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Faithful Stewardship Before the Returning King (Matthew 25:19-21) · Reformed Thinking

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  92% That is the number of American evangelicals who claim
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  to believe in the second coming of Jesus, 92%.
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  That is a staggering majority, yeah.
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  Right. You would think, based on that
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  kind of overwhelming consensus, that local churches would be,
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  well, absolutely vibrating with anticipation.
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  You would assume that level of theological conviction would
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  radically alter how millions of people operate on, you know, a
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  random Tuesday morning. Welcome to Reformed Thinking, a
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  deep dive into the theological frameworks that shape how we
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  view the world, our lives, and the future.
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  Today we have a text in front of us that is pretty much
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  guaranteed to disrupt the way you evaluate your own daily
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  routines. The contrast between that
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  statistic and reality is just, well, it is massive.
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  You would certainly expect a visible, tangible urgency in the
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  daily lives of people who hold that conviction.
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  Yeah, but the authors of the materials we are examining today
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  point out a huge disconnect. Despite that 92% statistic, a
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  vast multitude of those individuals live as what the
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  text calls practical atheists. Oh wow, that is a heavy phrase.
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  It is, yeah. They manage their retirement
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  accounts, they raise their kids, they schedule their vacations,
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  and they participate in corporate worship.
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  As if a divine reckoning will never actually happen.
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  It is as if the second coming is just a piece of trivia they
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  agree with on paper, but it has zero bearing on their actual
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  blood pressure or their bank accounts.
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  The conscious mind checked a theological box that says, yes,
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  the king is returning, but the functional day-to-day life is
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  lived entirely under the assumption of complete autonomy.
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  Right, like they are running the show.
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  Yeah, the underlying unspoken assumption is I have endless
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  time and these resources belong to me.
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  The sources we are looking at describe this not as a minor
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  inconsistency, but as a severe spiritual disease.
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  So we're going to tackle this by analyzing a very specific famous
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  passage of Scripture, Matthew chapter 25, verses 19 through
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  21. This is the core of the parable
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  of the Talents. We are doing this to understand
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  what true living faith actually looks like while we are waiting
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  for a returning king. Because there is a massive
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  difference between waiting and, you know, waiting well.
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  There really is. OK, let's unpack this with an
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  analogy. Think about a homeowner who
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  leaves a sprawling estate to a property manager.
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  There is a huge difference between someone who is just
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  house sitting, like sitting on the couch watching television,
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  maybe keeping the dust off the furniture, and someone who is
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  actively taking a billion dollar investment portfolio and working
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  relentlessly to multiply it while the owner is gone.
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  The mandate in this passage is absolutely not a call to
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  monastic retreat. It is not a call to simply sit
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  quietly and hide from the world until the sky splits open.
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  The text demands rigorous, active, risk taking labor.
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  Which means we have to ask you, the listener, to evaluate your
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  own mindset right now. Are you treating your life, your
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  career, your family, your resources as a waiting room, a
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  place where you just sit, read old magazines and kill time
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  until your name is called? Or are you treating your life as
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  a field for rigorous labor? Because how you answer that
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  changes everything about how you wake up in the morning.
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  It changes the entire posture of your day.
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  It really does. So to grasp the absolute weight
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  of this assignment, we first have to understand the specific
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  historical context of what Jesus was handing over to his
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  followers. Let's set the scene here.
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  We have to look at where Jesus is sitting when he speaks these
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  words. This is the Olivet Discourse.
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  He is physically seated on the Mount of Olives.
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  He is looking out over the city of Jerusalem in the temple
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  complex and this is happening just days before his
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  crucifixion. So the tension is incredibly
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  high. Oh, absolutely.
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  And his audience is his inner circle of disciples.
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  To grasp the tension of this moment, we really have to
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  understand the mental state of these men.
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  They are fully anticipating an immediate physical, political
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  victory over the Roman Empire. In their minds, the Messiah is
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  here. So the Golden Age is going to
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  begin by the end of the week. Right.
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  They want the crown without the cross.
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  They are expecting a militaristic triumph right now,
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  and Jesus is intentionally bursting that bubble.
