Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Buried Talent and the Terrible Misjudgment of the Master (Matthew 25:24-25)

Transcript

The Buried Talent and the Terrible Misjudgment of the Master (Matthew 25:24-25) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reform Thinking. I am your host, and I'm sitting
• 0:03
  here with our resident theology expert.
• 0:05
  Hello, it is It's really great to be here for this deep dive.
• 0:10
  Yeah, we have a fascinating stack of sources to analyze
• 0:12
  today, so I want you, the listener, to just imagine a
• 0:16
  scenario with me for a second. Well.
• 0:17
  This is a good one. Right.
• 0:18
  OK, so imagine someone hands you like 20 years of your salary,
• 0:22
  just straight up cash in a briefcase.
• 0:25
  That is a massive amount of money.
• 0:26
  Huge. And the instructions are totally
• 0:28
  clear. They say, you know, put this to
• 0:30
  work. You have this massive fortune,
• 0:32
  this incredible opportunity, but instead of investing it or
• 0:36
  starting a business or really doing anything productive at
• 0:38
  all, you just grab a shovel. Yep, a shovel.
• 0:41
  You walk out to your backyard and you bury that briefcase in
• 0:44
  the dirt out of sheer terror. Which makes no sense.
• 0:48
  Right. Why would anyone do that?
• 0:49
  I mean, it sounds completely irrational when you frame it in
• 0:52
  modern financial terms, but this text we are analyzing today,
• 0:56
  Matthew 25, specifically verses 24 and 25, it exposes the
• 1:01
  anatomy of unbelief. The anatomy of unbelief.
• 1:04
  I like that phrasing. It provides A terrifying look
• 1:07
  under the hood of a person's soul.
• 1:09
  The premise established across the essays and the research we
• 1:12
  are looking at today is that theology dictates action.
• 1:16
  OK, that a bit. Theology dictates action.
• 1:19
  Well, what a person truly believes about their master
• 1:23
  dictates whether their hands will be productive or completely
• 1:25
  barren. It is.
• 1:27
  It's never an issue of natural capability.
• 1:30
  It is always an issue of belief. Theology dictates action.
• 1:33
  I really want to lock in on that phrase right at the start
• 1:36
  because we are not looking at a guy who just had bad financial
• 1:39
  sense, right? No, not at all.
• 1:41
  Or like a guy who was just a little lazy on a Tuesday
• 1:44
  afternoon, we are looking at a guy whose entire operational
• 1:47
  system was corrupted by bad theology.
• 1:49
  Precisely. So our mission today for this
• 1:52
  deep dive is to analyze these theological essays.
• 1:54
  Breaking down this passage. We are looking at the staggering
• 1:58
  tragedy of this one talent bond servant to unpack the root
• 2:01
  causes of spiritual barrenness. We really want to understand
• 2:05
  what our view of God actually produces in our daily lives.
• 2:08
  Because I mean, if we look at the visible church today, it is
• 2:11
  filled with individuals who claim to know the master, yet
• 2:14
  produce absolutely no fruit. Yeah, it's a huge issue.
• 2:18
  They occupy a Pew, they listen to sermons, but their lives
• 2:22
  remain completely barren. The analysis we are doing today
• 2:25
  confronts this reality head on. The nominal Christian operates
• 2:30
  under a catastrophic delusion, believing that a passive,
• 2:33
  noncommittal intellectual ascent is sufficient.
• 2:36
  Right. It is the illusion that physical
• 2:38
  proximity to the things of God equals possession of the life of
• 2:42
  God. Which is a very dangerous place
• 2:44
  to be. It really is.
• 2:45
  We're going to tear that down today.
• 2:47
  But before we look at the crime itself, we have to look at the
• 2:49
  scene of the crime, so to speak. We have to grasp the setting and
• 2:53
  the staggering value of what was actually buried in that dirt.
• 2:56
  Setting the historical stage changes everything about how we
• 3:00
  read this text. Where are we?
• 3:01
  Historical We. Are situated on the Mount of
• 3:04
  Olives. It is the final week of Christ's
• 3:06
  earthly ministry. Jesus is sitting opposite the
• 3:08
  temple complex answering his disciples questions about the
• 3:11
  destruction of the temple and the end of the age.
• 3:14
  So the tension is incredibly high.
• 3:16
  Oh, absolutely. He is speaking under the shadow
• 3:19
  of his impending crucifixion. He is literally days away from
• 3:23
  being nailed to the cross. Spot on.
• 3:25
  This makes his words a severe eschatological warning to his
• 3:30
  disciples. And for anyone listening who
• 3:32
  might not use that word every day, what do you mean by
• 3:34
  eschatological? Good clarification.
• 3:37
  By eschatological I mean dealing with the final events of history
• 3:40
  and the final judgment. Jesus is not speaking as a
• 3:44
  detached moral philosopher giving a lecture on like time
• 3:47
  management or something. Right, he's not doing a seminar
• 3:50
  on productivity. No, He is a rejected Messiah
• 3:53
  preparing to die, giving vital instructions to his followers
• 3:56
  about vigilance, faithfulness and judgement during the long
• 3:59
  period of his physical absence. I mean, when a dying man gives
• 4:02
  you final instructions, you listen.
• 4:04
  The stakes are at the highest possible level.
