube channels, accessible from my websites. You can also access past broadcasts on my podcast channel characterincontext.podbean.com, which also links to my iTunes channel, and my context books for adults and families are available through amazon.com.

¹⁴ “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. ¹⁵ To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. ¹⁶ He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. ¹⁷ So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. ¹⁸ But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money.¹⁹ Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. ²⁰ And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ ²¹ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.^[e] You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’²² And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’²³ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ ²⁴ He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, ²⁵ so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’²⁶ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? ²⁷ Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. ²⁸ So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. ²⁹ For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. ³⁰ And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

So, this is part three of my series on the “readiness” parables of Matthew 24 and 25 and like the first, the parable of the Faithful Steward, and possibly the second, the Parable of the Ten Virgins, we are talking about household servants again this week—which is very important to understanding the gist of this teaching.

Now, when you read “servants” which is how doulos was translated, I don’t want you thinking either of The Help, which was an awesome book that I highly recommend, or Roots. Neither of those reflect the realities of Roman-era slavery where slaves were considered members of the household and were often trusted with enormous responsibility, were often educated and even civil servants or artisans who drew a salary and didn’t just labor for nothing, and who could expect to be freed when they reached a certain age—often thirty. Once freed, they remained part of the extended household of their former owners and could even become Roman citizens. It wasn’t based on ethnicity, but generally impoverished or conquered people became slaves and they were generally much better off and wealthier than non-slaves. That being said, a Roman slave owner could have his slave crucified on a whim, so I am not painting a glorious picture of sunshine and roses. Given the choice between American, European, and modern-day Islamic slavery and the Roman sort, I would want to be a slave to the Roman Empire without even having to think about it. And not just because I am fifty and would have been long since set loose.

So, we have slaves here and not paid servants who come and go and have their freedom. Also, we need to discuss the “zero-sum economy” of the ancient world. I have talked about this briefly before. In a world without big trucks filled with stuff constantly being delivered to local supermarkets and money being printed all the time, there was only so much stuff to go around and when it was gone or completely distributed it was just gone. That was it.

Pepperoni Pizza explanation.

So, the only way to get more, in the ancient world, was honestly through agriculture, or dishonestly through graft, corruption, charging interest, oppressing others, and generally getting more at the expense of others because you can’t get more unless you took it somehow from someone else.

Also, it was the job of any slave to represent His Master’s interests, regardless of whether or not he agreed with them. To not faithfully image your master, you know –be an image-bearer, was to not be a good servant, to not represent him in the community. It doesn’t matter what a slave’s values are, to his master, he is to faithfully and diligently endure in his job and do the desires of his master.

So in this parable we are going to be dealing with the topics of trust aka pistis, image-bearing, zero-sum economies, slavery, and ancient peasant attitudes about profiteering—and how this parable reads the exact opposite to us as it did to them, which makes this a lot of fun.

So far we have covered the importance of living lives of preparedness by having the kind of character that does not abuse or oppress but instead cares for others as though Yeshua is never returning, in the parable of the Faithful Steward, and the importance of living faithful lives of patience and endurance and planning for the wait for His return to be a long time coming. This one is going to be much more pointed as to what is expected of us in terms of behavior, even though the parable seems to direct us to do the obvious from the point of view of the original audience. Next week, when we talk about the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, there will be no more guesswork about how to represent our King publicly and privately until His return—or in the words of Yeshua, how to be ready.

⁴⁴ Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

 

Let’s get to the parable here and like last week, we will go through it in small bits to pick up the context and what is and is not being said:

¹⁴ “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. ¹⁵ To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.

So we have a man who is the head of a very wealthy household. Why do I say wealthy? Well, he has eight talents that he can hand out to his servants. As I mentioned at the beginning, a talent is roughly 75 lbs of something—in this case, it is probably silver. We do see gold talents being referenced with respect to the construction of the Tabernacle and specifically with regard to the furnishings of the Holy Place and HOH. The golden Menorah and its utensils were crafted out of a full talent of pure gold.

Now, in the first century, in the context of this parable, we would be dealing with currency here that could be worked with and so it almost has to be silver. In today’s market, one talent of silver would be worth $16,231.25 and five would be worth $81,156.25. And the Master just gives his slaves the cash and goes away. Are you thinking what I am thinking??  FREEDOM! Oh my gosh, hand a slave over 80K and say goodbye. But this was the first-century and slaves who would be given that sort of money would be trusted household retainers like Joseph. These aren’t shifty characters that aren’t to be trusted by their master. These guys are all trusted. I don’t know about you, but no one has ever handed me anywhere near that much money before. But each was trusted with the money according to his abilities, that’s what it says. No one was given more than he had the ability to work with. The levels were according to what they could and could not reasonably be expected to do. And just like that, he bolted.

¹⁶ He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. ¹⁷ So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. ¹⁸ But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money.