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  He is shifting their expectations from an immediate
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  political conquest to a prolonged period of absence
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  where their loyalty will be tested.
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  He's leaving, and the specific details he uses in the parable
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  to describe what happens while he is gone are vital.
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  For instance, the concept of the talent.
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  The modern reader trips over this word constantly.
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  Oh man, all the time. When we hear the word talent, we
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  immediately think of singing or painting or, you know, being
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  really good at spreadsheet pivot tables.
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  We think of natural psychological abilities.
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  So we read the parable and think Jesus is just telling us to use
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  our hobbies for a good cause. Yeah, that is a very common
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  misreading in the Greco Roman world.
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  A talent, the Greek word is talenting, was not a natural
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  skill, and it was not even a coin.
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  It was a massive measure of weight, usually of gold or
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  silver. To put the math into
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  perspective, one talent was roughly equivalent to 6000
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  denarii, and a denarius was the standard wage for a single day
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  laborer. OK, let's do the math on that
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  out loud so we can actually feel the weight of what is happening
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  in the story. If one talent is 6000 denarii
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  and a denarius is a day's wage, well, let's say a guy works six
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  days a week, 50 weeks a year. That is 300 working days a year.
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  6000 / 300 is 20, right? One single talent represents 20
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  years of relentless, daily backbreaking labor.
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  It is the equivalent of an entire working lifetime of wages
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  handed over in a single block of gold.
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  So if we bring that into modern terms just to make it stick, if
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  day labor today makes say, $200 a day, 200 * 300 days is $60,000
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  a year. Multiply that by 20 years.
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  Well, one talent is roughly $1.2 million.
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  The scale is just astronomical. Right.
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  So when the master in the parable hands the first guy 5
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  talents, we're talking about $6 million in cash, 100 years worth
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  of wealth. That is staggering.
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  It completely changes the tone of the story.
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  The master is not handing them a $20 bill and saying hey, see
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  what you can do. He is handing over a massive
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  fortune. And that immense scale
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  highlights the infinite value of what the masters entrusting to
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  them. God has not given his people
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  trifles. The authors of the text we are
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  analyzing note that this vast wealth represents the gospel
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  deposit, the word of truth, the spiritual privileges given to
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  the Church. It is the unsearchable riches of
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  Christ. Which makes the responsibility
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  that much heavier. Exactly.
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  I mean, yes, precisely, but there is another historical
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  nuance we have to grasp alongside the money, and that is
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  the nature of the workers themselves.
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  The Greek word used here is duloi, which translates to bond
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  servants. They are not air gates, which
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  means hired laborers. And the distinction between a
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  hired employee and a bond servant changes the entire power
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  dynamic of the parable, right? It does.
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  A hired laborer can clock out at sunset, they can negotiate their
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  wages, they have personal rights, autonomy, and they can
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  quit if they do not like the management.
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  A bond servant, however, was entirely owned by the master.
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  Owned completely. Yes.
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  In the ancient Roman economic structure, the patter familias,
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  the head of the household, often use highly educated bond
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  servants to run shipping fleets, manage massive agricultural
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  States and operate banks. These trusted bond servants
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  wielded massive proxy authority. They engaged in high level trade
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  and invested capital. But the core legal reality
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  remained. They owned absolutely nothing.
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  Zero equity. 0 Every single fraction of a percent of profit
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  they made belonged entirely, completely to the master.
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  That concept alone annihilates the modern idol of self
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  ownership. It completely destroys the idea
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  that believers are just spiritual entrepreneurs out
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  there building their own little kingdoms, putting their own
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  names on the church buildings or their ministries.
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  Everything they have, including their very lives, belongs to the
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  owner. It is a total paradigm shift for
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  the modern mind. But here is where I have to push
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  back based on that massive financial scale we just
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  established. If one talent equals 20 years of
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  wages over $1,000,000, doesn't that make the third servant's
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  fear entirely rational? The guy who buried his one
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  talent in the dirt. Well, you can see his logic.