• 4:07
  They are the material we are analyzing, points out how this
• 4:10
  parable sits inside the literary architecture of what theologians
• 4:13
  call the Olivet Discourse. Jesus does not arrange his
• 4:17
  teachings arbitrarily. There's a structure to it.
• 4:19
  Always, the parable of the talent sits perfectly between
• 4:23
  two other parables, forming a triad of readiness for the final
• 4:27
  judgment. I'm looking at the layout here.
• 4:28
  In the source material we have 3 parables back-to-back.
• 4:32
  How do they fit together logically?
• 4:34
  First you have the parable The 10 Virgins.
• 4:36
  That one highlights inward spiritual preparation.
• 4:39
  It deals with having the oil of the Holy Spirit, which
• 4:42
  represents genuine regeneration. So it's asking, are you inwardly
• 4:46
  alive and prepared? Right.
• 4:48
  OK, inward preparation. Then at the end of the triad we
• 4:51
  have the sheep and the goats. Which is a very famous passage.
• 4:54
  Yes, and the Sheep and the Goats highlights outward compassion.
• 4:58
  It focuses on the visible evidence of salvation through
• 5:01
  works of mercy toward the brethren.
• 5:03
  It asks, does your faith manifest in love for God's
• 5:06
  people? Which puts the Parable of the
• 5:08
  Talents right in the center of the same.
• 5:10
  Way Yes, the Talents highlights the active, robust deployment of
• 5:14
  entrusted gifts while waiting for the king.
• 5:16
  So we have inward readiness, outward compassion and active
• 5:19
  deployment in the middle. Precisely if the 10 Virgins
• 5:23
  focuses on the inward reality of readiness, the talents focuses
• 5:27
  on the active responsibility of readiness.
• 5:30
  Waiting for the returning king is not a passive activity.
• 5:34
  It is the laborious deployment of the resources God has
• 5:37
  provided. Let's talk about those
• 5:38
  resources, because we have to do some math here to correct a
• 5:43
  massive, widespread misconception.
• 5:46
  Oh, the definition of a talent. Yeah, because when a modern
• 5:48
  person hears the word talent, they think of a natural ability.
• 5:52
  They think of a kid who is good at playing the piano or someone
• 5:56
  with a great singing voice. We use the word to describe
• 5:59
  personality traits. That is a modern linguistic
• 6:02
  anachronism. In the 1st century room and
• 6:04
  economy, a talent had nothing to do with personal skills.
• 6:07
  Don't forget all. No.
• 6:08
  A talent was a measurement of weight, usually applied to
• 6:11
  massive quantities of precious metals like silver or gold.
• 6:14
  It was not a small pocket coin. So what was the actual
• 6:17
  conversion rate? Because if you buried a small
• 6:19
  coin, you know that is one thing, a minor.
• 6:22
  Offense, but it wasn't a small coin.
• 6:23
  Right. If we do the math based on the
• 6:26
  historical records, one talent equaled roughly 6000 Denari.
• 6:31
  And we know from ancient labor records that a single denarius
• 6:34
  was the standard daily wage for a common laborer or a Roman
• 6:38
  legionary. Wait, let me run those numbers.
• 6:41
  If one denarius is one day of work, yes.
• 6:43
  And there are roughly 300 working days in a year back then
• 6:47
  if we take out Sabbaths and holidays.
• 6:49
  That is the standard estimate, yes.
• 6:50
  Then 6000 Denarii is 20 years. 20 years of solid, backbreaking
• 6:55
  labor. It is an astronomical sum.
• 6:57
  I really want you, the listener, to do that math right now.
• 7:01
  Think about your current annual salary.
• 7:03
  Multiply it by 20. Imagine someone handing that to
• 7:06
  you in a briefcase. It changes the entire tone of
• 7:08
  the. Story.
• 7:08
  It really does. That is what this one talent
• 7:11
  bondservant was given. He was not handed a $5.00 bill
• 7:14
  and told to go buy a candy bar. He was handed a literal lifetime
• 7:17
  of wages. The difference among the
• 7:19
  bondservants in the parable is not between meaningful and
• 7:21
  meaningless gifts. It is between greater and lesser
• 7:25
  measures of immense responsibility assigned by the
• 7:27
  Master according to His wisdom. So even the guy with one talent
• 7:31
  was incredibly trusted. Precisely.
• 7:34
  The Master retained total sovereignty and ownership.
• 7:37
  The Bond servants were stewards wielding immense delegated
• 7:41
  authority. So knowing the staggering
• 7:44
  financial value of this talent, we look at what he actually does
• 7:47
  that he buries it in the dirt. Which brings us back to your
• 7:49
  opening question. Yeah, to our modern ears, that
• 7:53
  sounds completely insane. If someone hands me 20 years of
• 7:56
  my salary and cash, I am going straight to the bank or I am
• 8:00
  buying real estate or investing it in index funds.
• 8:03
  You're trying to get a return. Absolutely.
• 8:05
  Yeah. I'm not grabbing a shovel.
• 8:07
  Why was a shovel his first instinct?
• 8:09
  We have to look at the Babylonian Talmud to understand
• 8:12
  the historical mechanism here, specifically a tractate called
• 8:15
  Bava Metzia 42 A OK. What does that rabbinic text
• 8:19
  tell us? Well, in the ancient Near East
• 8:21
  they did not have bank vaults with security cameras.
