14 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone. 15 He gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last—dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip.
16 “The servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earned five more. 17 The servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more. 18 But the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid the master’s money.
19 “After a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money. 20 The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, ‘Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.’
21 “The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’
22 “The servant who had received the two bags of silver came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest, and I have earned two more.’
23 “The master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’
24 “Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. 25 I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’
26 “But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate, 27 why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it.’
28 “Then he ordered, ‘Take the money from this servant, and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver. 29 To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. 30 Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Read Matthew 25:14-30 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!
For our focus passage in today’s journal entry, we are looking at one of the many parables Jesus told His disciples. This parable has a similar sounding alternate version, that we have looked at in several past journal entries, but up to this point, we’ve not touched on this passage.
There are several things we could focus in on within this passage, but in this journal entry, I want to focus on a question that many people might not have even thought of: Why did the man/master give the confiscated talent to the servant who had ten talents? Why not the servant who had doubled the investment to four talents?
I can easily understand the lazy servant having the talent taken away, but with the way the parable is written, one could easily conclude that God is behind the rich people getting richer, while not helping out those in the middle. Since I don’t know God’s mind, I won’t spend much time thinking or pondering this idea.
However, in the case of this parable, I wonder if the master simply chose the servant who had the most, because the extra talent would represent the least impact into his life. The servant who had 4 talents would have been bumped up by 25% if given the extra talent, whereas the servant who had 10 talents would have only been bumped up by 10%.
God knows that money has a way of amplifying an individual’s character, and the faster income/wealth increases, the harder it is for the individual to develop the solid character needed to not have the money corrupt them.
In my mind, it is likely that the master of this parable does not want to negatively impact the two productive servants, and because of this, he chooses the servant who this talent would have the least impact on.
Which leads us to the main point for this journal entry: God wants our money to be a blessing. He provides for what we need because He does not want our money corrupting our character.
This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!
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