Mina or Talent: What Has God Given You?

Today, I want to compare and contrast two parables spoken by Jesus Christ. We're going to see how those parables are different, yet how they carry a similar message. I want to go over those. The first is Luke 19 and the parable of the minas, starting in verse 11. It'll run through 27. But before I jump into that one, I want to note the context at which Jesus gave the parables. For this particular parable, it's Luke 17, starting in verse 20, talking about the end times and the return of Christ. So this is the context that He was giving these parables, so you understand why.

So if we read in Luke 19, this is right after meeting Zacchaeus. If you recall, Zacchaeus was the short guy who climbed up in a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus and was called down and introduced. So this is right after that. So Luke 19 and verse 11, if you'll follow along with me.

Now as they heard these things, He spoke another parable, because He was near Jerusalem and because they thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately. (He had been speaking about the oncoming Kingdom of God.) Verse 12, Therefore He said: A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. Verse 13, So he called ten of his servants, delivered to them ten minas, and said to them, Do business till I come. (If we read that in King James, it would say, Occupy till I come.) Verse 14, But his citizens hated him, and sent a delegation after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. And so it was that when he returned, having received the kingdom, he then commanded these servants, to whom he had given the money, to be called to him, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.

Verse 16, Then came the first, saying, Master, your mina has earned ten minas. And he said to him, Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities. (Huge responsibility.) And the second came, saying, Master, your mina has earned five minas. Likewise he said to him, You also be over five cities. Then another came, saying, Master, here is your mina, which I have kept put away in a handkerchief (meaning wrapped up). For I feared you, because you are an austere man. You collect what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.

And he said to him, Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked servant. You knew (you know, or you thought you knew) that I was an austere man, collecting what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow. Why then did you not put my money in the bank, that at my coming I might have collected it with interest? Verse 24, And he said to those who stood by, Take the mina from him (meaning the guy who got one), and give it to him who has ten minas. (But they said to him, Master, he has ten minas.) Verse 26, For I say to you, that to everyone who has will be given; and from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. But bring here those enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, and slay them before me.

In other words, there was an end of time coming for them. This is the context. So notice this is in Luke 19. Now, commonly people compare this, or kind of blend it together, with Matthew 25, what we call the parable of the talents. Today, I want to explain why they're not the same. And it's not just, well, it says one story in one gospel and then the same story in another. Well, not exactly.

In Matthew 25, starting in verse 14, we call it the parable of the talents. But I want you to notice the context again. It was, Jesus was preaching about the end-time prophecy in the previous chapter, Matthew 24, and this end-time prophecy, as we've gone over Matthew 24 before, and we'll probably do it again. So this is the context. And now we'll go to Matthew 25, verse 14.

For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants (in other words, he was going on a trip) and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents. And likewise he who had received two gained two more also. Verse 18, But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord's money. After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.

So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them. His lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord. Verse 22, He also who had received two talents came and said, Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them. His lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.

Verse 24, Then he who had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours. Verse 26, But his lord answered and said to him, You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown (actually, I will go over the translation in a minute), and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. Therefore take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. Verse 30, And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Now, in order to understand the difference between these, they sound a lot alike, don't they? Except that there's some differences between. And let's first off take the difference between a talent and a mina. In Matthew, it talks about a talent, and in Luke about a mina. Those are units of currency at that time and place, but they differed a lot in value. A talent is a very large unit of money. You can look it up in any encyclopedia. One talent in that part of the world equals 60 minas. So there's a 1 to 60 ratio. So a talent is worth a lot.

Some estimates are that a talent was worth 6,000 days of labor. That's pretty big. Because if you stop and calculate it out, well, how many business days are there in a year? And so, 50 weeks in a year. And so there's 250 to 300 work days in a year. How long is 6,000 days of labor? That's a lifetime of labor. So you can estimate somebody making a half a million dollars in their lifetime, and for one talent. A mina is a much smaller unit. It's worth about 100 days of wages for labor, so one-sixtieth of what a talent was.

And if we'll take a look in Matthew at the parable of the talents, the master gives different amounts of talents to each servant, as it says, according to his ability. So five to one, two to another, one to another. And the parable emphasizes gifts or abilities given to particular individuals. And we can think of it, and I remember taking a test some years ago on aptitude tests. And I discovered, out of 100 people, about 97 or 98 of them had better rhythm memory than I did. What that means is I will probably never be a song leader or a dance instructor, because I don't have that rhythm memory. That wasn't a gift that I wound up with genetically. And so it's just not really going to happen. And so I have to make up for it in other ways. So in the parable of the talents, different people have different roles or different abilities.