• 8:23
  FDIC and insurance and heavy steel doors.
• 8:27
  Burying money was considered the ultimate liability free security
• 8:31
  measure against theft. Liability free.
• 8:33
  So wait, he was looking for a legal loophole?
• 8:35
  Legally speaking, yes. The Talmud records that if a
• 8:39
  guard or a steward buried money deep in the earth and it was
• 8:42
  somehow stolen, he was legally innocent of the loss.
• 8:46
  Oh wow. Yeah, he was free from
• 8:47
  restitution liability because he had taken the absolute utmost
• 8:51
  precaution recognized by ancient law.
• 8:54
  The bond servant in the parable was playing it legally safe.
• 8:57
  He was adopting extreme conservatism just to avoid
• 9:00
  personal liability. He wasn't trying to protect the
• 9:03
  masters wealth, he was trying to protect his own legal standing.
• 9:05
  Spot on. He treated the masters capital
• 9:08
  as a dangerous object to be guarded with minimal physical
• 9:11
  effort you rather than a dynamic resource to be risked and
• 9:14
  multiplied. The master clearly expected a
• 9:17
  return. Yes, the master expected
• 9:19
  commerce. Ancient banking existed.
• 9:21
  Money changers existed, the bond servants.
• 9:24
  An action was inexcusable even by the secular commercial
• 9:27
  standards of his own day. If he knows the master expects a
• 9:30
  return, and he knows money changers exist, why does he bury
• 9:34
  it? His physical action of digging a
• 9:37
  hole has to come from somewhere. It comes from his view of the
• 9:39
  Master. Which brings us to his shocking
• 9:42
  opening statement to the Master. We need to move from the
• 9:45
  physical dirt to his underlying theology.
• 9:48
  The reckoning begins. The master returns after a long
• 9:51
  time, the text says. He also, who had received the
• 9:55
  one talent, came forward. The timing there is interesting.
• 9:59
  The timing is loaded with contrast.
• 10:01
  The 1st 2 bond servants have already presented their
• 10:03
  multiplied fruit. They have received the joyful
• 10:06
  commendation of the Master. They have entered into the joy
• 10:09
  of their Lord. Now this third man steps
• 10:12
  forward. The first two brought multiplied
• 10:14
  food. This guy brings an explanation.
• 10:17
  Or an excuse. Right, an excuse.
• 10:18
  Let me read his opening statement.
• 10:20
  Mactor, I knew you'd be a hard man.
• 10:22
  The irony here is just thick. It is incredibly thick.
• 10:25
  He claims to possess accurate knowledge.
• 10:27
  He says I knew you. Yet his resulting action proves
• 10:31
  he is completely ignorant of the Masters true character.
• 10:34
  It is a false confession of knowledge.
• 10:36
  He addresses the master with the proper title.
• 10:38
  Master or curious, but the title does not reflect actual
• 10:42
  reverence. He uses the right relational
• 10:44
  term while harboring the wrong relational posture.
• 10:47
  Yes, he bases his conduct entirely on his own assessment
• 10:52
  of the master's character, and his assessment is pure slander.
• 10:56
  Let's breakdown that specific word he uses hard.
• 10:59
  The Greek adjective used in the original text is scleros.
• 11:03
  Scleros like atherosclerosis, the hardening of the arteries, a
• 11:07
  medical condition where things get stiff and stop flowing.
• 11:10
  That is the root in classical and Hellenistic Greek syntax.
• 11:14
  Scleros means harsh, stiff, rough, or completely unyielding.
• 11:18
  Unyielding. When applied to a person, it
• 11:20
  denotes an obstinate, merciless, and tyrannical nature.
• 11:24
  Think of a man who cannot be reasoned with, who shows no
• 11:27
  flexibility and no grace. It is fascinating to look at
• 11:30
  what words he deliberately chose not to use.
• 11:32
  The sources bring this up and it's so revealing.
• 11:35
  The linguistic contrast is vital.
• 11:36
  He did not use the Greek word decaios, which means righteous
• 11:40
  or just. OK, so he didn't call him just?
• 11:42
  He did not use a Gothos, which means good.
• 11:44
  He could have even used Osteros, which means strict or exacting.
• 11:47
  Strict would make sense for a master.
• 11:49
  Right. And in fact, Luke uses Osteros
• 11:52
  in his parallel parable of the minus.
• 11:54
  But Matthew deliberately employs Scleros, the bond servant called
• 11:59
  the master a tyrant. He is literally looking the
• 12:01
  master in the eye and calling him a cruel dictator.
• 12:05
  If we look at the wider biblical usage, the implications get even
• 12:08
  darker now. So in the Septuagint, which is
• 12:11
  the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, scleros
• 12:14
  translates the Hebrew word used for the stiff necked rebellion
• 12:18
  of the Israelites in the wilderness.
• 12:20
  Oh interesting, so it's associated with stubborn
• 12:21
  rebellion? Yes, and in the New Testament
• 12:24
  James uses it in James chapter 3 verse 4 to describe fierce
• 12:29
  unyielding winds that drive a ship off course.
• 12:32
  A destructive, uncontrollable force.
