Your Talents

Imagine that you have been given $2,000, and you are charged to take it and make more money. How would you do so?

Would you go and try to find ways to invest it? Would you use it to buy some tools or some other resources so that you could work and make money with them? Would you buy property and hope that it would increase in value? At the very least, would you not put it in a savings account at a bank and make interest on it?

What do you expect would happen to you if you did nothing with the money at all? What if you went and spent it on things that did not lead to profit? If the $2,000 were whittled away to nothing, what could be done?

We can see clearly the consequences of how people handle worldly wealth-- some impoverish themselves by irresponsible living, and others take opportunities provided to them and become successful in life. The difference is rarely seen in terms of natural abilities; the difference involves what one chooses to do with that which one has been given.

Jesus provides this same scenario in Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:12-27. In these stories, three servants are given sums of money: either a talent or a mina. In each story, two servants take the money and use it profitably, making two to ten times more money than the original sum given. Likewise, each story presents one servant who did nothing with the money at all, and simply gave back to his master that which he received. In both instances, that servant is punished (in Matthew, he is even cast into the outer darkness!), and the purpose of the story is made clear:

"I say unto you, that unto every one that hath shall be given; but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away from him" (Luke 19:26).

Should we say that Jesus is just enriching the already rich? By no means! The stories are not really about money-- they are about the gifts that God has given us. God has given to each person gifts according to their measures and abilities (cf. Romans 12:6-8). He does not expect everyone to be able to accomplish the same amount or to be exactly alike: diversity of talents and specialties is expected in the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-28)!