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Faithful Stewardship Under the Returning King (Matthew 25:26-28) · Reformed Thinking

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Imagine your boss calls you into his office, right?
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And he hands you a briefcase containing $4 million in cash.
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Wow. OK, that's a good day.
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Right. But then he says he is leaving
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the country for some undisclosed amount of time and he just gives
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you full control over all that money and walks out the door.
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Just completely leaves it in your hands.
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Yes, completely. So months later he returns and
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he asks what you did with the capital, and you have to tell
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him that you actually went out into the woods, dug a hole and
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buried it. Because you're afraid of the
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stock market. Yeah, you tell him you were just
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terrified of losing it. Now imagine his reaction to
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that. I mean, he doesn't just fire you
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is just say, you know, give me the money back.
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He actually looks at you and issues this massive moral
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condemnation. He calls you a wicked, morally
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corrupt, cowardly rebel, and then he has you thrown out into
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the dark. It is such an intense visual.
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It really is so welcome to reform thinking.
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Today we are staring down the terrifying reality of Matthew
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chapter 25, verses 26 through 28.
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Yes, we are. And usually when we think about
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a legal verdict in a modern courtroom, you know, we expect a
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very clean sense of proportion, like someone commits a minor
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infraction, a judge hands down, a small fine.
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And the whole system feels, well, predictable.
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Right. The punishment fixed the crime,
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as they say. But when you open this ancient
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text, that predictable, comfortable scale just shatters
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completely. The judicial landscape we are
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walking into today leaves zero room for appeal.
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No room at all. And it challenges every single
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assumption modern society holds about accountability.
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Grace in human effort. It really does, and we have a
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stack of historical, literary, and theological sources in front
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of us today that analyze this specific biblical passage.
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That's a great material to go through.
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Yeah, and our mission for this deep dive is to basically strip
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away all those soft, modern assumptions we project onto the
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text. We want to uncover the severe
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mercy of Christ's words. Which is so needed right now.
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Right, because of the scenario presented in the text involves a
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master who hands a massive fortune to a bondservant, only
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to return and find that fortune just hidden in the dirt.
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Buried in the ground. And the master's judgement, I
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mean, it falls like Thunder if you are listening to this right
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now. This ancient ruling is not some
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dusty piece of history. No, not at all.
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It directly confronts how you view your own salvation, what
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you believe about works, and what it actually means to be a
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faithful steward of the gospel. If force is a very uncomfortable
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audit, you know of what you are doing with the resources
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currently sitting in your hands. Uncomfortable is definitely the
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word for it. So I want to start by figuring
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out the physical and cultural ground where Jesus actually
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spoke these words, because we need to comprehend the shock of
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the Masters judgment and we really cannot do that if we are
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reading it through a 21st century western lens.
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No, you miss the entire point if you do that.
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So where are we historically when this parable is given?
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Like what is the immediate context surrounding Jesus and
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his disciples? Well, the historical setting
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kind of dictates the entire mood of the text.
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Jesus is sitting on the Mount of Olives.
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We are in the final week of His earthly ministry.
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So the shadow of the cross is what, literally days away?
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Days away. Yes, he is speaking to his
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disciples who are, you know, living under hostile Roman
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occupation, and he is outlining the agonizing delay that will
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occur before his second coming. The tension in that moment must
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have been incredibly high. Unbelievably high.
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I mean, he is preparing his closest followers for a very
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long absence, and to communicate the gravity of this interim
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period, he uses this economic illustration drawn straight from
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the ancient Roman world. The text centers on the
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institution of the bond servant, which is the doulos in Greek,
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and we need to define this carefully.
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Because a modern reader hears the word servant and pictures
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like an entry level hourly employee.
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Yeah, or a Butler fetching tea or something, right?
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And that is a massive misconception.
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A doulos in a wealthy 1st century household was operating
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on an entirely different level. They definitely were not just
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sweeping floors. No, not at all.
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What kind of authority did a bond servant actually possess
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when their patron left town? They possessed almost total
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operational authority. I mean, in the ancient economy,
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a doulos belonging to a massive estate was often a highly
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educated, highly capable manager.
