Beyond Money: What the Parable of the Talents Really Teaches

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Jesus’s parable about servants investing money wisely, more popularly known as the parable of the talents (Matt 25:14–30), has generated many interpretations. These include:

Instruction on using our “talents” (i.e., our innate skills or aptitudes)
A moral tale on the value of work
Sage advice for financial investment

Yet Matthew shapes the parable as a kingdom parable (cf. 25:1). He means it to shape our imagination about God’s realm, not our own. If we listen closely to the parable, we can even hear something of what God is like.

But this will mean taking seriously that Jesus is crafting a parable, not drawing a blueprint.

The parable of the talents as eschatological discourse

Matthew records a series of Jesus’s parables in what has been called the Eschatological Discourse (see Matt 24–25). The parable of the talents is the fourth of five parables that run from 24:43 to 25:46, each increasing in length and complexity. These five parables point ahead to Jesus’s return (παρουσία; see 24:37, 39) and focus on waiting for his return by being ready (24:43–44, 45–51; 25:1–13), being faithful (25:14–30), and embodying justice and mercy (25:31–46).

A thread that weaves through the middle three parables is the experience of delay for those who are waiting. Being ready would be one thing if Jesus’s return were not delayed. It is far more challenging when the wait has been long, as the parables intimate (Matt 24:48; 25:5, 19).

The three parables of Matthew 25 are framed as parables about God’s kingdom still to come. We hear this already in 25:1, where Jesus opens a parable with “the kingdom of heaven will be like …” As the talents parable begins, Matthew alludes back to that introduction: “for it is like …” (v. 14). In the final parable of sheep and goats, Jesus speaks of the Son of Man returning and sitting on his (royal) throne (v. 31).

What does this rehearsal of the context of the parable of the talents do for us? First, it sets the parable in a future-oriented framework. It invites Jesus followers to live in a certain way right now as they wait for Jesus’s return. Second, what they wait for is the fullness of God’s reign and realm. The kingdom, thematic across Matthew (e.g., 4:17, 23; 9:35; 13:1–52; 18:1, 23), continues to be at the center of Jesus’s teaching.

The parable as a guide to financial investment?

Tracing the contours of this parable, God’s kingdom is like a man “entrusting his property” to his “slaves” (25:14) and then returning “after a long time” to settle up (v. 19).

Each of three slaves is given a different amount of money (five, two, and one “talent,” respectively; 25:15). Since a talent is a huge sum of money—something like sixteen to twenty years of wages for a day laborer—each has a lot to invest. While the first two slaves double their master’s money, the third slave hides the talent entrusted to him in the ground. When their master returns, the slaves are evaluated by the return of investment. The first two are rewarded, and the third is punished.

This bare-bones retelling highlights how some people can read this parable as a tale of financial investment or the value of hard work, especially in our cultural context of late-stage capitalism. But can we really use this parable for market planning and investment strategizing, as some have done? Details across the parable hint that Jesus is addressing quite different realities than how to manage a 401K.

1. Slave and master terminology

First, Matthew has used δοῦλος (“slave”) and κύριος (“master”) to identify the relationship at the heart of the parable. He had other terms at his disposal if he wanted to indicate a manager (οἰκονόμος; see Luke 16:1) or a servant/aide (διάκονος; see Matt 22:13), so his use of δοῦλος seems significant.

Additionally, the ten references to “master/lord” across the parable highlights the significance of this relationship of ownership. Just as the money entrusted to them was not their own, so these slaves belonged utterly to their master. This entire framework suggests that Jesus tells the story—the parable—to do something beyond give financial advice.

Use of slave and master in Matthew 25.14-30 as shown with Logos's emphasize tool.

2. Exuberant quantities of moneys

A second clue comes in the crazy amounts of money entrusted to these slaves, with the first slave having in his possession close to a hundred times what a day laborer could make in a full year.

Given these amounts, we get the feeling we are hearing a “tall tale” which uses hyperbole to intimate larger realities. As we’ll soon see, hyperbole and mismatched details are characteristic of the way Jesus tells parables.

3. Peculiar timing

A stray adverb provides another hint that this story is not a straightforward guide to investment strategies. The first slave “immediately” seeks to trade with the five talents entrusted to him and earns another five (Matt 25:16).

While his action demonstrates the slave’s faithfulness to his master’s wishes, it also sets up an odd juxtaposition with the master’s delayed return (25:19). This slave appears to have the ten talents in hand and ready for his master’s return, yet with the long delay (“after a long while”), might he not have made even more? This temporal gap between the making (or hiding) of talents and the master’s return is not exploited, either by the slaves in the story or by Jesus’s telling of the story.

4. Off-kilter commendation

Yet another inkling that the parable trades in realities beyond the financial comes in the master’s commendation of slaves one and two: “because you were faithful with a little, you will be put in charge of much” (Matt 25:21, 23). With a little? A talent is a huge amount of money, and the first slave was entrusted with five.