• 12:34
  Yes, but using this word, the bondservant asserts that the
• 12:37
  master is the kind of man who imposes unreasonable,
• 12:39
  destructive expectations. It is theological blasphemy.
• 12:43
  And it gets worse. Look at the absurd accusation he
• 12:46
  levels right after calling him a tyrant.
• 12:48
  He says reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you
• 12:51
  scattered no seed. He is accusing the master of
• 12:53
  being a parasite. A.
• 12:54
  Parasite. A thief who profits from the
• 12:56
  labor of others without making any initial investment.
• 13:00
  Wait, if we think about this logically, how can you accuse
• 13:03
  someone of not sowing when they literally just handed you 20
• 13:07
  years worth of capital? It makes no sense.
• 13:10
  It is completely devoid of logic.
• 13:12
  It is like accusing your Bank of stealing from you right after
• 13:16
  they deposit $1,000,000 into your checking account.
• 13:18
  The irrationality is blinding. The master had sewn.
• 13:22
  He had just given bondservant an astronomical sum of money.
• 13:25
  Right there in his hands. Yet, blinded by his own internal
• 13:28
  corruption, the bondservant denies the very grace he is
• 13:31
  holding in his hands. He turns the Master's massive
• 13:35
  entrustment into evidence against the Master.
• 13:37
  The audacity is breathtaking. He takes the gift, holds it in
• 13:40
  his hand and essentially says, you never give me anything, you
• 13:43
  just take. How does a human mind get to
• 13:46
  that level of self deception? This requires us to synthesize
• 13:50
  the doctrine of human depravity based on the essays we are
• 13:53
  looking at. OK, let's get into the theology
• 13:55
  of depravity. The unregenerate mind possesses
• 13:57
  an innate hostility toward God's sovereignty.
• 14:01
  The natural man looks at the sovereign demands of God's law
• 14:04
  and perceives them as unjust, demanding what man cannot give.
• 14:08
  We see God as unfair. Precisely.
• 14:10
  Instead of taking responsibility for his own laziness and his own
• 14:13
  failure, the man projects his guilt onto the master.
• 14:16
  He paints the master as an exploiting parasite.
• 14:20
  It is a fabricated theology designed to justify inaction.
• 14:24
  I mean, if God is a tyrant who cannot be pleased, why even try?
• 14:28
  Exactly. The logic is I can't win.
• 14:31
  Right. If I'm going to fail anyway
• 14:32
  because the system is rigged against me, I might as well dig
• 14:35
  a hole and go to sleep. The unregenerate heart
• 14:37
  misrepresents God in order to justify disobedience.
• 14:41
  We see the psychological mechanism all the way back in
• 14:43
  Eden. Oh, with Adam and Eve, yes.
• 14:46
  Adam implied blame toward God when he said The woman whom you
• 14:49
  gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree.
• 14:51
  Blaming God for the gift he gave.
• 14:53
  Yes, and Israel did this in the wilderness when they interpreted
• 14:57
  their redemption from Egypt as divine cruelty, claiming God
• 15:01
  brought them out to the desert just to kill them.
• 15:03
  The wicked bondservant stands in that ancient, miserable line of
• 15:07
  suspicion. So the root of all disobedience
• 15:10
  is a fundamentally distorted view of the nature and character
• 15:13
  of God. It always comes back to that.
• 15:15
  The bond servant's problem was not that he was giving too
• 15:18
  little capital. His problem was that he judged
• 15:21
  the giver wrongly. Bad thoughts of God inevitably
• 15:24
  breed disobedience. If Christ is seen as unjust,
• 15:27
  obedience becomes resentment. It's just a chore.
• 15:30
  If the Lord is seen as impossible to please,
• 15:32
  stewardship becomes a threat rather than a privilege.
• 15:36
  The theology of the wicked bond servant is the theology of the
• 15:38
  natural man. It is a theology of enmity
• 15:41
  against the Creator. And this false theology
• 15:44
  naturally breeds a specific toxic emotional response.
• 15:48
  We see this in the text immediately following his wild
• 15:50
  accusation. He moves from his bad theology
• 15:53
  to a paralyzing emotion. The grammar of the text builds A
• 15:56
  terrifying syllogism here. Break that down for us.
• 15:59
  The major premise. The master is a harsh,
• 16:02
  exploiting tyrant. The minor premise I am terrified
• 16:06
  of his arbitrary judgement. The conclusion?
• 16:09
  I will abstain from any endeavor and hide what he gave me.
• 16:12
  The text highlights this with a very specific transitional
• 16:15
  phrase. After his accusation, the bond
• 16:18
  servant says So I was afraid. The text presents this terror as
• 16:23
  the logical, consecutive outcome of viewing God as an unyielding
• 16:27
  tyrant. Bad theology produced the fear.
• 16:30
  The Greek uses a specific participle, here phobothice.
• 16:34
  OK, time out. I need you to translate the
• 16:36
  grammatical mechanism there. What does that specific word
• 16:39
  actually mean for how the guy was feeling in his chest?
• 16:41
  It means he was overtaken by a passive, controlling terror.
• 16:44
  It was not an active, reverent respect he cultivated.
• 16:47
  It was a crippling emotion that happened to him.