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Like a chief operating officer today.
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Pretty much wealthy Roman and Jewish patrons frequently
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traveled across the empire for long durations, and when they
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did, they didn't just freeze their assets.
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They didn't put everything in a holding account.
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No, they left their agricultural estates, their shipping
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businesses and their vast monetary wealth entirely under
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the control of these bond servants.
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That is a huge amount of trust. It is.
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The Doulos could buy and sell land, negotiate contracts and
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manage massive supply chains. They operated with the full
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legal proxy of the master. So to be a bond servant in this
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context was to be a high level executive holding the keys to
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the empire. Right, which means the master's
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decision to distribute his wealth before his journey was
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actually a pretty standard business practice.
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But the scale of what is distributed here is staggering.
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The text says the master gives his servants talents.
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And we have a major linguistic problem today because we use the
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word talent to describe, you know, an inherent personal
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skill. Right.
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Like playing the piano. Yeah.
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A person has a talent for playing the violin or talent for
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painting, but reading that definition back into the 1st
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century completely destroys the economic weed of the parable,
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doesn't it? It totally does.
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The linguistic shift you mentioned happened centuries
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later, largely because of how influential this very parable
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became in Western culture. Of that makes sense.
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But to the original audience, sitting on the Mount of Olives,
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a talent was not a skill. It was a staggering unit of
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weight and currency. Like a physical block of metal.
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Yes, a talent was the largest unit of currency in the
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Hellenistic world. It was typically made of silver
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and it weighed roughly 60 to 80. Pounds 80 lbs of silver.
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That is heavy. Very heavy and in terms of value
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a single talent was equal to 6000 denarii.
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OK, let's break that down for the listener.
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Well, since 1 denarius was the standard daily wage for a common
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laborer, one talent represented roughly 20 years of continuous
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manual labor. Wow.
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Let us run the math on that to really feel the impact.
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If a common laborer today makes, say $40,000 a year, 20 years of
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wages equals $800,000. So one talent is approaching
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$1,000,000 in modern capital. The man who received 5 talents
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was handed nearly $4 million. It is a massive sum.
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Even the man who received the minimum, the one talent servant,
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was handed a life altering fortune.
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And that sheer volume of wealth provides the first major
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conviction of the text. I mean, the one talent
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individual did not receive a negligible throwaway amount.
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Right, it wasn't just a few bucks.
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He received a King's ransom, and this leaves him completely
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accountable. In a world where honor, loyalty,
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and household fidelity were the highest virtues, the masters
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distribution of a talent was a supreme act of trust.
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So I go back to that analogy of the eccentric billionaire in the
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multimillion dollar hedge fund. The sum is so astronomical that
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taking the briefcase of cash and burying in the woods, it just
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cannot be interpreted as a sign of caution.
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No, not at all. Digging a hole to hide 80 lbs of
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silver is an insult to the scale of the trust.
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It shows a complete disregard for the magnitude of what the
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billionaire handed over. And the physical act of burying
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it is highly significant. Actually, in rabbinic law at the
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time, burying money was considered the safest way to
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guard against theft. Oh really?
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I didn't know. That yeah, to the point where if
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you buried an asset and it was stolen, you were legally exempt
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from liability. Wow, so the servant is taking
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the most legally defensive, self protecting action possible.
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He is ensuring he cannot be sued by the master.
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But he is entirely ignoring the masters primary objective, which
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is growth. He treats the working capital of
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the estate like a dead body. I mean placing it in a tomb.
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That's a great way to put it. It is high treason against the
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stated purpose of the estate. So, knowing the vast wealth
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entrusted to this steward, the most logical question we have to
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ask is, well, what drove this individual to dig that hole?
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Right. Why do it?
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We have to examine the linguistic anatomy of this
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spiritual crime. When the master returns after a
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long time and audits the servants, he doesn't just ask
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for a financial spreadsheet. No, he goes much further than
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that. He delivers a surgical diagnosis
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of the servants internal motives.
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He really does. The master answers his servant
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by issuing a chilling verdict. He calls him wicked and
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slothful. And the original Greek terms
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used here are incredibly vivid, aren't?
