Parable of the Talents

Originally posted by sonship
The servants are saved believers.
The question of their eternal salvation has been solved in the affirmative.
They will never perish forever.

This does not mean that they cannot be temporarily disciplined for their lives AFTER they commenced their Christian life.

There is much to say about this parable. But I would say at this point that we ...[text shortened]... m the question of eternal redemption has already been solved in the affirmative.

cont. below

The servants are saved believers.
The question of their eternal salvation has been solved in the affirmative.
They will never perish forever.

How did you draw this conclusion. You often seem to decide what a passage means without considering context and then end up making up some nonsense - some of it really convoluted - in an attempt to try to make it fit.

Originally posted by sonship
It is easier to understand the parable of the talents if we occasionally compare it with the previous parable of the ten virgins.

The footnote of the Recovery Version says this about verse 15.

[quote] A talent, the largest unit of weight, was worth six thousand denarii (see note 7[1] in John 6). In the parable of the virgins, oil signifies the Spirit o ...[text shortened]... ore into your hands. More may not be a spectacular more, but more. His seeing is not our seeing.

A Christian may serve in many many ways, the Lord Jesus.
A Christian can trade with the gifts given to him according to his consecration and his natural ability.

To bury the talent is wrong. And no excuse will be accepted by Christ for not serving Him in some capacity. If you can pray for people, you can serve. If you can fix a good meal for people in love and in the Holy Spirit, you can serve. if you can teach you can serve if you teach by imparting life to those whom you teach. There are too many ways in which a Christian can serve the Lord Jesus.

What exactly leads you to believe that this is what the parable of the talents is about?

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne

How did you draw this conclusion. You often seem to decide what a passage means without considering context and then end up making up some nonsense - some of it really convoluted - in an attempt to try to make it fit.
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The servants are saved believers.
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The question of their eternal salvation has been solved in the affirmative.
They will never perish forever.
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Jesus ascended and left the disciples to serve Him until He physically returns, according to His own teaching.

"For the kingdom of the heavens is just like a man about to go abroad, who called his own slaves ..."

Though the words "the kingdom of the heavens" are supplied by the translator / editor of the Recovery Version, the previous parable literally contains the words in 25:1 -

"At that time the kingdom of the heavens will be likened to ten virgins, ..." (v.1)

Its fully reasonable that like the parable of verses 1 - 13 the parable of verses 14 - 30 are also a teaching about "the kingdom of the heavens".

State your alternative interpretation of its subject matter if you have one.

It should not be hard to see "the man" must be representing Christ.
State who else "a man about to go abroad" might be if you have a better interpretation.

It should be fairly easy then to understand that "his own slaves" mean Christ's own disciples.They are the ones who believe in Him and live to serve Him. If you have a better interpretation for who "his own slaves" would represent, tell us.

The man with slaves goes abroad at the beginning of the parable. And at the end of it he returns again to settle accounts.

"Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them." (v.19)

These details match His plain teaching that He will leave them physically and return to them at some unknown time. For example nearly all of chapter 24 is about Christ's second coming. And 24;45-51 is an explicit lesson on the need for His servants to be ready, vigilant, prepared, and fit to have Him come upon them at that time.

Matthew 24:44 says

"For this reason you also be ready, because at an hour when you do not expect it, the Son of Man is coming." (24:44)

There is plenty of logical ground to ascertain that the parables of the virgins and the talents continue this line of teaching about Christ's second coming and His disciples.

So the master goes abroad and the master returns "after a long time". There's nothing sneaky about taking this to indicate the interval of time of the church age commencing roughly when Christ ascended and when Christ descends again.

Chapter 24 certainly lays ample ground work for taking the parables and prophecy of chapter 25 as a continued discussion about Christ coming at the end of the church age.

His (Christ's) servants would not logically include those who have no intention of following Him.

His (Christ's) slaves would be those who He has justified through His new covenant.

Matthew 1:23 lays the principle of the whole Gospel of Matthew that Christ will save His people from their sins. His people would be His servants.

" And she will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins." (Matt. 1:21)

If they perish forever then obviously they have not been saved from their sins.
This gives us ground to understand that the slaves of the parable of Matt. 25:14-30 have had the question of their eternal salvation solved in the affirmative.

Christ's people being saved from their sins for eternal life does not mean that they are saved from any and all discipline for their perfecting. So the punishment of the evil and slothful slave of the parable does not have to mean he was not saved from his sins as to eternity.