Now, at this point, Yeshua’s audience has a real clear picture about who the bad guy and who the good guy in this parable is. But it isn’t who we would expect. The guy with $81K just went out and somehow got $81K more and where exactly did he get it from? Probably the people who were already poor but however he got it, it meant that someone else didn’t have it anymore. So, the guy with the ten talents is a real jerk in the eyes of Yeshua’s audience and they would be frowning at this point. Then came the guy with $32K and he also went and got more money, probably from them by loaning money to them and charging excessive interest even though it was forbidden, and then taking their land away. Now there are two bad guys who have finagled and schemed and acted dishonestly and robbed people like them of $113K. There would have been grumbling as the people expected to hear these guys firmly rebuked pretty darned quick here. But when we assume that it was possible to make this kind of profit without oppressing others in the ancient world, we’re mostly fooling ourselves.

Then came the hero of the story. The guy who buried the talent in the ground. He didn’t take advantage of the poor in order to gain more wealth. He’s the good guy. Yes, he disobeyed his master, but he behaved honorably in the eyes of the peasant audience. What a guy, what a guy, what a heck of a guy!

You see, there is no such thing as honest capitalism in a zero-sum economy. I can’t get richer unless you get poorer. Except, like I said, through agriculture.

But Yeshua often told parables that went in the opposite direction from what was expected. And he was about to zing them really good.

¹⁹ Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them.

After all, they were slaves and the money was his and all the fruits of their labor were his. He went away with the expectation that they would pursue his interests, in his way, and that they would represent him properly.

²⁰ And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ ²¹ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.

I can hear the snorts of the audience, “Typical rich pig—so thrilled that his jerk slave robbed his neighbors. Rewards the guy—but just wait to see what Adonai has in store for them both, oh boy oh boy.”

’²² And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’²³ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’

Again, same outcome—he servant was only judged based on his doing his utmost according to his own abilities—which is why people are often tempted to see the talents as abilities—but that argument falls apart in context. And whoever heard of God giving us abilities according to our abilities? No, this is about being given resources to use according to our abilities. But now we get to the popular hero:

²⁴ He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, ²⁵ so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.

This response would have met with the crowd’s approval, not with our capitalistic contempt (and I say this as a diehard capitalist myself). The audience would have believed (1) that this slave was exactly right about his master being a hard man, obviously reaping where he did not sow, and gathering where he scattered no seed—and in the first-century world, where people were losing their land left and right to wealthier people when they defaulted on loans (changes to the law had made it possible not to return property in the Jubilee), that is exactly what would happen. People who were in debt would reap their own fields only to have to give most of it away in the form of tithes, taxes and repayment of loans and they could only do it so long before they lost everything they had. This was a common story. (2) It would have been considered honorable to refuse to use the Master’s money to rob his neighbors. There was nothing considered wrong in Jewish culture with buying your money in order to protect it. It was considered wise. It is only in our capitalist mindset where we see getting back exactly what you gave someone to be somehow bad. The slave had not robbed his master, he simply hadn’t made him any profit.

But mouthing off to his master wasn’t very bright either, let’s just be clear about that.

’²⁶ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? ²⁷ Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.

He was probably talking about investing with money-changers, which wouldn’t have actually oppressed anyone and was providing a valuable service in the Roman Empire. So, the only honorable option was the “at least” option. But he accuses the slave of being wicked and lazy, and that is where this parable ties in with the others.

A slave is never his own man but instead an extension of his master.  Which is what becomes clear when we get to the punchline:

²⁸ So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. ²⁹ For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. ³⁰ And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

His master was greedy and grasping, yes, but he is judged here to be a worthless servant because he didn’t do what we are all commanded to do while waiting for the return of our master, waiting judgment—which is faithfully represent Him until he comes. The crowd, firmly in the camp of the slave entrusted with one talent, was forgetting that no slave is his own man. Not him, and not us. We, like the three slaves of this parable, are members of a household. Fortunately, we are members of the household of God and we must represent our master’s interests. Period.

Yes his master was a jerk, and he was punished for failing to do as he was commanded and trusted to do. That’s the lesson out of this—and it has nothing to do with slaves who had an evil master, that was just the story that drew the audience in. Remember, parables are paintings, not snapshots. Paintings can be fantastical, while photographs show us reality. Yeshua would often present an unrealistic scenario in order to present something that is true. The truth was that, in his master’s eyes, the slave was wicked because he wasn’t looking out for his master’s best interests while he was away. He had the ability to do better and to turn a profit, and even an honest profit, but he decided not to because he resented that his master got profits through dishonest means, taking what others had earned for himself. So instead of doing what he could, that was good, he chose to do nothing and doing nothing is never an option that is available to us in our Master’s absence.

So now let’s go back to the beginning and see what was presented as admirable about the first two slaves:

¹⁵ To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. ¹⁶ He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. ¹⁷ So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. ¹⁸ But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money.