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They very precise, the master says.
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Ponair Dulekai Ognura. Let us isolate those terms for a
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second. Yeah, let's unpack that.
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Poneros is the word translated as wicked.
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It denotes malignant active evil.
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It is a state of being morally corrupt and harmful.
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It's not just making a mistake. No, it is the same root word
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frequently used in the New Testament to describe the devil
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himself, the Evil 1. I want to pause on that because
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it is such a devastating detail. The master does not call him
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mistaken. He does not say you know you
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made a very poor financial calculation.
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He doesn't soften it at all, no. He calls him actively morally
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evil. The master assigns a severe
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moral category to the servants lack of action, and the second
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word onaros, translated as slothful, is equally revealing.
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What does that one mean specifically?
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It means hesitating or cowardly reluctance.
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It is a sluggishness born out of fear and aversion to effort.
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And our sources analyze the specific choice of this word
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because the author could have used a different Greek word,
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Argos, which simply means idle or unemployed.
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Like someone standing in the marketplace with nothing to do.
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Yes, just waiting for a job. But Onoris carries a darker
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nuance. It is a calculated, cowardly
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refusal to act when action is demanded.
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This is where the ancient text directly confronts modern
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psychological habits, because we love to recategorize spiritual
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lethargy today. We.
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Give it very polite, clinical, self forgiving names if someone
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refuses to engage in the hard work of the Kingdom.
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We call it introversion or burnout or setting boundaries.
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Right, we excuse it. We hear people say things like,
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oh, I just do not have the capacity for that ministry right
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now, or I am waiting for a more balanced season of life before I
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engage with my church. But Christ takes the specific
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inactivity and places it firmly into the category of act of
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rebellion. It's sobering.
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Laziness in the things of God is not an innocent temperament.
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It is not a psychological quirk or a product of environmental
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factors. According to the mouth of the
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returning judge, spiritual slothfulness is wickedness.
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And the sources connect this word on EUR directly back to the
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Old Testament. Yes, directly to the Greek
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translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint.
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It is used extensively in the wisdom literature, specifically
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the book of Proverbs, to describe the sluggard.
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The sluggard in Proverbs is such a fascinating psychological
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profile. I mean, he is the guy who
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refuses to plow his field because he says it is too cold
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outside. Or who claims he cannot go to
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work because there is a lion in the streets.
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Yeah, always an excuse. Always.
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And the most potent connection is found in Proverbs 26, verse
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16. It says the sluggard thinks
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himself wiser than seven men who can render a reason.
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So he thinks he's the smart one for staying in bed.
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Right. And the master in our parable is
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deliberately evoking the wisdom literature's condemnation of the
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fool. The servant's inactivity is not
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morally empty space. His non action is a deliberate
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hostile action. OK, I'm going to push back on
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this a little bit because reading this through a modern
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lens, it feels incredibly harsh. I can see why you'd say.
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That is the master judging the stewards personality type.
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Like what if the guy is simply risk averse?
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Right. What if he's just wired that
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way? The five talent guy clearly has
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an aggressive entrepreneurial spirit.
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The one talent guy might just be cautious by nature.
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Why is the Master calling him wicked and cowardly just because
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he lacks a high risk tolerance? Well, the text actually
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anticipates that defense and dismantles it in the opening
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verses. How so?
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The Master did not hand out the talent arbitrarily.
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The text specifically notes that he gave to each according to his
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ability. Oh, so he knew their capacities?
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He perfectly understood the capacity, the intellect and the
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risk tolerance of the one talent servant.
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The servant was not condemned because he failed to produce the
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five talents of his peer. He wasn't being compared to the
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other guy, right? He was condemned because he
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refused to be faithful within his own tailored measure of
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ability. That distinction changes
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everything. The lack of action is not a
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personality quirk, it is a symptom of a hostile heart.
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That completely hostile heart. But the steward, you know, he
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doesn't just stand there in silence.
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He actually attempts to justify his inactivity with a
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theological defense. He tries to explain his
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reasoning. Which leads us directly into the
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trap of the masters logic. Let's look at that defense.