And then the parable of the minas, if we read in Luke 19, they weren't given according to their own ability. Here, ten servants each got one mina. They each got the same amount, one mina. And this means, and so if we can look at it this way, that each of us have been given the equivalent of a mina, a basic amount of responsibility and opportunity in our lives and within the Church, so that we all have a minimal amount. Everybody has. It's what we do with that that is critical. So that's a common gift. If people have been baptized and received God's Spirit, they have that mina, as the example would be.

But if we look back to Matthew, when it talks about the talents, and we compare the two, in the talents, some had more, some had less, depending upon what they were able to do. And as I mentioned, I'm not going to be a song leader or a dance instructor, unless it's for humor or parody, I guess. That's possible. But we're all given a basic level of God's Spirit to use for our own benefit and for the benefit of the Church.

Now, it's very possible that even though these are in two gospel messages, these parables may have been told to different audiences with different explanations, but preserved in Scripture for our benefit, so to emphasize those different points. So basically, in both cases, it says don't be idle. We can't sit on what we were given by God. We cannot sit on our hands, as it were, whether we were given a mina or whether we were given talents, as it were, in the talents, each according to his own ability.

In the minas, what did Jesus say? In the New King James, it says, Do business till I come. King James Version says, Occupy till I come. In other words, you've got to take care of business. The word occupy also means to do business, be active, take care of things. But bottom line is, you must optimize our efforts.

And then I looked up, because they'd used the word lazy in there, and I don't want to be thought of as being lazy. So I looked that word up, 16 verses that I found in the Bible about that, because I don't want to sit on my mina, or I don't want to sit on my talent, whatever I got. I don't want to bury them or wrap them up in a handkerchief, or want to bury it. And Proverbs 22:13, in fact, there are several Proverbs that are similar: The lazy man says, There is a lion outside! I shall be slain in the streets! In other words, a fear of doing something. And because there's a fear of doing something, what does that person do? They do nothing.

And then we go to Proverbs 26:16. The lazy man is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly. Those that are convinced, well, I'm not doing it because, let me make up something. Here's why I buried my talent in the ground. Here's why I've wrapped up this mina and kept it safe. So he had a perfectly logical explanation in his own mind for that.

If you take a look at Matthew Henry's Bible commentary, Matthew Henry's Bible commentary gives some explanation about the guy who said to Jesus, or to the nobleman, the master, meaning, or the, which was really an example of God, You're an austere man, a sharp man, and you take up that which you didn't lay down. In other words, he was afraid, so he did nothing with it. But what Matthew Henry explains in his commentary is that this was a sham, or a groundless excuse for idleness.

And so the excuse then is turned back on him when the nobleman says, Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked servant. In other words, if that's the way you think, you should have done something if you thought that I was that way. And so, in other words, even if you did think that way, out of his own mouth, that's the judgment that you're going to get.

Now, notice that the lazy man who did not perform, in both cases, you might say, they wanted to twist it to make it look like the nobleman, or, as we might say, God, was the problem. You were the one that harvested where you didn't plant. You were the one that made it difficult, so therefore I just couldn't do it. In modern language, you call it gaslighting: blame the person who is pointing out reality to you, shifting the blame and then blaming somebody else for what they didn't do, and then giving counterarguments rather than trying to address their own problem, denying fault for their actions, and then guilt the other party into thinking they've actually done something wrong, and then try to humiliate or belittle them. Well, clearly these were two different parables, but they had that same kind of attitude of somebody who sat on their hands, did not do something.

If we go back then, how do we apply this understanding? Well, bear in mind, each of these were in the context of the coming Kingdom of God. They call it the return of Jesus Christ. And so there's a context. Basically, what should we do? Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 6:19. 1 Corinthians 6:19. You go, oh, okay. 1 Corinthians 6:19, Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

In other words, we are all granted what? A mina, our human body. What are we supposed to do with it? Take good care of it. And so we have a minimal expectation to take care of ourselves. But there are several areas that we take care of ourselves. And one of those is our physical health. What do we put into our bodies each day? And what do we avoid putting into it as well? Also, are we active in using our bodies? Or are we slugs and don't use our bodies? So we've got to take care of our physical health.

Secondly, our mental health. What do we put in our minds each day? Now, my Arkansas grandmother, after she died, we discovered her favorite hobby. My aunt and girl cousin went to her house and discovered she had dozens, if not hundreds, of romance novels. She was reading romance novels. She was a widow, but she was so engaged and involved in that, that was her life. So she was living, you might say, an alternate life in her own mind. And that's what she was putting into her mind. What do we put in our minds every day? Maybe it's not every morning or every afternoon or every night. But people put some of the same things into their minds, and how does that affect their mental health?