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  Yeah, I mean, if someone hands me $1,000,000 of their money and
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  says go invest this, my first thought is going to be sheer
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  terror. What if the market crashes?
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  What if I make a bad trade? The guy who buried it to ensure
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  he didn't lose a penny seems like the only sane, risk averse
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  person in the story. That is a very logical modern
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  reaction, especially in our financial climate.
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  However, that paralyzing fear is only rational if you view the
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  master as a tyrant. The authors we are reading make
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  a crucial distinction here regarding the nature of the
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  master. OK, what is the distinction?
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  Well, the fear of losing the capital makes perfect sense if
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  the owner is cruel, capricious and just waiting for an excuse
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  to ruin you. But the masters character in
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  this parable actually demands loyalty over fearful
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  preservation. He is a gracious Lord who fully
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  expects his resources to be put at risk for the advancement of
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  his estate. He wants the investment in play,
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  working, moving in the market. The third servant's great crime
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  was that he fundamentally misunderstood the character of
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  the man he was working for. Oh, I see.
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  He viewed him as an enemy to be placated rather than a Lord to
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  be boldly obeyed. He thought the master was
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  looking for an excuse to punish him rather than an opportunity
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  to reward him. He.
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  Projected his own dark, fearful disposition onto the master and
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  understand the sheer massive scale of this entrusted wealth
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  and the Master's expectation of active trading naturally leads
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  us to the terrifying reality of what happens when the owner
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  finally returns. Because the delay Jesus is
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  preparing his disciples for is not an indefinite cancellation.
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  Not at all. Let's look at verse 19.
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  Now, after a long time, the master of those servants came
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  and settled accounts with them. The Greek phrase here meta de
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  Paulin Cranon, translates to after a long time.
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  This delay is highly purposeful. It is a feature of the kingdom's
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  timeline, not a bug. It tests the character of the
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  workers. The delay creates a vacuum of
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  immediate oversight. When the master is physically
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  present, everyone looks busy, but in the vacuum of his absence
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  the true nature of the worker is exposed.
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  But the critical action in verse 19 is the phrase settled
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  accounts. Right.
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  Soon are I? Yes.
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  The Greek verb suna Rey is a highly precise accounting term.
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  It means to compare the Ledger to audit the books line by line.
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  The delay of the master does not cancel the audit.
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  The delay guarantees the audit. The master's going to sit down
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  at the desk, open the books, and look at the math.
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  And the authors of our sources argue that this specific reality
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  violently confronts the softness of modern culture.
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  We live in an era that prefers to treat Jesus solely as a
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  therapist, a life coach, or a gentle helper who exists just to
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  actualize our personal goals. Yeah, very domesticated view.
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  Right. But the text presents a
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  sovereign king who possesses the absolute authority to demand a
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  strict, unyielding accounting of his property.
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  The authors actually apply this concept of the strict audit to
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  very specific, highly debated modern cultural contexts.
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  To look at their logic, they argue that the talents entrusted
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  to believers today are the gospel, Word of God, and
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  spiritual gifts. Their premise is that these
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  resources are a fixed deposit because this deposit belongs to
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  the king. They explicitly assert that
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  believers must not waste these divine resources on secular
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  agendas. Specifically, the texts call out
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  critical race theory and a social justice gospel.
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  That is a very specific modern application.
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  It is, the authors argue, that utilizing church resources,
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  time, and theological bandwidth to pursue these societal
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  frameworks is the modern equivalent of burying the talent
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  in the dirt. From their perspective, it
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  diverts the Church's energy away from true Kingdom labor and
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  spiritual regeneration, exchanging eternal capital for
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  temporary political aims. So the logic they're using is
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  that the master gave the capital for a specific type of Kingdom
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  return, and if the church decides to invest that capital
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  into a secular philosophy, they are going to fail the audit
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  because they traded the master's money on the wrong exchange.
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  That is their argument, yes. They also apply this auditing
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  concept from a complementarian viewpoint.
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  From what I read, the sources state that have been entrusted
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  with a specific talent of headship in their homes.
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  Yes, that is another major point they make.
