The Parable of the Talents
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2015 · 8 March 2015
In Matthew 25 tonight we will look at one of the great parables in all of the Scripture. It is a parable about the tragedy of wasted opportunity. The Bible calls all of us to make the most of spiritual opportunities, we are called to maximize our privileges. We are reminded to sow our seed and not expect much for we do not know whether we will prosper either in this or that. In other words, we should take advantage of every chance we get for we know that any missed opportunity is a wasted one.
Proverbs 10:5 says, "He who gathers in summer is a wise son; he who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame.” You better store up while you can, you better harvest while there is harvest to be had. In Isaiah 55:6 it says, "Seek the LORD while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near.” In Jeremiah 8:7 it says, "The stork in heaven knows her appointed times and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming, but My people know not the judgment of the Lord." The animals know where to be when and how to care for themselves, and that's more than some people know.
And our Lord Jesus also called us to make the most of the moment, to make the most of every spiritual privilege and spiritual opportunity. In John 12:35-36 Jesus said, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” Again, calling us to take advantage of spiritual opportunity.
So let us learn from Matthew 25:14-19, “For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. 15 And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey. 16 Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents. 17 And likewise he who had received two gained two more also. 18 But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money. 19 After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.”
The simple overarching message is the tragedy of wasted opportunity. The disciples asked: when is Your coming? And Jesus has already answered five times in Matthew 24 and 25, "No one knows the day nor the hour." He gave signs of the period before His coming. He described the birth pains and He discussed the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. He talked about the evil of the great Tribulation period. He's given them all kinds of details as to the events around His Second Coming, but as to the exact moment and the exact day, He has not told them.
And the call comes in His holding back the exact day and the exact hour so that we must be ready at all times. And He explains it by using two parables: the parable of the virgins in verses 1 through 12 and the parable of the talents in verses 14 to 30. Both of them basically have the same intention. They are two very important parables. And verse 13 notice, links them together. And at the end of the first parable He says, "Watch therefore," Then verse 14 begins, "For it is like a man traveling," and it takes us right into the next parable.
Now the parable of the virgins and the parable of the talents differ in how we need to live. The first parable emphasized waiting. It was on that internal heart attitude that longs for the coming of the Lord. The parable of the talents is not an emphasis on waiting, it's an emphasis on working and serving. While we are waiting and while we are looking and while we are watching, we are to be serving the Lord. And that's what the parable of the talents emphasizes. And together they provide for us an ideal balance of living in anticipation of the Second Coming.
We should also make most of our opportunity and stewardship and magnify the very role that God has given us to serve Him. And if one of those things is over-emphasized, or one of them is lost, the Christian's experience is out of balance. People who are no longer looking for the Second Coming but spending all of their time working in the world have lost that which is necessary for balance. And people who are always looking and waiting and not bothering to be working have also lost a very important balance.
The balance of the Christian life can be seen by the virgins who had extra oil. The oil represented a transformed nature, a redeemed soul, a changed life. And the talent parable illustrates the fact that true believers manifest that necessary grace in the life of service. So on the one hand you have saving grace, on the other hand you have the product of that in the serving life. That's the balance in Christianity. True saving faith is the faith that works. James 2 says, faith without works is dead.
What do we need to know then about spiritual opportunities? There are four things in this parable that we need to know. We need to know the responsibility we receive, the reaction we have, the reckoning we face and the reward we gain. Those are the things we need to know as we anticipate using our opportunities. And they are all here in this marvelous parable.
Let's start with the responsibility we receive in verse 14. It is a transition right out of the former parable which was talking about the Kingdom. So the Kingdom is likened to two of these parables, this being the second one. The Kingdom is the sphere where God rules by grace and salvation through Christ. Now sometimes the term, the "Kingdom of heaven" is used for the exclusive internal invisible spiritual body of redeemed people.
But on the other hand, sometimes the Kingdom of heaven is used to refer to the visible Kingdom, which is made up of people who identify themselves with Christ, some are real and some are false, right? The Kingdom, for example, is like wheat and tares in Matthew 13. The Kingdom is like a dragnet full of stuff that is dragged up from the bottom of the sea, some is fish to be kept and some is refuse to be thrown away. The Kingdom is for instance made up of soil, some is good and some is bad.
We do the same thing with the word "church." For example, sometimes when we refer to the church we are talking about the truly redeemed, aren't we? But when we say something is wrong in the church today, we could be talking about the mixture of stuff that's in the church. The same is true in the Lord's references to the Kingdom. He is talking about two kinds of servants, the kind who use their opportunity and the kind who waste it. But both of them identify themselves as servants of the Lord.
So, this Kingdom is like a man who travels on a long trip into a far country. And in those days travel was difficult and you could be gone for two years. So he calls his own servants and delivers them his goods. The Kingdom is filled with different kinds of servants. It is a net full of fish to be kept and garbage to be discarded. There is wheat and tares. It is virgins with oil and virgins without. It is two houses, one with a foundation and one without a foundation. It is two paths and two gates.
So we must understand that in the Kingdom there always is this combination unless the Lord is specifically talking about the invisible inward spiritual Kingdom for the truly redeemed. So here's the picture. The man has a lot of people who attach themselves to him. Their heart attitude is going to be manifest right here. And there are a lot of people in the Kingdom today, a lot of people in His church today, under the authority of the Christ- appointed leaders and pastors today.
