The Parable of the Talents: What It Teaches Us About Stewardship

Matthew (00:00): Have you ever wondered what you would do if someone trusted you with millions of dollars to invest? The Parable of the Talents teaches us powerful lessons about stewardship, trust, and making the most of what we’ve been given. We’ll explore this timeless story and its surprising modern day value equivalence. Let’s get some perspective. Hi, welcome to Christian Financial Perspectives. My name is Matthew Barrovecchio and I’m joined here with my good friend and founder of CFA, Bob Barber. And today we’re going to be talking about the parable of the talents as described by Jesus in Matthew 25. Bob (00:47): I am very excited about this today, Matthew. We’re going to take off in the next few weeks, and we’re going to really just, we always talk about scriptural guidelines for finance, but we’re going to get to some of the parables and what they mean. And Jesus spoke on stewardship more than any other subject in the Bible. As a matter of fact, a lot of the Biblical scholars will say he spoke on stewardship more than heaven and hell combined. So this parable is a very famous parable. It’s a very long parable. So without further ado, we’re going to get into this and I’m going to let you do the reading like I normally let Shawn do the reading. Matthew (01:27): Absolutely. Bob (01:27): Okay. And so yeah, if you’re wondering, who’s this, Matthew? Well, Matthew is with our firm and he’s been meeting with our clients for a year and comes with a lot of experience in the financial services business and loves the Lord. And if you want to try to pronounce his name, go for it. How do you say it again? Matthew (01:44): Barrow-vekk-ee-owe. Bob (01:45): See Barovecchio. I’m getting better. It took me about a year. Matthew (01:49): It’s actually the first time you said it correctly. Bob (01:52): Alright. All right. Read Matthew 25:14-30 for us. Matthew (01:56): Here we go. Verse 14, “For it is like a man about to go on a journey who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them, to the one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, each according to his own ability. And he went on his journey and the one who received the five talents immediately went and did business with them and earned five more talents. In the same way, the one who had received the two talents earned two more, but he who received one talent went away and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. Now after a long time, the master of those slaves came and settled the accounts with them. The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents saying, master, you have entrusted five talents to me. See, I have earned five more talents. (02:48): His master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You are faithful with a few things and I will put you in charge of many things. Enter the joy of your master. Also, the one who had received two talents came up and said, master, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I’ve earned two more. His master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You were faithful with a few things and I will put you in charge of many things. Enter the joy of your master. Now, the one who had received one talent also came up and said, master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you do not sow, gathering where you do not scatter seed. And I was afraid, so I went ahead and I hid your talent in the ground. See, you still have what is yours. (03:35): But his master answered and said to him, you worthless and lazy slave, did you know that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I did not scatter seed? Then you ought to have put my money in the bank and on my arrival I would’ve received my money back with interest. Therefore, take the talent away from him and give it to the one who has 10 talents, for to everyone who has more shall be given and he will have an abundance, but from the one who does not have even what he does have shall be taken away and throw that worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Bob (04:15): This reminds me of some of the scriptures that you read in Proverbs. It is not messing around here. And I did a lot of research and you did the research too, and so did Shawn about what is a talent and what was considered a talent. I think we came along with somewhere, one talent could be the amount of money that a normal person would take to make 20 up to a lifetime. So when he’s giving a talent, I think of it as what you’re doing with your life as well. But it is a monetary amount too, and it’s a lot. I mean it’s a whole lot. It can be anywhere today. I mean it could be from $500,000 on up to 3 million. It could be anywhere in between. We really don’t know, but we know it’s a lot and there are multiple interpretations in my research of this parable of the talents, it’s not just about investing. Matthew (05:14): Agreed. Agreed, yeah. Yeah. Jesus is talking about the kingdom of heaven and when he’s returning in this parable and he uses money because he knows that we understand that. But as you said a moment ago, and we’re going to review now, there’s many other lessons to be learned from this. Bob (05:33): What’s the one that you see? Matthew (05:34): Yeah, I think the biggest one is the first one we have listed there around stewardship. There are so many things that the Lord has entrusted us with, whether it is things that we can see and touch like our family or our possessions, but it’s also the gifts that he has instilled in us and are we using what he’s given us to glorify his name? Bob (05:57): Absolutely. Yeah. Another one is that interpretation that a lot of people see on the surface about investing, but it’s the idea of growing what has been entrusted to us. Everything comes from God, the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. Psalms 24:1 says that, so what are we doing with what God is giving us? And then that third one is… Matthew (06:20): Accountability. Bob (06:21): Yeah. Very accountable. Well, my goodness. I mean you see what the guy did with the one talent, the master was upset, right? Very upset. Matthew (06:31): Well, it’s interesting because in the scripture it talks about how the master gave each according to their own ability. And so the master knows what they are skilled in and his response is holding them accountable for you didn’t use all your gifts and everything that I’ve given you or that I know that you can do in order to produce for me. Bob (06:58): Kind of going with the talent is maybe a lifetime of income. So what did you do with the life that God has given you? And boy, at the very end of that, throw ’em out. I mean, that was pretty tough words. Again, it reminds me of a lot of the things in Proverbs and that comes