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So the steward mounts a defense based entirely on fear and
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character assassination. He insults the guy to his face.
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Pretty much, he tells the Master.
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I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow
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and gathering where you scattered no seeds.
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So I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground.
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It's a. Profoundly corrupt defense.
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It is the steward is blaming the character of the master for his
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own failure. He is projecting his own malice
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onto his Lord. He is essentially accusing the
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master of being a tyrannical, ruthless despot who exploits the
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labor of others and demands the impossible.
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Right, he says. You take profit from fields you
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never planted. You are greedy and terrifying.
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So I was paralyzed by the fear of losing your money and I chose
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the safest route. He is trying to rebrand his
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apathy as a holy, reverent fear of a strict judge.
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And the psychology of the wicked servant is fascinating here.
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Yeah, because he thinks he can flatter the Masters tough
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business reputation while simultaneously excusing his own
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paralysis. But the Masters response is a
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brilliant rhetorical snare. It really is.
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The Master does not launch into a defense of his own character.
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He doesn't say, oh, I'm not a hard man.
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I am actually very generous. He's a.
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Defense of it all. No, instead he uses the
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servant's own premise to expose his guilt.
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How does the Greek syntax handle that response?
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Because reading it in English, it reads like a phenomenal legal
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cross examination. The Greek syntax is critical
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here. The master says You knew that I
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reap where I have not sown, and gather where I scattered no
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seed. It's a question.
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Exactly. I mean spot on.
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It is structured as an interrogative clause.
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The master is not confessing to being a thief or a tyrant, he is
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capturing the servants own stated belief.
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OK, I follow. It is a first class conditional
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thought. He is saying if you truly
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believed I was this demanding, ruthless man who demands a
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return on investment at all costs, then basic self
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preserving fear should have driven you to take minimal
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action to appease me. He traps him with his own logic,
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yes. Perfectly if you are.
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Terrified of a ruthless boss, you do not insult him by burying
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his capital. You do everything you can to
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generate a profit so you do not incur His wrath.
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And the master presses the logic to its absolute breaking point.
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He says, Then you ought to have invested my money with the
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bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my
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own with interests. So to understand the crushing
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weight of this counter argument, you really need to look at the
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ancient banking system. Right, because the text refers
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to the bankers or trapezotase. Who were they?
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These were money changers and financiers who set up tables
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called Pisa in the public squares or the Agora's of
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ancient cities. So they were highly visible,
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universally accessible financial institutions sitting right in
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the middle of public life. You would literally walk right
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past them every day. Any citizen could walk up to
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these tables, deposit their funds, and the bankers would
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lend that money out, paying the depositor a fixed rate of
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interest, which was known as Toco's.
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It was a completely normalized 0 effort method of generating a
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return on capital. Zero effort.
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So if we bring back our modern analogy, the hedge fund manager
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tells the returning billionaire, hey, I knew you were a ruthless
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businessman who demands profit, so I was terrified of a market
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crash and buried the millions in the woods.
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And the billionaire replies, Well, if you knew I demanded a
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return, why didn't you just walk across the street and put the
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cash into a basic high yield savings account?
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It requires 0 entrepreneurial skill, 0 market.
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And the exposure of the internal contradiction is absolute.
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By refusing to take even this completely passive, effortless
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step, the steward proves that his entire theological excuse
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was a lie. He didn't hide the talent out of
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irreverent fear. No, if he had, he would have
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visited the Trapezeitis. He hid it out of a malignant,
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lazy hatred for the Master's work.
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The master's logic destroys the sluggard's defense, proving that
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the sinner's theology is always internally inconsistent.
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The steward is left completely speechless.
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The cross examination corners him perfectly.
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But you know, the complete destruction of the steward's
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excuse brings us to a massive theological crossroads.
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As we read this, a glaring question emerges.
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And it's a big. One, does this text teach that
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you earn your salvation by producing enough profit for God?
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I mean, does the Creator of the universe look at our spiritual
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balance sheets, tally up our good deeds and decide if we hit
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the profit margin required to enter heaven?