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  According to their reading of the text, men are given proxy
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  authority by Christ and are expected to actively teach
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  catechisms and protect their families from liberal theology.
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  The authors warn that abdicating this role, like handing that
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  spiritual leadership over to someone else or neglecting it
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  entirely, will result in a severe accounting when the
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  Master returns. They are attempting to pull the
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  ancient concept of the master's property directly into the
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  modern living room and the modern pulpit, and regardless of
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  how a reader reacts to those specific cultural applications,
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  the underlying premise forces a very heavy speculation.
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  What does a human life actually look like when the person truly
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  down to their bones believes A sovereign audit is coming?
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  Right. It alters the daily calculus of
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  everything. It changes how you spend a
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  Tuesday night. It changes how you allocate your
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  income. It changes what you read and how
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  you raise your children. OK, let's untack this.
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  It's the difference between studying for a pop quiz you
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  think might happen versus studying for a final exam that
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  is absolutely locked on the calendar.
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  That is a great way to frame it. If the professor says there
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  might be a quiz on Friday, I haven't decided yet.
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  Well, you might skim the chapter.
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  You might risk going out to dinner instead of studying, but
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  if the syllabus says final exam Friday at 8:00 AM worth 90% of
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  your grade, the absolute certainty of that event changes
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  your preparation entirely. You cancel your plans.
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  You buy flash cards. You stay up late.
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  The certainty of the future event dictates the present
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  action. If the audit is certain, the
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  action must match the certainty. But this brings us to a massive
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  theological crossroads, particularly for those of us who
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  aligned with historical Protestant frameworks.
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  Yeah, we have to talk about the tension here.
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  If this intense line by line audit is guaranteed and the
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  master demands rigorous, fruitful labor under the threat
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  of being cast into outer darkness, how do we reconcile
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  that demand with the core Protestant belief that salvation
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  is a free gift? Yes, this is the tension that
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  has been debated for centuries. Because on the surface, reading
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  just this parable in isolation, it sounds like you have to earn
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  your keep. It sounds like justification by
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  works. It sounds like you have to hit a
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  certain profit margin, a certain quota of good deeds to get your
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  ticket punched for eternity. You can definitely read that way
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  at first glance. Let's look at verse 20 to see
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  how the text resolves this. The servant who received 5
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  talents comes up to the master, brings five more talents, and
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  says, Master, you delivered to me 5 talents.
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  Here I have made five talents more.
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  Notice the precise sequence of his words before he presents his
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  results. He acknowledges the grace, the
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  initial gift you delivered to me.
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  That is key. It is everything.
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  He does not begin by boasting about his own genius, his savvy
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  trading strategies, or his tireless work ethic.
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  He begins with the Masters Sovereign provision.
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  The capital was a gift. The opportunity to trade was a
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  gift. The sources rigorously guard
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  against two distinct opposing errors here.
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  First, they are guarding against antinomianism, this idea that
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  because grace is free, we can just bury the talent, ignore the
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  master's commands, and ride the payroll into eternity without
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  producing any fruit. It is the false nation that
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  faith requires no obedience. A very dangerous error.
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  And the second error they reject is legalism, or the concept of
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  conditional merit. This is the idea that your
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  rigorous labor and your generated profit are the actual
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  currency that purchases your eternal life.
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  So how do they resolve it? The Theological.
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  Resolution, the sources offered of this tension is vital.
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  The multiplication of the talents is not the purchase
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  price of salvation. Rather, it is the visible,
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  undeniable evidence of a regenerate heart.
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  The fruit proves the root. We see this perfectly when we
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  zoom out and look at the literary structure of Matthew
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  chapter 25 as a whole. Jesus doesn't just tell one
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  story here, He tells three. It is constructed as a triptych,
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  a three-part masterpiece. Yes, the context of the chapter
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  is brilliant. The first part is the parable of
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  the 10 Virgins, which focuses heavily on inward readiness, the
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  condition of the heart, the oil and the lamps representing the
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  regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.
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  The second part is our text, The Parable of the Talents, which
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  shifts the focus to outward, rigorous labor.