• 16:49
  Like a panic attack. Yes, he was completely paralyzed
• 16:52
  by a cowardly dread of failure and punishment.
• 16:54
  This. Requires us to make a critical
• 16:56
  distinction for the listener because the Bible talks a lot
• 16:58
  about the fear of the Lord. It does very frequently.
• 17:01
  Proverbs says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
• 17:04
  We are told to fear God, but this guy's fear leads directly
• 17:09
  to his destruction. So what is the difference?
• 17:13
  Are there two different kinds of fear?
• 17:14
  Yes, the material we are analyzing makes a sharp
• 17:17
  distinction between two types of fear, filial fear and servile
• 17:21
  fear. Let's define those mechanisms
• 17:23
  clearly. What is filial fear?
• 17:25
  Filial fear is the reverential awe a child has for a gracious,
• 17:29
  loving father. OK.
• 17:30
  So it's relational. Highly relational, it is a
• 17:33
  desire not to grieve the one who loves them.
• 17:35
  It is the holy reverence that leads a person to depart from
• 17:38
  evil and walk carefully before God.
• 17:40
  It is entirely rooted in love and respect for the Father's
• 17:42
  character. And what is servile fear?
• 17:44
  Servile fear is the cowering terror a prisoner has before a
• 17:48
  violent executioner. Wow, stark contrast.
• 17:51
  This fear lacks love entirely. It is driven solely by self
• 17:54
  preservation, a desire to avoid pain, and the dread of
• 17:58
  punishment. It's totally selfish.
• 17:59
  Yes. The Apostle John writes that
• 18:02
  perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with
• 18:05
  punishment. This bond servant possessed
• 18:08
  absolutely no love for the master.
• 18:09
  He only possessed servile dread. It is the difference between an
• 18:13
  artist carefully handling a priceless painting because they
• 18:16
  Revere the creator versus a hostage freezing in place
• 18:20
  because any sudden movement might trigger a trap.
• 18:22
  That analogy captures the psychological mechanism
• 18:25
  perfectly. The artist acts out of devotion
• 18:27
  and respect for the masterpiece. The hostage acts out of pure
• 18:31
  self preservation. The bond servant viewed the
• 18:34
  master as a trap waiting to spring.
• 18:36
  In this, servile dread completely paralyzes the
• 18:39
  individual. It creates a massive illusion of
• 18:41
  safety. The bond servant thought his
• 18:43
  caution was a virtue. He really did.
• 18:45
  He thought he was being smart, playing it safe, avoiding risk
• 18:48
  by using the legal loophole of the Talmud.
• 18:50
  But the master exposes it as sheer rebellion.
• 18:53
  Because servile fear does not produce obedience, it produces
• 18:56
  evasion. The world says protect yourself
• 18:58
  first. Minimize your liability.
• 19:01
  Christ says that avoiding all risk for the Kingdom is actually
• 19:03
  a mask for unbelief. The bond servants fear had no
• 19:07
  sanctifying quality at all. It did not drive him to
• 19:10
  diligence. It did not drive him to prayer
• 19:12
  or dependence or asking for help.
• 19:14
  It drove him to a shovel and a hole in the ground.
• 19:17
  Many sinners prefer to describe themselves as wounded, cautious,
• 19:21
  overwhelmed, or afraid rather than wicked.
• 19:24
  That is a hard truth. They use fear as an alibi for
• 19:27
  disobedience. Christ does not despise weak
• 19:29
  believers who tremble and obey, but he strongly condemns the
• 19:33
  fear that becomes an elaborate excuse to do nothing.
• 19:36
  Legalism and terror never produce genuine holiness, they
• 19:40
  only produce avoidance and hypocrisy.
• 19:42
  The unregenerate man cannot please God because his
• 19:45
  motivations are entirely poisoned by self preservation,
• 19:48
  completely devoid of any gospel grace.
• 19:50
  The blonde servant's words, I was afraid, are meant to sound
• 19:53
  understandable. Who wouldn't tremble before a
• 19:55
  demanding master? But because his foundational
• 19:57
  premise about the master's character was completely false,
• 20:00
  his resulting fear was sinful. The fear was rooted in a lie.
• 20:04
  Yes, if the master were truly unjust, hiding might appear
• 20:08
  rational. But since the master is actually
• 20:10
  good, generous and rightful in his authority, hiding the talent
• 20:14
  is an act of total rebellion. It is staggering to think how
• 20:18
  many times we might use fear as a pious excuse.
• 20:21
  I was afraid of making a theological mistake, so I didn't
• 20:23
  volunteer to teach the kids I. Hear that all the time.
• 20:26
  I was afraid of offending my Co worker so I didn't share the
• 20:28
  gospel. The text says that kind of fear
• 20:31
  is a glaring symptom of unbelief.
• 20:33
  From bad theology to paralyzing dread, we now arrive at the
• 20:37
  inevitable physical outcome, a completely wasted, unfruitful
• 20:42
  existence. We look at the specific verbs
• 20:44
  the bondservant uses to describe his final actions.
• 20:47
  I went and hid your talent in the ground.
• 20:49
  Very active verbs for someone doing nothing.
• 20:52
  There is heavy deliberation here is not an accident.