Furthermore, we are told that the reward to His servants will have levels of renown in the kingdom of the heavens.

"Therefore whoever annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called the least in the kingdom of the heavens; but whoever practices and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of the heavens." (Matt. 5:19)

There being levels of "great" and "least" and probably other levels in between to those participants of the kingdom of the heavens would correspond to different levels of reward in the parable of 25:20-23.

I'll conclude this post here.
But below I will deal with the interpretation of the punished servant.
But as you saw, I leaned heavily on First Corinthians 3:11-17 to prove some saved eternally will suffer loss and miss a certain reward.

Matthew's Gospel and Paul's letter to the church in Corinth share a New Testament context.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
[b]A Christian may serve in many many ways, the Lord Jesus.
A Christian can trade with the gifts given to him according to his consecration and his natural ability.

To bury the talent is wrong. And no excuse will be accepted by Christ for not serving Him in some capacity. If you can pray for people, you can serve. If you can fix a good meal for peop ...[text shortened]...

What exactly leads you to believe that this is what the parable of the talents is about?[/b]

A Christian may serve in many many ways, the Lord Jesus.
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If I said a that Christian can serve the Lord Jesus in only one way you might be the first to object.

According to First Corinthians 12 there are distinctions of gifts, ministries and operations, but the same triune God.

"But there are distinctions of gifts, but the same Spirit;
And there are distinctions of ministries, yet the same Lord;
And there are distinctions of operations, but the same God, who operates all things." (1 Cor. 12:4-6)

So there are many many ways to serve the Lord Jesus. But there is one Lord, one Spirit, and one God operating in these many ways.

And there should be one underlying motive of "love" in the Christians' service which truth is elaborated on in chapter 13.

If one objects that First Corinthians is too removed from context of Matthew 25 i would say that that is ridiculous. But even if we stay within Matthew's Gospel it is evident that the disciples served their Lord Jesus in many ways.

Do we not see the twelve disciples perform varied tasks? They preached the gospel, they casted out demons, they distributed alms to some poor, they prayed with Him, they sought a place to meet, they sought transportation, etc. Why would it be thought unusual that the parable would indicate all these and other services for the Lord Jesus were like responsibilities assigned to them?

If you didn't believe that after Jesus "walked on earth" He died and no longer existed then you would understand that the Lord Jesus is still dispensing responsibilities through the Holy Spirit for His followers to serve Him.

The master going abroad, i said, must mean Christ's ascension to the heavens for "a long time" during the church age. He promises to both be with His disciples " until the consummation of the age " [b]Matt. 28:20. But He also promises to be coming again to them physically (Matthew 24).

Of course this is paradoxical - He is with them until the consummation of the age. But after a long church age He will also physically come and give reward to them for their works of service:

" For the Son of Man is to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will repay each man according to his doings." (16:27)

This would correspond to the parable's detail of the master returning after a long to settle accounts with his slaves.

A Christian can trade with the gifts given to him according to his consecration and his natural ability.
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I did write this. Briefly, God's gifting us is not totally unrelated to our natural abilities which we have via His creation and our learning.

Paul was a scholar. But he was a consecrated scholar dedicating his being to the Lord Jesus. Peter was a professional fisher. Christ made him and co-fishersa 'fishers of men".

It is not the goal of this teaching to be over indulged in introspection. Suffice it to say that when you give your life to the Lord, what you are and your training can be put into His wise hands to secure spiritual profit for His kingdom enterprise.

It is not so miraculous. It is practical.
Though a gift may be miraculous a gift is more often according to one's natural capacities and learning. Paul could write Romans out of his training as a rabbi.

There is much I could say here. Because you have not only serving the Lord Jesus with spiritual gifts given by Him but also serving in coordination as a team in love. He sent the disciples out two by two. And love Paul teaches is the excellent way to use one's spiritual gifts.

This is a big subject. For now I just show the talents represent spiritual gifts. Every parable does not have to exhaustively explain its every detail. If you feel the talents should have indicated something else in Christ's mind, tell us what that might be.


To bury the talent is wrong.
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Does the parable suggest the master was happy with the one who buried his talent?
Or does it suggest the master viewed it as wrong?


And no excuse will be accepted by Christ for not serving Him in some capacity.
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Did the master accept the slave's eloquent excuse or reject it?