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That is the greatest danger when isolating this parable from the
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broader corpus scripture. Yeah, it sounds like works
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righteousness. If a reader approaches this text
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without the surrounding biblical framework, they will inevitably
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notably fall into that error. They will conclude that the
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Kingdom of heaven is purchased through spiritual productivity.
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But the sources provided for this analysis offer clear
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doctrinal guidance on this. They do, relying heavily on the
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Protestant framework found in the Westminster tradition to
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resolve this tension. Let us unpack that framework.
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How does the historic Protestant distinction handle a text that
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so heavily emphasizes human effort and reward without
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sliding into legalism? The Westminster Confession
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offers a precise theological safeguard here.
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It states that saving faith is never alone in the person
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justified, but is ever accompanied with all other
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saving graces. OK, so they come as a package.
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Right. Good works are defined as the
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fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith.
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They are never the ground of justification.
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The believer is accepted by God solely based on the imputed
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righteousness of Christ, which is received by faith alone.
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Yes. So the works do not earn the
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salvation. The works act as the visible,
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undeniable proof that the salvation is actually present in
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the heart of the individual. I see.
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So the failure of the wicked steward was not a lack of
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business acumen. Not at all.
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His failure was rooted in a corrupt, unregenerate theology.
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He viewed the Master as a tyrannical despot.
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He possessed no love for the Master, and he had no trust in
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His goodness. And consequently he produced no
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fruit. But the true believer,
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conversely, views the Master as a gracious Savior.
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The believer understands the staggering cost of the grace
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they have received, and that immense gratitude is the fuel
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for their labor. That's beautifully put.
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They do not sweat and toil to earn a wage of salvation.
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They labor joyfully because they already possess salvation.
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And this psychological shift is what theologians describe as the
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third use of the law. Let's define that for listener.
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Sure, the law of God is not just a mirror designed to show us our
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sin and drive us to repentance, and it's not just a civil bridal
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designed to restrain evil in society.
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Those are the 1st 2 uses. Right.
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But for the regenerate believer, the commands of Christ,
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including the command to multiply the talents, act as a
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guide for grateful obedience. The law shows us how to please
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the God we already love. The true servant laborers
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because he has an adopted son managing his father's estate,
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not a terrified slave trying to avoid the whip.
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And the root of the servant's barrenness was his lack of
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living faith. Because he had no apprehension
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of grace, he had no capacity for genuine works.
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The Apostle Paul perfectly models the psychology of the
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faithful servant. He writes, By the grace of God,
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I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not
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in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder
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than any of them. True.
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Grace does not produce lethargy. True grace produces intense,
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rigorous labor. OK, but I am going to put on the
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skeptics hat again. Go for it.
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If salvation is entirely by grace alone, and our works
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contribute absolutely nothing to our justification, why is this
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final judgement scene so aggressively focused on
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productivity? It's a fair question.
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Why does the returning master only audit the return on
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investment? Why doesn't he just ask them
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about their faith? Because a total absence of fruit
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is definitive objective proof that saving grace is entirely
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absent from the individual's heart.
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It's the evidence. Yes, Jesus teaches this
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principle consistently throughout his ministry.
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He stayed to the good tree. There is good fruit, and a bad
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tree bears bad fruit. So the master focuses on the
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productivity during the audit because the external fruit
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reveals the hidden nature of the root.
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And the wicked servant produced absolutely nothing.
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He did not even manage the minimal interest from the public
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bankers. Which was so easy to do, right?
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This total, uncompromising Baroness exposes the terrifying
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truth. He is not a true servant of the
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estate. He wore the uniform of the
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master's household. He occupied space in the
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master's domain. He held the master's resources
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in his. Hands at the heart of an enemy.
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And because the total absence of fruit reveals a bad heart, the
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passage moves from logical exposure to a terrifying final
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judgement. The tone shifts completely.
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It does. We transition now to the decree
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of divine confiscation and the exposing of modern illusions.
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Let's look at verse 28. It reads kick the talent from
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him and give it to him who has the 10 talents.
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And the grammatical mood shifts dramatically.
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Here we move away from legal arguments and logical necessity,
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and we enter the realm of sheer sovereign command.
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The Greek text uses an aorist, active imperative, aerate.