to another area is consequences. There are consequences when we’re given responsibility for us to do something good with it and not just to go throw it in the ground and do nothing with what this life that God is giving us, right? Matthew (07:34): Yeah. I think it’s easy for us to criticize the one talent servant. Bob (07:39): Yeah, it is. It is. But we could all fall in the same realm. Matthew (07:43): Well, that’s it. I think a big part of the parable is for us to look at ourselves and to see, hey, what are we doing between now and what the Lord wants us to do before he returns? And a lot of that requires us having faith and not subscribing to fear, which we will talk about here in a moment or so. Bob (08:04): This is all about building the kingdom of God and how are we working with what God has put us here on earth to do. Now this gets in again, we get to the end here what we were just speaking of is what was a talent worth? And as we say, it was worth a lot, a whole lot. And if you go do your own research, you’re going to find this that the numbers are outstanding, but this parable, like we said, it’s not just about financial stewardship. I think it’s important that one of my emphasis in this entire passage is he gave each according to their ability, so he’s not going to give us more than we can handle. Right? Matthew (08:46): Amen. One of the things that again really stuck out to me is this concept of fear versus faith, right? The one talent servant really was fearful and he allowed that to drive his decision on what is he going to do with this money. I just happened to be studying through Romans right now, and Romans 8:5-8 talks about how we really should be submitting our whole minds to the Holy Spirit and thinking of things that are righteous, not thinking of things that are sinful or of this earth. And this is really a great example of how it’s obvious that the servant was subscribing to fear, not subscribing to faith in God and allowing the Lord to work through him. We know from Romans 8, we know from Hebrews 11:6 that it’s impossible to please God without faith. And so it’s a much better outcome when we follow the five talent and the two talent servants and do what we know that the Lord is calling us to do, even if it’s uncomfortable and even if it’s beyond what we can see and understand. Bob (09:59): The one that got the two, one that got the five came back and said, look, I’ve doubled it. How long do you think that was between the time because the master went away and when we’re thinking about a talent, we’re thinking about a lifetime as well. You have a guesstimate. I have a guesstimate. I’m just wondering. I’m going to put you on the spot here. Matthew (10:18): I have a feeling I know what your guesstimate is, so I’m not going to piggyback off of it. I’ll let you say. Bob (10:23): Well, we’re going to cover this in the next few weeks about compounding and the Rule of 72, and God calls for us to handle money in a Biblical way. So I don’t believe they gambled it. I don’t believe they went and invested it in organizations that would tear down the kingdom of God. I think that probably somewhere around the 7 to 10 year mark is when that master came back and had seen what he had done because just based on my scriptural knowledge of investing in what it says in the Bible and the rule 72s, it takes about 10 years for something to double. (11:04): 10 to 12 years. So I think it was that amount of time. It wasn’t the next day, it wasn’t the following year. So he gave them ample time to do something with what was given to them. And like I said, I don’t think they would take anything and put it immoral ventures because 2 Corinthians 6:17, it says, “Come out and be separate. Touch no unclean thing, and I’ll welcome you.” So this gets back to Biblically responsible investing and the importance behind doing it the right way. And I also think that they invested across many different ventures because Ecclesiastes 11:2 says, “Give your portions of seven or eight because you do not know what disasters may come upon the land.” And there’s some other scriptural guidelines in here, too. And also that when we do invest, we need to ask for wisdom. Proverbs 1:7 speaks of asking for wisdom, and James says the same thing. Matthew (12:03): “If any of you ask wisdom, you should ask God.” Get on your knees. Bob (12:08): And that it wasn’t about timing anything, timing any kind of market back then. Proverbs 13:11 says, “Dishonest money dwindles away, but who gathers money little by little makes it grow.” So I think they used very wise scriptural principles if you are looking at this from the investing point of view. Matthew (12:28): Yeah, the last thing about the time in the market versus timing the market, again, going back to my comments earlier about fear. We all know what happened in 2008. We all know what happened in 2020, and you and I have been serving in this capacity for long enough to unfortunately have experienced individuals who emotionally just subscribe to fear and abandoned their long-term financial plan. And we know that unfortunately, that doesn’t put them in the best chance for long-term investment success. So there’s also an investment lesson here of not allowing panic and other things that the enemy wants to use to derail us, but rather focusing on the long term and what the Lord wants for us. Bob (13:19): Well, I think we’ve done a pretty good job of speaking about the Parable of the Talents. I would invite you to go to God’s word and read about this. There’s so much rich information and guidelines in God’s Word. It just is exciting to me to always bring Biblical guidelines of finance when very few are talking about it today. If you would like to contact us, you can give us a call at 830-609-6986. You can call or text that number during business hours, or you can reach us on the internet at www.christianfinancialadvisors.com. Matthew (13:56): So thanks for watching. God bless you, and we’ll see you soon. [CONCLUSION] That’s all for now. We invite you to listen to all of our past episodes covering many financial topics from a Christian Perspective. To make sure you don’t miss any of Bob’s upcoming episodes you can subscribe to Christian Financial Perspectives on iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify, or Stitcher. To learn more about integrating your faith with your finances, visit ciswealth.com or call 830-609-6986. [DISCLOSURES] * Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors®, a registered investment advisor registered with the SEC. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts, Bob Barber and Shawn Peters, and their guests. Bob and Shawn do not provide tax advice and encourage you to seek guidance from a tax professional. 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