And we can see the comparison of the kind whose hearts are right and the kind whose hearts are not right as we put them up against this very parable. Now notice what happens. "He calls his own servants" and he delivers to them his goods. He's going to be gone long enough and he has to keep up with the economy. So he has to make wise investments. He has to make sure that everything is cared for.
Now, the word for servant here is the word “doulos” and we could even translate it as an "employee." Here were people who were trustworthy capable servants and he gave each of them a certain amount of his goods so that they could bring him back a return on his property while he was gone. They were stewards to handle the funds and assets and resources for the profit of the master, which profit they would return to him upon his arrival back.
Now notice verse 15, and this will tell us the responsibility we have, "And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey.” Now he knows the skill of each of his servants. So he apportions out to them that which he believes they are capable of handling properly. To the first he gives five talents, to the second two and to the third one. They are only illustrative. The numbers could be different but they illustrate low and high and somewhere in the middle.
We know that a talent basically in the English sense speaks of someone's abilities. But actually it meant a weight. That's why in Revelation 16 it talks about a hailstone weighing a talent. Now the value of each talent would depend on whether it was gold, very valuable, or whether it was silver, quite a bit less, or whether it was copper, quite a bit less again. It's probably best to see this as silver because the word used for money in verse 18 is a word that is frequently used to refer to silver coinage.
And the idea of the owner was, take this, invest it and get a return for me on it, show yourself a faithful steward. It isn't important what the monetary value was. What is important is only to see what they did. Now notice in verse 15 also, "He gave them to every man according to his ability." Each man's ability was that which determined what he received. Some people had greater capacity to handle a large amount of money than other people did.
So as we look at the parable we can see that the master here is the Lord Himself. And going on a journey is the Lord going back to heaven where He is right now. We are now given a management role. And we have been given various bags of talents. And that is what we are to use for the working out and the serving that God would have us accomplish while He is away, until Christ comes back. Not all of us have received the same amount.
Everybody is created differently with differing mental capacities, differing verbal capacities, differing skills, talents and capabilities. And then, you add to that the fact that each us has been exposed to different opportunities, different privileges, different teachers, and different discipling processes. And maybe there are people who are limited educationally and maybe some people are limited mentally and some people are limited emotionally.
It is a picture of spiritual capacity and spiritual privilege and spiritual responsibility and spiritual opportunity. And in the story, the servant who really loves his master is going to say, "Wow, here's my opportunity to really invest my time and my energy and my thought and my work to bring him back a return on what he's given me. Here's my opportunity to show him that he was right in trusting me, to sort of return his confidence in me.” So the issue is what they do with those opportunities.
The talents in our bag that we carry would include the teaching we have received. How much opportunity to hear, mixed with our God-given and God-created intellectual capacities, emotional capacities and gifts and skills? And how much opportunity for fellowship? And how much opportunity for spiritual advantage and insight? And how much opportunity for blessing? And how much have we received of all that the Kingdom offers? That's our bag, mixed with our God-given capabilities.
All of us in the visible church, who identify ourselves as servants of the Lord, whether we're real or not, have been given these privileges. And you have the privilege of hearing the Word of God, of being taught, of meeting people who love the Lord and walk with the Lord. God put you here to fill your bag here. And God has given you the opportunity to be whatever it is that He designed you to be. He gives each person gifts according to the measure of grace and the proportion of faith.
Notice also, that the five doubled his and the two doubled his? This shows an equal percent of faithfulness, even though the result is not the same. It is true in spiritual ministry that some have greater results than others. And the implication of this parable is that even in the Kingdom there will be different levels of rulership for people with different capacities. The issue is, did we give back to God when given the opportunity a maximum return? If you have five, He wants five more back. If you have two, He wants two more back.
It is a stewardship bag, it is a bag of privilege. We are managing that part of God's fortune. Listen, every time you sit under the teaching of the Word of God, every time we read the Word of God, every time we learn a great truth out of the Word of God, the Holy Spirit just dropped something else in our bag. And now you are responsible for the living out and the working out of that opportunity and privilege you have been given.
What do we do with the spiritual opportunity? Verse 16, "Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same and made five more talents." His heart instantly responds to the privilege of serving his Lord. That is the fruit of inward salvation. And he went and traded, the word means to work literally. He went out and did business. He made the most of his spiritual privilege, the most of his spiritual opportunity.
And verse 17 says, "Likewise, the one who had received two also gained two more." He made the most of his, too. Not everybody has the same opportunity. Some people hear the gospel a very limited way. Some people have exposure to a massive amount of it. But in both cases they gave a maximum return on the privilege God gave them. And that's what God was after. Be faithful to maximize your opportunity.
But, verse 18 says, "He that had received one went and dug in the earth and hid his lord's silver money." Now that was a common thing to do when you wanted to save money. He does absolutely nothing with it, he wasted his opportunity, wasted his privilege. God says that the one who has the very least opportunity is equally responsible.
The responsibility and the reaction then leads to the reckoning. But notice the reckoning in verse 19, "After a long time, the lord of those servants comes and reckons with them." He comes back to see how they've done in terms of stewardship in regard to their opportunity. And that's the way it's going to be when the Lord returns. Have you really given the Lord a whole life of service in return for that? Let us pray.