Matthew 25:14-30 - Bags of Gold

I have made the point before, and will make it again. The way to be ready for Christ's return is to serve Him today. Jesus teaching on the destruction of the temple and the end times are followed by three parables that all make it very clear that what will make a difference on the last day is how we live now. The "end times" is not just a single event. I believe there will be cataclysmic events at the end, but it is also about ongoing life. This age is coming to an end, there will be a final judgement, and Jesus is the judge. So if we are wise we will listen to Jesus, and we will order our lives in line with His priorities, His desires, His commands.

So here we come to the parable of the talents, or the "parable of the bags of gold" as modern translations put it. A man was going away on a journey and left his servants with five, two and one bags of gold. The ones with five and two bags put the money to good use and made a profit. The one with only one bag hid it in the ground.

Given the closeness of all this to Jesus death on the cross, it is clear that the parable is a lesson in how we are to live in the time before His return. When He does return He rewards and praises the first two servants, but castigates the last one.

This last servant seems in some ways to be humble, but it is not a Biblical humility. So this man is thrown into "outer darkness".

There are many lessons to be drawn from this well-known parable. 

• We are to put to good use the talents (abilities, money, etc) that we have. 
• We do not own the things we have, we are stewards of them. They all belong to God
• It is very dangerous to adopt a false humility
• There is a reward at the end

In some ways it seems "unfair" that the ones who had the most were given even more, and it was the poorest one who suffered the most. This should be a warning against certain attitudes about gifts and money. We so easily fall into one of two errors. On the one hand we can end up worshipping money and being greedy, as some forms of prosperity teaching tend towards. On the other we can despise success and money (and despise those who are successful). Both are equally wrong. What counts is what we do with what we have. We are to use the things we have for the glory of God.