• 20:54
  He took calculated steps to remove the talent from
• 20:57
  circulation. He ensured that it would bear
• 20:59
  absolutely no fruit. He also uses the phrase your
• 21:02
  talent. He verbally acknowledges the
• 21:04
  masters ownership. Yes, which condemns him further,
• 21:07
  right. He knew it belonged to the
• 21:09
  Master, yet he refused to put it to work for the Master's
• 21:12
  interests. Knowing God owns everything
• 21:15
  without actually obeying Him only increases the guilt.
• 21:19
  Then we have his final dismissive insult to the master.
• 21:22
  Here you have what is yours. It is incredibly contemptuous.
• 21:25
  He is essentially tossing the dirt covered bag of money at the
• 21:29
  master's feet and saying take your money back and leave me
• 21:32
  alone. He genuinely believes that
• 21:34
  restitution without fruit should satisfy the master.
• 21:38
  He assumes that a lack of financial loss equals obedience
• 21:42
  like. Breaking even is the goal.
• 21:43
  Yes, he returns the principal amount, but offers none of the
• 21:46
  required labor. He preserves the physical
• 21:49
  object, but completely violates the purpose for which it was
• 21:51
  given. This applies so directly to the
• 21:53
  modern church. It confronts what pastors often
• 21:56
  call the 8020 Rule AH. Yes, the statistical reality.
• 22:00
  Where 20% of a congregation does 80% of the labor and financial
• 22:03
  giving, the remaining 80% are just sitting on their hands,
• 22:07
  hiding their talents in the dirt.
• 22:08
  The theological essays we are looking at are unyielding on
• 22:11
  this point. This passage completely
• 22:13
  dismantles nominal Christianity. It leaves nowhere to hide.
• 22:17
  There is a dangerous epidemic of nominalism in the modern era.
• 22:20
  People assume they can occupy a Pew, claim to know the Master,
• 22:24
  and produce absolutely no fruit for the Kingdom of Heaven.
• 22:27
  They think a passive, noncommittal intellectual ascent
• 22:30
  is enough to satisfy God. But the text shatters the
• 22:33
  illusion that proximity to the things of God equates to the
• 22:37
  possession of the life of God. True saving faith inevitably
• 22:41
  produces tangible outward fruit. A barren life proves a barren
• 22:46
  heart. Before we move forward, we need
• 22:48
  to draw some firm theological safeguards here, based on our
• 22:51
  research, to prevent any misunderstanding.
• 22:54
  That is very wise. We have to refute 2 specific
• 22:56
  errors that often pop up when people read this parable.
• 22:59
  First, we have to refute an error regarding the loss of
• 23:01
  salvation. A very common misinterpretation.
• 23:04
  Some might look at this parable and say, look this bond servant
• 23:07
  was part of the masters household.
• 23:08
  He was given a talent, but then he was cast into outer darkness,
• 23:12
  so he lost his salvation because he didn't work hard enough.
• 23:15
  The analysis vehemently rejects that interpretation.
• 23:19
  The bondservant did not lose the salvation he once possessed.
• 23:23
  His actions, his slanderous words, his profound ignorance of
• 23:26
  the Master's character all prove he never had salvation to begin
• 23:30
  with. He was a stranger in the house.
• 23:32
  Yes, he never understood grace. The historic Protestant doctrine
• 23:36
  of justification states that we are justified by faith alone.
• 23:40
  But saving faith is never alone. It always produces outward
• 23:43
  fruit. His action of burying the talent
• 23:46
  proves definitively that he had no saving relationship with the
• 23:49
  Master. So a lack of food is not the
• 23:51
  cause of losing salvation, it is the definitive evidence that
• 23:55
  salvation was never there in the first place.
• 23:57
  Precisely the second theological safeguard we must address is the
• 24:01
  prosperity gospel. The idea that God gives us
• 24:03
  talents specifically to make us wealthy, healthy, and
• 24:07
  comfortable in this life. The prosperity gospel views the
• 24:09
  master as a cosmic vending machine to be manipulated for
• 24:12
  carnal enrichment. But the parable shows that the
• 24:15
  resources completely belong to the master.
• 24:18
  They are entrusted for the advancement of His Kingdom, not
• 24:21
  for the bondservant's personal luxury or worldly status.
• 24:24
  Master gets the glory, not the servant.
• 24:27
  The Master expects a return on his investment for his own
• 24:30
  honor. God is the Sovereign who
• 24:32
  entrusts us with His resources, and the wicked heart resents
• 24:36
  this divine prerogative. Which brings us to the very real
• 24:39
  danger of passive orthodoxy. I want to pose a challenging
• 24:43
  thought to you, the listener. What stands out to you in your
• 24:46
  own life right now? Is it possible to have perfect,
• 24:49
  precise theological beliefs written down on paper, but bury
• 24:53
  them under a massive pile of cowardice?
• 24:55
  The warnings in these essays are severe regarding this point.
• 24:58
  The danger in conservative theological circles is not
• 25:01
  always the open denial of the truth.
• 25:03
  No, usually it's much more subtle.
• 25:04
  Sometimes the greater danger is burial.
• 25:07
  Sound doctrine may be hidden under a thick layer of
• 25:09
  cowardice. Confessional precision may
• 25:11
  coexist with total evangelistic silence.
