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

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

Jesus offered his disciples a Parable about our God-given talents. 

I thought about this when a friend of mine in her fifth decade, discovered a latent God-given talent for painting. 

The painting shown above was gifted to me by her, and it now hangs in my sitting room. It inspires me to search for any latent talents that I might have. 

My friend is now developing this newfound gift with all her heart and soul and is very happy and fulfilled as she does this. 

She produces beautiful paintings that people take great pleasure in enjoying in their homes.

The parable and reflection in this post are about developing our God-given talents. We all have them – have you identified all of yours?

Reflection on our God-given Talents:

Jesus often taught several different lessons in each parable.

And in this parable, He is telling his disciples that they need to be creative, faithful, fearless, and productive in their Kingdom-building work.

The master in the parable represents God, and the servants represent various people and their responses in relationship to God. The work they were undertaking represents building the Kingdom of God.

The parable describes how the master gave his servants different amounts of money to look after according to their gifts. 

Two of the servants worked creatively with the money and generated more. The third buried it because he did not trust the master to understand if he lost it.

Then when the master returned, he judged what his workers had produced with the money he had entrusted them with.

The first two were praised and given more things to work with from the master. 

The third servant, however, was condemned to outer darkness because he had not done anything creative with the money he had been trusted to look after.

The reason he had not served his master well was because he was faithless and fearful.

St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians

We can perhaps better understand this parable from St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

He told them that God created us as individual works of art. But not just as pieces of art, we also all have the potential to be co-creators helping to build the Kingdom of God on earth.

This is what St Paul said about this; For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. Ephesians 2:10

He meant that God has blessed us all with many gifts and talents. This could be with amazing skills in the creative arts, practical specialities in the workplace, and/or the capacity for kindness and compassion.

Paul is saying there is no end to the width and depth of gifts God has to bless us with; they are as numerous as the stars in the sky; they combine to create our uniqueness.

We were created to be happy co-creators with God, celebrating He is the God of love and all creation.

He allows us to be in a world separate from Himself and loves and delights in watching us discover and express our gifts.

By comparison, the third servant in the parable proved to be a worthless – useless, faithless, and fearful lump of clay.

So the lesson for Christians today from the Parable of the Talents is to be creative, faithful, fearless, and productive in our Kingdom-building work.