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This specific verb form demands immediate, decisive action.
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There is no negotiation. It is a swift decree of divine
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confiscation. Privilege abused Is privilege
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forfeited? The master strips him of the
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asset entirely. And this sentence, this
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uncompromising judgement, acts as a heavy polemic against so
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many modern religious errors that dominate our culture today.
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Oh, absolutely. Let us examine the illusions
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that this text completely dismantles.
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The first major illusion is the prosperity gospel right?
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This is a heretical system that treats the sovereign God of the
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universe as a cosmic bellhop. It suggests that God exists
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primarily to fulfill human ambitions, heal every physical
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ailment on demand, and secure material wealth for the
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believer. But this text proves the
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opposite is true. We do not own the Master, we
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exist to labor for the masters of state, and He holds absolute
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sovereign right over our possessions.
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We are stewards holding borrowed capital, not owners dictating
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terms to the creator. And the second illusion this
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judgment dismantles is antinomianism.
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Which is the modern concept of cheap grace?
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Yes, it is the belief that because salvation is a free
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gift, God demands no obedience, no effort, and no subsequent
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change in lifestyle. It is the idea that you can pray
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a prayer, secure your eternal fire insurance, and then live
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however you want, burying your life in the dirt of the world.
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This passage absolutely crushes that framework.
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A faith that demands no obedience is a dead faith, and
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it ends with the master confiscating everything and
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casting the servant out. It's a stark warning.
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What's the third error confronted here?
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The third modern error is the pragmatic seeker sensitive
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movement prevalent in modern evangelicalism.
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This approach frequently coddles false professors.
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It tries to make everyone feel OK.
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Right. It hides the reality of divine
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judgment in order to keep people comfortable in the pews.
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It measures the success of a church by visible attendance,
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the quality of the coffee, and the entertainment value of the
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music, rather than fidelity to the severe demands of the Word.
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It creates a culture where the church is viewed as a waiting
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room for heaven. You come in, sit down, listen to
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a few light self improvement tips, and wait for the clock to
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run out. But this text proves the church
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is an active, demanding field of Labor.
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It completely shatters the cultural caricature of God as a
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harmless, grandfatherly figure who winks at our laziness and
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grades on a curve. The returning king in this
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parable is the supreme judge. He is the eschatological Lord
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whose final verdict determines eternal destiny.
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Are like fire and he demands an exact accounting of what he
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entrusted to his household. And the visible church contains
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both wheat and tares, true believers and false professors
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sitting side by side. This judgement is the moment of
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permanent separation. The confiscation of the talent
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is just the preliminary step. The subsequent verses describe
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the worthless servant being cast into outer darkness where there
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is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
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It is a sobering, terrifying reality, The individual who
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casually calls Jesus Lord, yet buries his trust.
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His trust cannot hide forever behind religious speech.
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The master cannot be deceived by religious posturing, perfect
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church attendance, or an ability to use the right theological
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jargon. No, he sees straight through the
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external facade to the Ledger of the heart.
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So if we recognize the severity of this decree, we must
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transition to the personal mandate.
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How does a 1st century judicial ruling land squarely on you
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today? Our sources make it clear that
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the purpose of analyzing this text is not to paralyze you with
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legalistic terror. That would be missing the point,
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the goal. Is to propel you into reverent,
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active, joyful obedience. The first step for anyone
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studying this text is identifying your trust.
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What specific assets has the master placed in your hands?
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We have to look around our own lives with ruthless honesty.
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Have you been given a sharp analytical intellect?
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Have you been given substantial material wealth?
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Have you been given a schedule with extra time in your week?
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Have you been given the minds of your children to shape and mold?
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Have you been given a clear understanding of the gospel?
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You must view all of these things as borrowed capital.
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Your mind, your bank account, your children, your free time on
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a Saturday, none of these are private properties meant for
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your own self-expression. They belong to God.
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Stewardship begins with the fundamental confession that all
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entrusted resources belong to the master.
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You are just an administrator of his estate and the lease is
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temporary. This realization brings us to
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the plea for ordinary action because there is a massive
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psychological danger in modern Christianity.