If you can pray for people, you can serve.
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Absolutely, petition and prayers can be a service to the Lord Jesus.


If you can fix a good meal for people in love and in the Holy Spirit, you can serve.
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That is true. We can pray and we can offer seeking people a meal in our home in an atmosphere of love. I'm not a good cook. But my wife is. And I am better at explaining some biblical passage. She is good at shepherding in understanding of personal situations of difficulty and of having faith.

We give ourselves to the Lord to serve Him. And we coordinate in love and in teamwork. And in the end God gets all the glory. And in the end it is not that easy to tell exactly who can take the credit. Why, we serve as a priesthood in coordination, yet each according to some level of both natural capacity and consecration of our souls to the Lord Jesus.


if you can teach you can serve if you teach by imparting life to those whom you teach. There are too many ways in which a Christian can serve the Lord Jesus.
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First Corinthians takes of the Body having many members. And all the members are one body in Christ. All are not teachers. Neither are all the members of the body an eye or all an ear.

All members of our body ARE however receiving their directions from one head. And all the serving ones of different manners should be receiving their supply and direction from one Head of the Body of Christ - Jesus.


What exactly leads you to believe that this is what the parable of the talents is about?
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Good Bible exposition, good logic, experience, testimony of others who have gone before are some of the components which lead to this kind of understanding. I do follow the Lord Jesus. I am a learner.

If you think the treatment of the parable is too much, every parable is accompanied by plain teaching. And in this case I would submit that First Corinthians 3;10-17 would be a good place to see such plain teaching enlightening the parable.

The sticking point with some is whether the servant sent to the "outer darkness" was:

1.) a FALSE Christian
or
2.) a Christian whose eternal redemption was revoked.

I would definitely teach that that servant falls into the category of one who suffers loss (of reward and well-being) yet is saved (as through fire).

"I anyone's work which he has built upon the foundation remains, he will receive a reward."

... like the other two servants who traded with their talents.

"If anyone's work is consumed, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire."

... as the punished slave who is cast into outer darkness in which place there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This kind of teaching does not insist that all who "suffer loss" suffer the same level of discipline from the returning Lord Jesus. The cogent point is that NO servant should want to suffer loss before the judgment seat of Christ for His own household.

ToO, if your treatment of the parable's meaning is better, please address some of the requests for your better interpretation.

Originally posted by sonship
ToO, if your treatment of the parable's meaning is better, please address some of the requests for your better interpretation.

The Parable of the Talents and the Parable of the Minas are both about gaining understanding of the kingdom of heaven.

Those who have little understanding and do not seek to gain additional understanding will lose what understanding they have. They will be cast into darkness and not live in the kingdom.

Those who have understanding and seek to gain additional understanding will be given even more understanding. The more understanding they have, the easier it is to gain additional understanding.
This is true about understanding anything of complexity. The more you understand, the easier it is to gain additional understanding.

It is up to the individual to seek to gain additional understanding of the kingdom of heaven.

He who has ears, let him hear.

Truth is elegant in its simplicity. The teachings of Jesus are elegant in their simplicity.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne

The Parable of the Talents and the Parable of the Minas are both about gaining understanding of the kingdom of heaven.

I cannot see that the King of the kingdom has any importance in your interpretation.
The King of the kingdom of Christ.

The going away of the master abroad is ignored in your interpretation.

" ... just like a man about to go abroad ..."

The "man" going abroad has no significance.
And I fear that it signals that Christ the King also has no significance in your interpretation.

You were a stickler on context. Chapters 24 and 25 are all about Christ's second coming.
So the man "about to go abroad" is better understood as Christ going physically away from the earth. And His coming back to His second coming.

"Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them." (v.19)

Quite much of the context of both chapter 24 and 25 is about Christ coming again as the King and Master to reward His servants.

In verse 31 it explicitly speaks of the coming of Christ in the next teaching -

"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, at that time He will sit on the throne of His glory" (v.31)

Christ has little to no place in your interpretation.
Christ ascension or going abroad has little to no place in your treatment.
Christ coming again to establish His kingdom has no place in your treatment that I can detect.

Those who have little understanding and do not seek to gain additional understanding will lose what understanding they have. They will be cast into darkness and not live in the kingdom.

The master GIVES to his servants his possessions. If this is understanding of the kingdom there should be more consideration that initially that is a possession of the master which is entrusted to his servants.