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  The inward grace produces the outward action.
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  And then the third part. The third part is the final
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  judgement of the sheep and the goats, which shows the ultimate
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  division of humanity based specifically on the evidence of
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  that outward labor, like feeding the hungry, visiting the sick.
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  So they are all tied together. Yes, the three parts are
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  entirely connected. You cannot have the vindication
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  of the sheep without the labor of the talents, and you cannot
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  have the labor of the talents without the inward oil of the
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  virgins. But this raises a really
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  difficult pastoral question. How do you tell the difference
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  between someone working frantically out of a sheer
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  terror of going to hell versus someone working rigorously out
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  of love for the master? That is the $1,000,000 question.
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  Right. Because let's be honest, from
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  the outside looking in, both of those guys just look really,
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  really busy. They are both doing a lot of
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  things at church. They're both giving money.
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  They are both leading Bible studies.
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  That is the core pastoral dilemma.
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  How do we distinguish between dead religious works and living
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  faith? The text gives us a massive clue
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  in the posture of the servants. As we noted, the faithful
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  servant says, Master, you delivered to me.
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  True living faith always starts by acknowledging the unearned
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  gift. It is about the starting point.
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  Yes, the worker laborers. Not as an anxious employee
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  terrified of cruel tyrant, but as a grateful adopted son who is
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  eagerly seeking his father's smile.
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  Legalism starts with the self. It says, look what I did to earn
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  my place. True faith starts with the
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  master. It says look what you gave and
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  look what Your Grace produced in me.
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  The motivation is entirely different, even if the sweat on
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  their foreheads looks the same. One is working to earn an
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  identity, the other is working from an identity already
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  received. Well said.
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  This distinction between a tyrant and a gracious father
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  becomes blindingly clear when we look at the actual verdict the
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  master delivers at the end of the audit.
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  Because if you were a tyrant, no amount of profit would be
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  enough. Exactly.
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  But his response is astonishing. Which takes us to verse 21.
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  This is the climax of the entire exchange.
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  Well done, good and faithful servant.
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  You have been faithful over a little.
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  I will set you over much enter into the joy of your master.
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  Let us analyze the specific words of commendation.
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  Here. The Master calls him good and
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  faithful. In this context, good does not
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  mean morally flawless. It means singularly devoted to
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  the Master's interests. He was useful for the task
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  assigned. Faithful means he was completely
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  trustworthy. He didn't embezzle the funds to
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  build his own estate and he didn't bury them out of
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  paranoia. Notice what is completely absent
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  from that commendation. The master does not praise his
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  financial brilliance. He doesn't say well done, clever
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  and successful servant. He doesn't praise his fame, his
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  market dominance or his massive intellect.
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  Christ values character shaped by loyalty over sheer numerical
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  spectacle. We see this illustrated
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  beautifully in a detail from the broader parable.
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  Oh, the guy with two talents? Yes.
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  The worker who was given 2 talents and made two more
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  receives the exact same verbal commendation as the worker who
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  was given 5 and made five more. Word for word, the praise is
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  identical. That parody of commendation is
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  amazing. The Master is rewarding
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  proportionate fidelity, not raw absolute volume.
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  The guy with two talents didn't get a lesser pat on the back.
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  He didn't get a secondary reward.
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  This specific detail structurally eliminates any room
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  for envy or despair among believers.
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  If you have been given a smaller sphere of influence, perhaps
• 20:07
  you're not a famous author or CEO, but you are faithfully
• 20:10
  raising children or quietly working a blue collar job or
• 20:13
  serving in a small, unnoticed ministry.
• 20:16
  Your rigorous faithfulness in that sphere invites the exact
• 20:19
  same divine commendation as the person with massive global
• 20:22
  influence. That is so countercultural.
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  It is the Master measures the faithfulness based on the
• 20:26
  specific capital He entrusted to you, not the capital He
• 20:29
  entrusted to your neighbor. That is incredibly freeing.
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  It kills the comparison game dead in its tracks.