• 25:14
  You can have all the right answers on a theology quiz.
• 25:17
  You can know the original Greek, but if you never speak to your
• 25:20
  neighbor, never give financially to the church, never support
• 25:23
  missions, it is all just buried in the dirt.
• 25:26
  Maintaining A defensive, risk free religion, simply avoiding
• 25:30
  public scandal while never standing for truth is condemned
• 25:33
  here by Christ as wickedness disguised as caution.
• 25:37
  Wickedness disguised as caution. The Lord asks far more than
• 25:41
  whether you simply avoided public disgrace.
• 25:44
  He asks whether the entrusted life was spent for His glory.
• 25:47
  Orthodoxy buried in the ground does not become faithfulness
• 25:50
  simply by remaining undamaged. The bond servant hid the light
• 25:53
  of the master in the dirt of the world.
• 25:55
  He was attached to the mundane, the carnal.
• 25:58
  He prioritized his own undisturbed, comfortable life
• 26:01
  over the demands of the King. The text relies heavily on
• 26:04
  structural contrast to make its point.
• 26:06
  There are only two types of people in the visible church,
• 26:09
  the fruitful regenerate and the barren unregenerate.
• 26:12
  There's no middle category. There's no middle ground.
• 26:14
  The master's goodness is magnified by the faithful
• 26:17
  laborer, but it is slandered by the wicked sluggard.
• 26:20
  Having thoroughly exposed the grim, terrifying reality of the
• 26:23
  wicked bond servant, we need to pivot to the glorious contrast
• 26:28
  found in the true character of the master.
• 26:31
  We need a gospel resolution to this massive problem.
• 26:35
  The entire goal of this analysis is to lead the hearer to the
• 26:38
  majestic person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 26:42
  Jesus Christ himself is the nobleman in the parable.
• 26:45
  He is the master of the estate who has traveled to a far
• 26:48
  country at his ascension into heaven.
• 26:51
  Wait, here is where it gets incredibly interesting.
• 26:53
  Let's flip the accusation. The bond servant said the master
• 26:56
  reaped where he didn't sow. He accused him of demanding a
• 26:59
  massive harvest without putting in any of the sweat or the work.
• 27:02
  But look at Calvary. Across changes everything.
• 27:05
  The cross completely obliterates that accusation.
• 27:07
  Christ is the ultimate sower, the eternal Son of God, took on
• 27:11
  human nature, entered the brutal poverty of this fallen world,
• 27:14
  fulfilled the law, and bore temptation without sin.
• 27:17
  He didn't just watch from afar. He did not sit in heaven and
• 27:20
  demand a harvest without making an investment.
• 27:23
  He sowed his own blood into the cursed earth of Calvary to
• 27:26
  purchase a people for himself. He didn't just stand on a
• 27:29
  balcony and demand we figure it out on our own.
• 27:32
  He came down into the dirt and did the agonizing work himself.
• 27:36
  The theological texts we are analyzing detail how Christ
• 27:39
  fulfilled both the active obedience required by the law
• 27:42
  and suffered the passive obedience of the cross providing
• 27:46
  infinite grace. OK, active and passive
• 27:49
  obedience. Those are dense theological
• 27:51
  terms. Can we break those mechanisms
• 27:53
  down? What do they actually mean and
• 27:55
  practice? Active obedience refers to
• 27:57
  Christ living a perfect life. For 33 years, He kept every
• 28:02
  single demand of God's moral law perfectly.
• 28:04
  Never failed once. He never sinned.
• 28:06
  He loved God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength.
• 28:10
  He earned a perfect record of righteousness.
• 28:12
  Passive obedience refers to His willingness to suffer the
• 28:15
  penalty for our broken laws. Right, taking the punishment.
• 28:18
  He passively laid down his life on the cross, absorbing the
• 28:21
  infinite wrath of God in our place.
• 28:23
  By doing both, he freely imputes or credits his perfect record to
• 28:27
  the believer. The cross is the everlasting
• 28:30
  contradiction of the sinner's slander that God is ungenerous
• 28:33
  or cruel. You cannot look at the
• 28:35
  crucifixion and call God a tyrant who takes without giving.
• 28:39
  We also see Christ as the perfectly faithful servant, in
• 28:42
  direct contrast to the wicked bond servant in the Gospels.
• 28:46
  Jesus never buries his Commission in the dirt.
• 28:48
  He states that his food is to do the will of him who sent him.
• 28:51
  He was entirely focused on the mission.
• 28:53
  He receives from the Father a massive mission, and at the
• 28:56
  cross he does not say, I was afraid and hid what was yours.
• 28:59
  He says it is finished. The perfect obedience that
• 29:02
  sinners completely failed to render is perfectly rendered by
• 29:05
  Christ. So how does this fix the
• 29:07
  spiritual paralysis we saw in the One Talent guy?
• 29:11
  The essays point out that we need Christ in three specific
• 29:13
  roles to cure this paralysis prophet, priest and king.
• 29:17
  Yes, theologians call this the threefold office of Christ.
• 29:21
  First, we desperately need Christ as prophet to illuminate
• 29:23
  our darkened minds by His Spirit.
• 29:25
  Because we are naturally blind to the truth.
• 29:28
  Without this divine illumination, we will inherently
• 29:31
  view God as a cruel taskmaster, exactly as the bond servant did.
