PARABLE OF THE TALENTS: MATTHEW 25:14-30

Dear Kingdom minded, success driven Teens and Kids, welcome on board your favourite Platform. I remain your Anchor/Host, Chinazaekpere Nnabugwu. Please join me as I share with us this story. It is courtesy of my Boss, the amiable award winner: Aunty Mercy Chuwang.

Let us start with the question, what is a parable? A parable is explained here as a story that teaches a moral or religious lesson or explains an idea. In the Holy Book, the Bible, a parable is a type of story Jesus tells so we would learn something from it.

Jesus' stories have more than one meaning.  For example, this story the “Parable of the Talents” is about Talents; which were a super large amount of money in Bible times.  Today, a Talent might worth millions of Naira!

A Talent in this story can also mean our gifts or abilities.  Something special and amazing God gives just to you: a life changing opportunity, capable of transforming a whole generation and sustain it; a super power, sort of, though many people are not aware.

The parable goes like this: 

A man decided to go on a long trip, so he called his servants and asked them to take care of his house, his stuff and his money. 

Keep in mind that the Man in this story is like God and the Man's Servants are God's people (you and I, Parents, Friends, relations and others!)  The Man in this story trusted his Servants and believed that they would take care of his special and valuable things.

The Man decided to give one servant five Talents of money (let’s say that it's about five million Naira); to another he gave two talents (or two million Naira); and to the last Servant he gave one talent (or one million Naira). 

He gave each servant amount he thought they could handle or according to their ability.

Our abilities are our special gifts that God gave to each of us.  He made some of us smarter about some things than others.  Some of us are good at memorizing, some of us are better in education, some at sports, and some are better because of their voice.  Some can solve problems better and some are more generous.  Our ability is something special that we have; something that's different, a lot very unique, from what anyone else possesses.

 Back to the story, the Man left on his trip and each of the Servants did something with the money that they received. 

The Man with the five Talents went right away and used his money and got five more!  The Man with the two Talents also used his money wisely and gained two more Talents.

But the Man with one Talent took his Talent and buried it in the ground to keep the money safe.  He didn't even try to do something with it. 

He had lots of time to do something with his money.  He could've bought some seeds and planted a garden and made some money but he didn't do anything!

After a nice long trip the Master came back and wanted to know what his Servants did with his money.  The first Man, the one with the five talents said, "You trusted me with five talents and I made five more!"

His Master smiled and replied, "Great job, good and faithful servant!"  You are trustworthy with a few things so I will put you in charge of lots of things.  Come celebrate with me!

It's interesting that the Master says he trusted him with a FEW things.  He gave him five million Naira!  That's ALOT of things.  But to this Master it was small compared to what he would give and trust him with now.

Then the Man with the two talents came and said, "You trusted me with two talents and I made two more!"

His Master smiled and replied, "Great job, good and faithful servant!"  You are trustworthy with a few things so I will put you in charge of lots of things.  Come celebrate with me!

Then the Man who received the one talent came and told his Master "I know you work hard for your money, so I was afraid to lose any of it.  I decided to bury it and keep it safe.  Here is your one talent back."

The Master was not impressed and said:

“You lazy servant!  At the very least you could've taken the money to the bank and you would've at least collected some interest from it."

He immediately took the Talent away from the Man and gave it to the first Man who used his money to make more.

The point, Jesus was trying to make is that if you use your special gifts and abilities God will give you more to keep doing these things you are good at.  He will trust you with so much more.

If you have a chance to do something for God that he gave you special abilities for and you don't do it, you will lose your special gift.

God considers you very valuable and trusts you to do something for him using your gifts and abilities.  If you have a chance to do something and don't because you want to watch TV, play video games or because you just don't want to do anything; God will take that valuable gift and give it to someone who is doing something with his/her gifts.

May be you're not sure what your special abilities are yet.  Ask your parents or teachers what they think you're gifts are. 

Listen and watch when others compliment you or notice something good about what you're doing.  To you it might be something small but to God it's a special and very valuable gift that only you can give.  If you keep using it God will continue to make it bigger and better.

Learn to encourage and compliment others if you notice something special in them.  Your friends, teachers and parents, may not notice that God has put something special in them and you might see it.  Tell them that they're good at it and remind them that it's a special ability given to them by God. But more importantly remind them that they are to put it in use and to the glory of God.