What they received they received initially from the master. The master has little to no place in your treatment. And that is probably because Jesus Christ Himself has little to no place in your "understanding" of the kingdom of God.

Christ, unfortunately for the modernist, continually points to HIMSELF in His teaching concerning the kingdom of God.

"For the kingdom of the heavens is just like A MAN ... about to go abroad, who called his own slaves ..."

You have a relationship of people with responsibility to a master, accountability to a master. If the modernist resents the Lord Jesus, it is understandable that this aspect of the parable will be ignored.

Those who have understanding and seek to gain additional understanding will be given even more understanding. The more understanding they have, the easier it is to gain additional understanding.

Now you have a situation where the master is unfair. If he only gave one talent to the last servant it appears that he does not want that servant to understand the kingdom. If it is true that the more understanding the easier to gain additional understanding, then apparently the master wanted to put the one talented servant at a disadvantage.

This is an interpretation which I think misrepresents the master's heart.
And it misrepresents the heart of Jesus Christ in that those to whom He gave one talent (little understanding) He purposely put at a disadvantage. It will be hard for them to gain more.

This is true about understanding anything of complexity. The more you understand, the easier it is to gain additional understanding.

This may have some validity. But your interpretation has the master FAVORING those with great understanding and holding in unfair disadvantage those to whom he delivered only a little understanding.

The parable is rather about faithfulness with what one has.

"His master said to him, Well done good and faithful slave. You have been FAITHFUL ... over a few things; I will set you over many things. "

FAITHFULNESS with what you have been given, HOWEVER much you have been given is the lesson of the parable.

Your interpretation eliminates Christ as the master completely. And it mentions nothing about "the joy of your master".

"I will set you over many things. Enter into the joy of your master." (v.21)

Since the parable is about the kingdom of the heavens, this "joy" should be related to the full establishment of the kingdom. There is a stage of the kingdom for a period of faithfulness. And there is a stage of the kingdom for a reward for faithfulness.

Faithfulness in the kingdom in the first stage results in JOY as a reward in the following stage. While you totally ignore the person who the master may represent, Jesus Christ plainly tells us that in the kingdom of the heavens He will return and REPAY His servants for their doings.

" For the Son of Man is to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will REPAY each man according to his doings." (Matt. 16:27)

It is better to understand the parable as being about the Son of Man coming and repaying His servants concerning their doings while He was a long time in heaven. Though He is away physically for a long timee, He WILL return and each Christian WILL be accountable to Him.

It is up to the individual to seek to gain additional understanding of the kingdom of heaven.

He who has ears, let him hear.

Truth is elegant in its simplicity. The teachings of Jesus are elegant in their simplicity.

Cont. below

ToO, in your treatment of the parable the one talented one would be someone who delivered BACK to the master the understanding that he received with no additional understanding.

"Then he ho had received the one talent also came and said, Master, I knew about you, that you are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow.

And I was afraid and went off and hid your talent in the earth; behold, you have what is yours." (vs. 24,25)

If the talent represents understanding then the slave returns the understanding to the master. The slave would then be saying that the understanding of the kingdom really is not his (the slave's) but belongs to someone else.

Verse 28 is also problematic to your interpretation.

"Take away therefore the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents." (v.28)

In your treatment then the one talented one was given less understanding to make it hard for him to gain more understanding. The punishment for not being advantaged like the ten talented one or the five talented one is for what understanding he had, to be given to the other slave.

He then becomes ignorant totally. And the one who was given great understanding receives what understanding the one talented slave had. This is weird.

The reward is to be over things in the kingdom to come.

"I will set you over many things." (v.21)

This is to be responsible for a few things and to be reward to extend that responsibility over more things. Understanding is not as good as items over which a servant is over.

"You were faithful over a few things. I will set you over many things."

Christ has possessions in the church age.
In the coming kingdom age following His second coming, He will also have possessions.
He needs faithful servants to be over those possessions as well.

Those over the few possessions that He delivered to them in the church age, if faithful, will be rewarded to be over even more possessions in the kingdom age.

Those unfaithful over His possessions in the church age, for whatever eloquent excuse they may concoct, whether fear or envy or sloth or apathy or unbelief, - will be disciplined and lose the reward to be over other possessions.

But SOMEONE has to be over those possessions to reign with Christ. He will take then, what SHOULD have been the slothful one's reward and give it to the slave who is more approved and trustworthy.