• 29:36
  We need the prophet to show us the absolute truth of God's
• 29:39
  character, so we stopped viewing him as a tyrant.
• 29:42
  We need our bad theology corrected by the ultimate
• 29:44
  Prophet. Second, we need him as priest.
• 29:47
  As our great high Priest, his blood alone cleanses our
• 29:51
  inevitable failures. Without this cleansing, our best
• 29:54
  laborers are totally flawed and we would stand terrified before
• 29:57
  the judgement seat. The blood of Christ removes the
• 30:00
  terror of judgement. It removes the servile fear.
• 30:03
  And 3rd we need him as king. As King, he subdues our
• 30:06
  rebellious, sluggish wills. Left to ourselves, without his
• 30:09
  rule in our hearts, we would remain paralyzed by the fear of
• 30:12
  the world and continually bury our lives in the dirt of our own
• 30:15
  selfishness. The King grants the actual power
• 30:17
  for new obedience. When a person grasps this
• 30:20
  threefold reality, the entire mechanism of their life flips.
• 30:24
  The motivation changes completely.
• 30:25
  Laboring for the master is no longer a terrified sweat cutting
• 30:28
  attempt to avoid punishment. It becomes a joy.
• 30:31
  It becomes a joyful response to immense, overflowing grace.
• 30:34
  We do not work for acceptance, we work from a position of
• 30:37
  already being accepted. That is the massive turning
• 30:40
  point. The bondservant was operating
• 30:42
  under a strict legalistic framework.
• 30:44
  If I mess up, I am doomed, so I will do nothing.
• 30:48
  But the justified laborer operates under grace.
• 30:52
  I am totally secure in Christ. Therefore, I am free to risk
• 30:55
  everything for His Kingdom. Because we know our Master is
• 30:58
  not a tyrant, but a loving Redeemer who bled for us, we are
• 31:02
  freed from the paralyzing fear of failure.
• 31:04
  We can risk our time, our reputations, our finances, and
• 31:07
  our very lives to advance the gospel knowing that our final
• 31:11
  standing before God is secured by Christ's perfect merit, not
• 31:14
  our own personal success rate. The faithful bond servants with
• 31:17
  five talents and two talents did not need to slander the master
• 31:20
  because they trusted him enough to step gotten work.
• 31:22
  They were motivated by love and respect.
• 31:25
  And the Lord is not asking whether every single person has
• 31:27
  the exact same mass of abilities.
• 31:29
  He gave 5 talents to 1/2 to another one to another.
• 31:31
  He gave it according to ability. He committed faithfulness, not
• 31:35
  identical numerical results. Therefore, the person with one
• 31:38
  talent must never envy the person with five, and the person
• 31:40
  with five must never despise the person with one.
• 31:44
  The central issue is fidelity to the master.
• 31:47
  We are called to be stewards. Parents must steward their
• 31:50
  children. Church members must steward
• 31:52
  their spiritual gifts for the body.
• 31:54
  Workers must steward their daily labor.
• 31:56
  None of these things belong to us.
• 31:58
  The Gospel actually creates what the Law demands.
• 32:01
  It turns servile dread into filial fear.
• 32:04
  It turns resentment into love. It turns paralysis into active
• 32:07
  obedience and it turns cowardly self protection into joyful risk
• 32:12
  taking labor for the king. What a massive amount of
• 32:14
  material we have covered. Let's do a quick recap of the
• 32:17
  discussion. Today we saw that bad theology,
• 32:20
  specifically viewing God as a hard exploiting tyrant, breeds
• 32:23
  false servile dread. That is the tragic progression.
• 32:27
  That dread completely paralyzes a person, leading to a buried,
• 32:31
  barren life that produces absolutely nothing for the
• 32:34
  Kingdom of God. It is a staggering tragedy, a
• 32:37
  wasted opportunity, whereas a true understanding of the
• 32:40
  Master's grace, seen perfectly at Calvary where he sewed his
• 32:43
  own blood, frees us to risk everything for his Kingdom.
• 32:47
  We work from a place of total acceptance fueled by love, not
• 32:51
  terror. As we conclude our analysis, I
• 32:54
  want to leave the listener with a final consideration regarding
• 32:56
  the long time the master was away in the parable.
• 32:59
  Oh, that is a great point to end on.
• 33:00
  What if the delay of the King's return isn't just a matter of
• 33:03
  cosmic scheduling? What if the long delay is the
• 33:06
  exact mechanism designed to reveal what we actually believe
• 33:09
  about His goodness when the pressure is off and nobody is
• 33:11
  watching? That thought hits incredibly
• 33:13
  hard. The delay tests are true, hidden
• 33:15
  convictions. I want to encourage you,
• 33:17
  listening right now, to unearth whatever you have buried in the
• 33:20
  dirt. Drop the theological excuses.
• 33:22
  Stop letting the fear of man or a false, slanderous view of God
• 33:26
  keep you paralyzed. Look to the true character of
• 33:28
  the King, the sower who bought you with his own blood.
• 33:31
  Step out, put those talents to work.
• 33:33
  Thank you for joining the conversation on.
• 33:34
  Reformed thinking today. Go.
• 33:36
  Dig up that talent.