What are the Talents?

How often have you heard someone refer to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25?

As you recall, what was the lesson being drawn from this parable?

The lesson was probably something like this: When God has given you a gift, you need to use that gift. When we have some skill, we’ve got to put it to use. Don’t be like the guy in the parable who had a talent, got a shovel and buried it out of his fear of failure, and in the end was left with nothing.

This is something that invites a closer look. In this story, we see a wealthy man, one who probably had business interests of various kinds: vineyards over here, herds of livestock over there, fields and barns. In getting everything done, he employed a few dozen of the locals. And over these servants he placed still other servants, stewards who ran his operations.

It so happened that this man was about to go abroad. In his absence, he doesn’t merely ask for insignificant things to be taken care of, like watering the flowers and picking up the mail. He gives everything to his servants, for he’d be gone too long to let things sit idle. So to one servant he gives five talents, to another two talents, and to a third he gives one.

We’ve heard the term “talent” from other parables. It was first used as a unit of weight, describing something that was about 75 pounds. It also came to be known as a large unit of money, maybe around 6000 denarii. If a denarius was a day’s wages for a labourer, then a talent was the proceeds of 15 or 20 years of work. For the master to give five talents, then, two, or even one talent, means he’s handing over a massive sum.

Like in other parables, the amounts here are exaggerated, hyperbolic—beyond imagination.

This is not some modest gift, but he’s giving his servants immense resources. And he gives these things “in trust.” He gives in the expectation that while he’s gone, his servants will take care of what they received, and put it to work. Invest it. Start multiplying.

This is when our minds begin to race ahead to the end. We’re anticipating what this parable is all about. In fact, we already know what lesson Jesus is teaching.

Why is that? Because when someone says “talents” like in this parable, we think of how we use the word “talent” today—easy connection. We think of the “talents” that we have, abilities that God has given us. Like playing the piano, or knowing how to teach, or being an encouraging person, or being good at basketball.

So in the parable, we say, the master gives talents, and his servants must be industrious with what they receive. In a similar way, God gives us talents—skills and abilities and gifts—and these are the things we’re called to employ faithfully. It’s a parable that lines up nicely with our Calvinist work ethic!

There’s truth to this, of course. Think of how the Spirit says that whatever we do, we should do it with all our heart, working for the Lord and not for men.

Yet Jesus’s lesson here is something different. It’s even more fundamental to our life, more basic, than a tutorial about gifts and hard work. How can we know this?

First is context: where this text is located points to the real meaning of the “Parable of the Talents.” We’re nearly at the end of Matthew. Jesus is but one chapter away from the Last Supper, from being betrayed, from his anguish in the garden, his arrest and trial. Which means that over this parable, the shadow of his death looms darkly! We know it’s coming—He knows it’s coming—and things are getting tense.

That’s why in his recent teachings, Jesus focuses on this coming, critical time. Think about the parable of the wedding banquet in chapter 22, and the urgency of sending in your RSVP to the king’s invitation, today and not tomorrow.

A chapter after that, Jesus pronounces woes on the teachers of the law. What He especially condemns them for is rejecting the Christ. You can hear where He’s going with this: they’re going to kill him, just like they killed the prophets (23:37).

Then a chapter later, Jesus gives a picture of his return to earth from heaven: signs of the end, desolations, the coming King—and then the five virgins who get the door shut in their faces. “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming” (25:13).

Altogether, it shows how critical the next events are going to be. Tomorrow: the cross—a “do or die” moment, and not just for Jesus, but for everyone. Will sinners notice what He’s done? Will we hear his saving word? So that when He comes again, we’ll be ready to receive him with the bright lamps of joy and faith?

The same thing is going on in the parable: The Lord God—the master—has entrusted the treasure of his Word to his people. In Christ, God has told everything sinners need to know about salvation and godliness.

So how will we handle the gospel we’ve received? Will we believe it? Or waste it?

As we said, whether the servants received one or two talents or five, matters little. The amounts are already unattainable, beyond comprehension—like the gospel itself, which has indefinable dimensions, “the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.”

How do we handle the gospel gift? In the parable, a couple of the servants labour as the master wanted: investing, buying, selling. Both see their labours rewarded with a healthy increase. But the servant who got one talent isn’t so productive. With his fortune, he is decidedly less motivated to do anything with what he has: “[He] went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money” (v. 18).

This was actually a common thing for people to do back then, hiding their possessions in the ground. Banks back then gave no guarantees. So lots of people would just store their money with the roots and the worms.

Yet the master had given the treasure to him to use, not squirrel away. He chooses what’s always the easiest thing: to do nothing. He hid the master’s resources out of sight. It’s on this third servant that Jesus puts the attention.

The location of our passage helps us see who this servant represents. He stands for the scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders and their attitude toward Christ. He’d recently poured condemnation on them because they loaded people with great burdens, like keeping the law in absurdly meticulous ways. In their concern for the finer points, they neglected the more important matters of God’s Word: things like justice, mercy and faithfulness.

What’s more, they failed in one critical way: they failed to point their people to the promised Messiah. They were even “shutting the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces” (23:13). They were obstructing what Christ came to do: save sinners, redeem captives, and give relief to those who were weary. They were afraid of what it all meant, so they took this incredible treasure, and they dug it into the ground. Now it’s going to be taken away from them and given to others.

So what about us? God has brought to light for us the Pearl of Great Price, an ancient treasure entrusted into our keeping: the glorious gospel of Christ’s precious blood, more costly than all gold or silver. Shared out to us—and now the master expects us to be good stewards of his treasure.

By believing it with all that we are.

By staking our very life on it, knowing it to be our only comfort for body and soul.

By taking what we’ve been given, and watching the gospel grow like compound interest, like a fruitful vine, like a fertile field. 

The gospel has that effect: it grows.

The gospel grows in our families when we lead them well. It grows in our churches when we teach them faithfully. It grows in our neighbourhoods when we share these treasures.

So what will you do with your amazing talent? Not your talent in business, or your talent for writing, or your talent in mentoring. What about this talent, the incredible wealth you received in the gospel? In Christ we’ve received a rich inheritance, even the treasures of salvation which never spoil or fade. When you love Christ and you love his gospel, you’ll find that there’s always more work to be done. And it’s good and joyous work.

So may God in his grace grant that each of us will hear the Saviour’s words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You believed my gospel. You loved my people. You shared my truth. Enter the joy of your master.”