First of all, the Master gave zero instructions whatsoever—did you ever notice that? He didn’t say, “go invest this, make money, whatever…” He gave them the resources according to their abilities and left. But slaves know their Master, as the third slave would foolishly reveal later. These guys knew what kind of Master they served and the first one went “at once” and engaged in trade, which was considered a shameful occupation. Seriously, like I keep saying—this wasn’t a capitalistic society. Being a merchant was not respected. No, they were suspicious characters (although not as bad as innkeepers) because they sold but did not produce themselves—which meant that they were somehow taking advantage of both their suppliers and their customers. They were subverting the God-given order. But, this slave was doing what his Master would do, making money even by disreputable means.

But it is the “at once” part of the equation that makes this slave the picture of the great disciple. He knew his master’s wishes and went out and did them immediately and turned a huge profit of 100%.

The second slave ”also” went out. Very much less emphatic than the “at once” servant, but he also turned a 100% profit.

The third slave went and hid his Master’s talent away, knowing full well the kind of man his mater was, and describing it in no uncertain terms. In fact, when he told his Master what he knew about him:

‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, ²⁵ so I was afraid.”

His master was astounded—not at the description but at the slave’s lack of true fear. His slave knew his expectations without being told, just like the rest of them, and yet he purposefully did not fulfill his wishes. It seems to me that he was so afraid of losing what his master had given him, that he did nothing with it. Sounds a lot like the gift of life God gave us, I mean, even apart from eternal life. Are we so afraid of losing our lives that we run for the hills, hide ourselves away, and do nothing to invest our lives in the Father’s business?

Let’s look at an extreme example—Nazi Germany. Look at how the Nazis served their Master, Adolph Hitler. Now, let’s look at how Christians in the midst of it served God. Some took all of their resources, according to their abilities, and worked against the Nazis by hiding Jews, the disabled, etc. anyone who was being persecuted and shipped off to camps. But how many just decided to sit and wait it out? How many just did nothing—they didn’t cooperate with the Nazis but they didn’t use what they had to help out the oppressed either. They were quite literally worthless slaves—and I am not saying I would have done differently, I have no idea. Not everyone is a Corrie ten Boom, Irena Sendler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer—but I think we are all called to be somewhat like them, according to our abilities. Compare them with Oskar Schindler—who saved many, but knew he could have saved more.

God gives each of us abilities, and resources. What are we doing with them? Are we hoarding and hiding what is “ours” or are we using it to reap a profit for our Master? Sometimes we forget that Yeshua was speaking to an audience who wasn’t even middle class, because there was no middle class. To use what they had meant they might not have even enough for themselves. Yeshua was calling them to a radical kind of life. He’s calling us to a radical kind of life, actually.

Let’s go to the punch line of the parable, that contrasts and compares Kingdom like with life here in the world:

²⁸ So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. ²⁹ For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. ³⁰ And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

The audience would have rolled their eyes, if they did that sort of thing culturally. Yes, in the world as we know it, the people who have much, they just keep getting more. It’s a fact of life. The one who was given little, he had it taken away—and given to the guy who has the most. This absolutely is the way things have been throughout the ages, BUT—in the Kingdom we have a different sort of economy. A poor man can be rich in Messiah, in spiritual things, in true eternal wealth. Because of this, we can “immediately” or “right away” jump up and serve the Master according to the resources we have been given, whatever they are, and we will be held accountable according to our abilities. Someone who has been given the gift of hospitality is not going to be judged by the same criteria of service that someone with a gift of healing will be, or someone who has the ability to perform deliverance, or someone who can teach. This parable tells us to get up and get busy doing what we are called to do—not what anyone else is called to do. There are so many people out there squandering their master’s resources because they think that what they are equipped to do isn’t good enough, or flashy enough but honestly, if I am hungry I don’t care if you are a teacher, or can work healing miracles. I need a sandwich and maybe a place to sleep. If the people who are equipped to do that job are spending their time on the internet preaching, they are wasting their time. One, they aren’t called to it and so they either will be unsuccessful or will have to resort to worldly methods to get and maintain an audience, and two, God needs people who can make sandwiches. It is a more pressing need for those who are hungry, who aren’t going to care about the Gospel when they are starving. We all have our Kingdom work and not everyone is meant to be in full-time ministry—for many, it is a waste of their God-given resources and abilities. But we have these worldly ideas about what God wants from us, ideas that have almost zero basis in reality. And it is a disaster because we don’t respect our gifts, as well as our weaknesses.

Corrie ten Boom had organizational skills and a very clever mind, but she worked side by side with grocers and carpenters and government officials to shelter Jews in Nazi Germany, Irena Sendler had medical training and experience as a social worker, but she could do nothing without the faithful Catholic families who took in the smuggled Jewish children at the risk of their own children’s lives. Oskar Schindler had a factory and a ton of money. We have what we have and we do with it according to our abilities. That right there is the Parable of the Talents, a life that our good Master rewards, and if we do not, if we ignore our resources and refuse to be grateful for and use our God-given abilities, we will find ourselves weeping and gnashing our teeth in the outer darkness. We may find ourselves in the world to come, but so far from the Throne that we can barely hear the praises being sung to our King.