The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30)

In Matthew 25:14-30 the Gospel writer records Jesus’ famous Parable of the Talents. Usually it’s for sermons on giving that pastors will preach this passage. At best they will couch it in an overall understanding of stewardship in which everything that God gives us (money, gifts, talents, possessions, time, and ourselves) is ultimately from him and that we are to use it as he wants us to. All well and good; few Christians disagree with this. At worst, this passage is used by preachers to scare parishioners and genuine believers into giving money to the church lest they are cast into utter darkness for not doing so (see verse 30). This, in of itself, is a horrid idea. “You may claim to be a follower of Jesus, but if you don’t tithe correctly, God is going to throw you into hell.” Nonsense! Now I do not believe that most pastors ever attempt to intentionally or maliciously frighten church-goers out of their money with threats of eternal punishment. The problem is that expositors of the Bible have grabbed hold of the wrong end of this stick about this passage and subsequent generations have simply inherited a poor interpretation. In a sense this parable is about stewardship, but it goes far deeper than simplistic sermons about money. And if we want to find the appropriate principle of which to apply to our faith we’re going to have to discover its original and immediate meaning.

The context of Jesus’ ministry was a first century Palestine that was anxiously waiting for God to return to them, specifically to the Temple. Thus the opening of the Gospel of Mark includes quotes from Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1:

“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way’ – ‘a voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”’” (Mark 1:1-3)

Both verses are about the return of God to his people after his apparent abandonment of the Temple during the Exile. The second part of Malachi 3:1 notes that “Yahweh will suddenly come to his Temple. The following verse is the warning “But who can endure the day of his coming?” (3:2) indicating that this return may not be a good for everyone. What is important for the Christian is that the New Testament authors apply these Old Testament prophecies about the return of God to the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth.

Matthew has been touching upon this concept of God returning to his people throughout his work (see Matthew 2:18 and 13:1-23 for recently discussed examples). When Jesus triumphantly enters Jerusalem in Matthew 21:1-11, the author quotes Zechariah 9:9 and Isaiah 62:11 in verse 5. Both passages from which these two Old Testament verses are derived are about God returning to his people, returning to Jerusalem, returning to Zion. Again, Matthew is applying this to Jesus’ person and ministry.

This is immediately followed by Jesus’ so-called Cleansing of the Temple in which he actually passes judgment upon it, quoting Jeremiah 7:11. The passage from Jeremiah is about God preparing to bring down judgment upon the whole of Judah for its sins against God and man. This prophecy was fulfilled with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 BCE. Now God has returned to his people in the person and work of Jesus, he has appeared in his Temple, and is warning that what happened in 587 BCE is about to happen again: the destruction of the Temple and the fall of Israel. This prophecy by Jesus was fulfilled by the Romans in 70 CE. “Who can endure the day of his coming?” Jesus himself weeps over what is about to befall Jerusalem (23:37-38).

So in Matthew 24, Jesus comes out from the Temple and his disciples mention it and its surrounding buildings, Jesus replies, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down” (verse 2). The disciples question Jesus about this and he launches into his discourse about what is going to happen during the great tribulation (66-73 CE) when Rome destroys Jerusalem and what it will actually be like when the Lord returns to his people. He explains this through both apocalyptic allusions and parables, including the Parable of the Fig Tree (24:32-41), the Parable of the Ten Virgins (25:1-13), and the Parable of the Talents (25:14-30).

The Parable of the Talents fits into this narrative because it is about God returning to his people. This is not a story about Jesus giving the Church tasks or stewardship then ascending to heaven only to return in 2000 plus years to see what we’ve done with it all. This story is about how God entrusted Israel with specific tasks and stewardship. They were to be the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13) and the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). They were entrusted with the Scriptures (Romans 3:2). God called Israel in order that he might bless the world through them (Genesis 22:18). Yet, many of them were bad stewards who failed in their tasks and blasphemed God’s name in the world (Romans 2:24; Ezekiel 36:20-22). According to Jesus, God is like a master who gave his servants tasks, went on a journey, and is now returning to those servants to see what they have done. To good stewards, he will give a just reward. Bad stewards will receive a just punishment. “Who can endure the day of his coming?”

So this parable is not specifically about Jesus returning at some future date to see how his followers in the Church handled the resources he gave them. God is not going to throw believers into outer darkness because they didn’t give ten percent of their income. There are other places in the Bible that talk about how God wants us to handle his money but this isn’t specifically one of them. This parable is about how God returned to Israel and dealt with his people who either wisely or foolishly handled their charge to be a blessing to the world. But is there a principle here that we can apply to our contemporary lives beyond the realization of how God once acted in history? I think there is.

We must first note that while Israel as a nation ultimately proved faithless in its task, Jesus as the Christ is the one Israelite who showed faithful obedience to his task for God even unto death (Philippians 2:5-11). He fulfilled Israel’s task to be a blessing to the world. The Church, as his body, made up of all his followers, has the primary task to be a part of his continuing work to be a blessing to the world. We accomplish this task by proclaiming the Gospel (Matthew 28:19-20; Luke 4:18-19). Followers of Jesus are stewards of the Gospel, lights of the world, and salt of the earth. Believers are entrusted with the Gospel and given the task of telling the world about it, and God expects us to do so. Now I do not believe that God will cast believers into eternal punishment if they do not do so. They simply do not bear fruit (Matthew 13:22). Nevertheless, in order to fulfill our purpose and complete our mission, we as individuals must not keep the Gospel for ourselves (Matthew 5:14-16). Churches must not become insular social gatherings of navel-gazers focused on building themselves up and sopping up the blessings of the Lord while not reaching out to the world with the Gospel. This is the point of the Parable of the Talents. It’s not a warning against being stingy with our money but warning against being stingy with the Gospel.