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What's that? We wait around for some stadium
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sized opportunity to be faithful while completely ignoring the
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daily mundane duties right in front of us.
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Oh, that is so true. People dream of going overseas
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to preach to multitudes, but they refuse to to sit down and
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catechize their own kids at the breakfast table.
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They. Admire famous historical
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missionaries, but they will not speak a single word of truth to
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their coworker in the next cubicle.
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They spend hours debating high level doctrine on the Internet,
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but they refuse to forgive a family member for a minor
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personal offense. The world constantly tells us
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that true significance requires high visibility and massive
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scale. But Christ shows us that
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faithfulness begins with the rigorous execution of the very
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ordinary, quiet things He has placed before you.
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It is the modern trap of wanting to go viral.
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We want to do something huge that gets millions of views,
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generates instant applause and makes us feel significant.
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But the master is demanding quiet, daily compound interest
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in the lives of the people standing right next to you.
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Praying in secret when no one is watching.
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Speaking truth to a neighbor. Honoring the Lord's Day.
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Resisting a private temptation when you are alone in a hotel
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room. And this specific focus on
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ordinary action provides immense theological comfort for the one
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talent steward. We have to acknowledge that not
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everyone is given 5 talents. Not everyone is given a massive
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public platform, immense generational wealth or
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extraordinary visible fruit in their ministry.
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Many faithful believers labor in complete, lifelong obscurity,
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but the Master commends faithfulness itself, not the
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volume of worldly success. That is a critical detail in the
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text. When the master returns, he says
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the exact same words to the two talent servant that he says to
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the five talent servant. He says, well done, good and
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faithful servant. You have been faithful over a
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little. I will set you over much.
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Enter into the joy of your master.
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The reward is identical because the faithfulness was identical,
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even though the sheer financial return was smaller.
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The Master sees the small hidden obedience that the world
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entirely ignores. A mother patiently teaching
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scripture to her toddlers day after day.
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A widow giving quietly from her limited fixed funds.
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Or a worker refusing dishonest gain at his job when no one is
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looking. These are not buried talents.
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Yeah. These are the faithful, highly
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profitable actions of a steward who loves the king.
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You do not need to envy the platform of the five talent
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servant, you simply need to be fiercely diligent with the
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specific trust you hold right now.
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So what does all this mean for us as we conclude this deep
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dive? We have covered a lot of ground
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today. We really have.
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We have witnessed the unmasking of the slothful servant.
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We have watched his corrupt mouse filled theology get
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systematically shredded by the brilliant logic of the returning
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king. We have established that
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laziness in the Kingdom of God is not a personality trait.
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It is active wickedness, A cosmic treason against the
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estate of God. We've seen how this text strips
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away our modern excuses, our polite, clinical names for
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apathy, and drives us to depend entirely on the grace of the
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faithful Christ. Because Jesus Christ is the
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ultimate faithful servant where we fail repeatedly in our
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stewardship. Christ perfectly executed the
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will of the Father. He did not bury what was given
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to Him. He poured out His life, endured
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the agony of the Cross, and secured absolute redemption for
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His people. It is His imputed righteousness
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that saves the believer, and it is His renewing spirit that
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makes our weak, stumbling, ordinary efforts acceptable and
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fruitful in the eyes of the Father.
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I want to leave you with a final, unsettling concept to
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consider as you go about your week.
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Think about the absolute illusion of autonomy.
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It is quite an illusion. We walk around every single day
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acting as if we are the autonomous CE OS of our own
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existence. We look at our calendars and our
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bank accounts and we say this is mine.
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But you do not own your life. When you wake up tomorrow
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morning, I want you to realize that your very breath is a least
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asset. The air filling your lungs is
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borrowed capital, granted to you by a king who is currently away
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on a journey, but who is absolutely guaranteed to return.
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How does knowing that every single second of your Tuesday is
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borrowed property alter what you will do with it?
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Think back to that courtroom scale we discussed at the
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beginning. The verdict is coming.
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The master is returning to audit his estate.
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The question is not how much volume you will have to show
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him, but whether he will find you faithful with the exact
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measure he placed in your hands.