It’s a HEAVEN and HELL parable! The servants who used their talents entered into heaven, “the joy of the Lord”. The servant who didn’t use his talent was cast into hell.
The only thing the talents could represent is – saving faith!
Salvation, which is entering the Kingdom, is only by grace though faith. It is a gift from God. Everyone is given the opportunity to have faith. It is up to us what we do with it. Do we use it or do we bury it?
Those who put their talents to work are simply those who have genuine faith. “Faith without corresponding actions is dead” ie not genuine. These servants represent the Jewish “sinners” of Christ’s day, and the humble poor, who were believing in the grace of God and receiving Jesus as Messiah. They will enter into the Kingdom! They are the good and faithful servants simply because they have faith!
The lazy servant represents the self righteous religious people of Christ’s day and the prideful rich. This wicked servant buried his talent, his faith, because he didn’t believe in the goodness and grace of God. Instead he believed that God was a hard task master who demands we give him what we are not able to give. (This is law based thinking!) This evil unbelieving servant represents those who trust in their works or their riches to save them, who ultimately reject Christ and God’s grace.
The parable is given to contrast faith vs works, grace vs law, the gift of righteousness vs self righteousness and humility vs pride.
The talents were given according to ability, 5, 2 and 1. Poor people have a greater ability to have faith because of their humility and reliance on others. The rich and the religious Pharisees have less ability to have faith because of their pride and self dependence. Ultimately is wasn’t about the amount given or the ability to use it, it was about – did they use it? Did they use their faith or did they bury it? Did they believe in the goodness of their master or did they believe wrongly about him? Those who receive the grace of God by faith will enter into the Kingdom and receive grace upon grace, those who reject his grace through unbelief will have everything taken away from them and will be cast into outer darkness.
Jesus didn’t use this parable to give us principles for being rewarded for using our God given talents in this life or being cursed for not. If this is what the parable is about then to be consistent we need to say that anyone who doesn’t use their talents in this life will go to hell. Therefore salvation comes from using our talents. Is that the Gospel? I don’t think so! The Gospel is “receive the grace of God through faith in Jesus”. That, and only that, is the meaning of using your talents according to this parable!
MATTHEW 25:14-30
God bless,
Ryan Rufus.

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Good and faithful servant Matthew 25 Maturity Parable of the talents