The third category is relationship health. If we're taking care of ourselves, that mina that we're all given, how much time and effort do we put into building our relationships? That's a pretty big question. It's kind of scary. Or do we just ignore it and say, whatever happens, happens? So we need to consider putting the time and effort into building our individual relationships. I know if you have a best friend, it means from time to time, you may not have talked to that person for a long time. They live far away. But the next time you talk, you just pick up where you left off the last time. Everything is just, you pick up and keep going from there. But building our relationship health requires intention. We must do this intentionally.

And then we have our spiritual health. If we're taking care of ourselves, as is expected in 1 Corinthians 6:19, we've got to take care of our spiritual health. But we're told to take care of our bodies, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Well, just like physical health, do we consume scriptural insights every day? Do we read what God has in store for us? Second question is, do we communicate through prayer with our Maker every day? Do we communicate our needs, our wants, our requests for help for others, and so forth? Third question, do we physically fast periodically, so that we can focus on the spiritual aspects of our lives, remove the physical food, and focus on what God has in mind for us? Then the fourth category is meditation. Do we set aside time from time to time to meditate on our relationship with God, to be incredibly thankful for what we have been given? If we look at it, it's just a little mina after all. But hey, it's us. It's our body. It's our lives. And then the fifth category for enhancing our spiritual health: do we value the fellowship of true believers? This includes looking forward to commanded assemblies such as the Sabbath, whether it's a weekly Sabbath or the annual holy days.

So if we go down the line, it's taking care of ourselves, if we are all one little mina, taking care of ourselves: our physical health, our mental health, our relationship health, and our spiritual health. And for our spiritual health, do we read the Holy Bible, the Scriptures? Do we communicate daily with prayer? Do we periodically fast? Do we set aside time to meditate? And do we value our relationship with other true believers in fellowship?

Now, you say, well, that's all very nice, but there is a major purpose for all of this. When the nobleman went into the far country in the parable, he said, Occupy till I come, or take care of business, or, you know, you're responsible for this. If we take a look in Mark 16, in verse 15, in Mark 16, in verse 15, we read part of the mission of the Church, and this is the NASB translation: Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. I don't know if you know how big the world is. Now, I've been around the world. It's pretty big, okay? And to all creation, meaning all the peoples around the world.

If we return to Matthew 28 and verses 19 and 20, we read, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, … teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Matthew 28:19-20. So it's go to all the world, preach the gospel. That's a big place. To whom? To all peoples. And then we read, that's in Mark; in Matthew it says make disciples. It isn't a once and done. You make disciples of those, teaching them to observe. Oh, we have to be teachers in some form or some manner.

And then let's turn to Matthew 5, Matthew 5, in verses 14 through 16. And what did Jesus say to His true disciples? You are the light of the world. … Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. So by doing all of these things, we can be lights. We can shine. We'll make a difference. So when we look, whether we have been given minas or talents, it is important for us to exercise, or make good on, those investments.

And finally, in Matthew 24, verses 12 through 14. Matthew 24, verses 12 through 14, starting in verse 12. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. (All you have to do is watch the news or read a newspaper, look around and see it for yourself, about lawlessness being abound.) Verse 13, But he who endures to the end shall be saved. We've had visitors here who have told me, oh, I got saved when, blah, blah, when thus and such. I'm thinking, they didn't read Matthew 24, verse 13. We must do what? Whatever tough stuff comes, it says lawlessness, enduring, that shall be saved. We must have the right approach, the right heart. Verse 14, And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

So when we read the parable of the minas in Luke, everybody has been given the same amount in that parable. And what we do with it, we must be responsible for. The same, something similar, is true with regard to our talents and abilities in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. And there, each of us have been given something different. And so, just as I can't do many of the things that you might be able to do, because your talents are different, I'm just struggling over here with a mina and the one talent, and I've got to do the best I can. So all of us have to make best use of what we do and what we can.

So when we look at the parable of the minas, we know the minimal amount that was given to everyone. And when we look at the parable of the talents, we understand that there will be a variety of expectations. We aren't all the same, but God has the same expectations, that we maximize the use. For what purpose? To preach the gospel, make disciples in all nations around the world. So we're looking forward to that. And I must say that this congregation has had an excellent participation rate. So I don't worry about the nobleman coming and throwing you to the lions. But I am saying that it is important to recognize this as we occupy what God has given us. Occupy till He come.