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  You don't have to produce 5 talents of fruit if you were
• 20:37
  only given 2 talents of capital. You just have to be faithful
• 20:40
  with the two. But then we get to the reward
• 20:42
  itself, and the math here is wild.
• 20:46
  The math is very surprising, yes.
• 20:48
  The master looks at the five talents, which we already
• 20:51
  established is equivalent to roughly $6 million, a hundred
• 20:54
  years of daily wages, an astronomical earthly fortune,
• 20:59
  and he calls it a little. He says you have been faithful
• 21:02
  over a little. That highlights the sheer scale
• 21:04
  of the coming Kingdom. What seems like massive, heavy
• 21:08
  responsibility in this current age is microscopic compared to
• 21:12
  the consummated reality of the next the masters effectively
• 21:15
  saying you handled a few pennies.
• 21:17
  Well, now I'm going to give you true wealth and the.
• 21:19
  Reward, he offers, is twofold, right?
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  It is first, he promises, greater administrative
• 21:24
  responsibility. He says.
• 21:25
  I will set you over much. Which sounds a bit
• 21:28
  counterintuitive at first. I mean, the reward for hard work
• 21:30
  is more work. It does sound strange to modern
• 21:33
  ears, but it forces us to redefine our theology of work in
• 21:38
  the biblical framework. Work itself is not a curse.
• 21:41
  Right. It was there before the fall.
• 21:43
  Yes, God plays Adam in the garden to work it and keep it
• 21:46
  before sin enter the world. The curse of Genesis 3 was the
• 21:50
  thorns, the thistles, the futility, and the exhaustion
• 21:53
  that accompanied the work. The reward the Master offers is
• 21:57
  not an eternal, static vacation. It is expanded, glorified work
• 22:02
  stripped entirely of the curse of sin.
• 22:05
  It is responsibility without exhaustion.
• 22:07
  It is administration without futility.
• 22:10
  It's like ACEO calling you into his office and handing you a
• 22:12
  bonus check, but instead of just giving you money, the CEO says
• 22:16
  you did great managing this little regional office.
• 22:18
  So now I'm making you a co-owner of the entire multinational
• 22:21
  corporation. And by the way, you're moving
• 22:23
  into my personal estate to have dinner with my family, family
• 22:25
  every single night. That is a brilliant way to
• 22:27
  picture. It the reward is completely,
• 22:29
  laughably disproportionate to the actual work the regional
• 22:32
  manager did. That analogy perfectly captures
• 22:35
  the grace embedded in this judgement, because the second
• 22:38
  part of the reward is the most stunning.
• 22:40
  Enter into the joy of your master.
• 22:43
  The Greek word for joy is charan.
• 22:45
  Yes. This is not a static emotion in
• 22:49
  the eschatological context of Matthew's Gospel.
• 22:51
  This is the messianic banquet. The faithful worker is not just
• 22:54
  given a new job title. He is invited into the intimate,
• 22:57
  shared delight of the Lord himself.
• 23:00
  The text moves from strict financial accountability to
• 23:03
  deep, abiding relational communion.
• 23:05
  The servant gets to share in the master's own happiness.
• 23:08
  The master's joy becomes the environment the servant lives
• 23:10
  in. Yes, to summarize the core of
• 23:12
  all these sources, the King is returning.
• 23:14
  He absolutely demands an accounting of his massive
• 23:17
  sovereign investment. True faith is proven by
• 23:20
  diligent, risk taking labor in His name, and the reward for
• 23:23
  that that loyalty is an invitation to step inside divine
• 23:25
  joy. So if you are listening to this
• 23:27
  right now, I want to leave you with a final thought to chew on.
• 23:31
  If the final reward is not a static, boring retirement on a
• 23:34
  cloud, but rather entering the joy of the master, how does
• 23:38
  anticipating that specific act of joy change the very nature of
• 23:41
  the difficult tasks you are avoiding today?
• 23:44
  If joy is the literal finish line, does the absolute
• 23:47
  certainty of that joy retroactively inject joy into
• 23:50
  the mundane, frustrating labor of your present reality?
• 23:53
  Something to consider the next time you find yourself just
• 23:55
  waiting.