The master’s commendation doesn’t quite fit the plot line of the parable. So, maybe Jesus is telling the story with slightly off-kilter details to suggest other realities.

Viewing the parables like impressionistic paintings

Jesus’s parables characteristically include details mismatched with their storyline, and even details that defy belief. Think of the woman who hides a bit of yeast in enough flour to bake over fifty loaves of bread, which could feed many, many people (Matt 13:33). Or recall the slave who owes a king ten thousand talents yet thinks he has a chance of repaying it (Matt 18:23–26)! Such exaggerated elements remind us that parables are analogies for larger and different realities about God’s ways.

As analogies, parables provide an approximation of what “the kingdom is like” (cf. Matt 25:1). None of the parables begins, “The kingdom is precisely this …” No, they leave space for what is different between God’s ways and ours, between God’s kingdom and human kingdoms.

A parable is more like an impressionistic painting than a photograph meant to capture a precise image. Impressionism, as a movement in the world of art, was characterized, in part, by “short, broken brushstrokes that barely convey forms” and “bright colors [that] were shocking for eyes accustomed to the more sober colors of academic painting.” I would suggest that, through parables, Jesus often tells stories in “broken brushstrokes that barely convey forms,” with details that seem out of place and sometimes “shock” the ears of those listening—all in the service of pointing to deeper realities.

Jesus told interesting and often fantastical stories to express something real and true about God’s reign and realm. Their fantastical elements signal that there is seldom a straight line between God’s ways and our own.

The “talents” as God-given gifts?

If the parable of the talents is not meant to suggest that God’s kingdom is like three managers investing for their wealthy CEO, what does it communicate?

Across the history of interpretation, Christian writers and teachers have often understood the “talents” (money) of the parable to stand in for the breadth of God’s gifts to the church. Gregory the Great (540–604 CE), for example, considered the talents to stand in for good deeds and spiritual gifts, as well as natural gifts used in service. And John Chrysostom (347–407 CE), in his sermon on this text, identifies a wide range of God-given gifts, including “wealth, diligence or care giving,” and concludes: “For this end God gave us speech, and hands, and feet, and strength of body and mind and understanding, that we might use all these things both for our own salvation and for our neighbor’s advantage.” Recent commentators tend to agree. William D. Davies and Dale J. Allison, for instance, suggest that the parable points to God’s gifts conceived broadly and generally.

In all of these readings from church history, faithfulness is the key. Be faithful to God and all God has given and in this way be ready for the Son’s return. And faithfulness sits at the center of the parable itself. The first two slaves are doubly described as “faithful” in the central refrain of the story: “Well done! Good and faithful slave, because you were faithful with a little, you will be put in charge of much. Enter into the joy of your master!” (25:21, 23). One commentary reports, “The second parable of Matt 25—the parable of the talents—makes it clear that preparedness for Jesus’ reappearing [and his kingdom] consists in ongoing covenant faithfulness or loyalty.”

The parable as instruction about God’s kingdom

Yet there is more about the kingdom to be had in this parable. Klyne Snodgrass in his wonderful book on parables nods in this direction when he writes that the talents of the parable stand in for “the great value of the kingdom and the significant responsibility it brings.” If the kingdom is like the scenario of the parable, then God’s rule and reign is worth much more than even eight talents (or ten thousand; cf. 18:23). God’s benevolent rule, already begun in the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus, will come to complete consummation one day at his reappearing. Though the delay seems long, the eternal life that awaits is more valuable than we can imagine (cf. Matt 13:44–46).

So, let’s ask a question, one the parable seems to be impressionistically sketching an answer for: When all things are encompassed within God’s benevolent rule, what will life look like for those who have remained loyal?

1. Everything comes from God

One brushstroke of this painting accents that everything in the kingdom belongs to God—all gifts bestowed and every person receiving them. In the story of the parable, both the slaves and the talents belong to the master. In the kingdom, both disciples and what they are provided—“speech, and hands, and feet, and strength of body and mind and understanding” and more—belong to the God of grace.

In the end, the kingdom will be all-encompassing, and the good, benevolent king will be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). What can faithful disciples anticipate in that final day? Joining in “the joy of [their] master” (Matt 25:21).

2. The need for faithfulness

The parable of the talents does signal judgment will be meted out based on faithfulness or unfaithfulness (Matt 25:28–30), a motif across Matthew’s Gospel. The stakes for faithfulness are high.

3. Defined by care for the least

And, in the very next parable, faithfulness is defined and assessed in a surprising way—at least, it is surprising for the parable’s “sheep” and “goats.” Have they been just and merciful to “the least of these” who are proxies for Jesus himself (Matt 25:31–46)? Standing in solidarity with the least is a core measure of faithfulness, since Jesus himself stands in solidarity with those on the margins.

4. Promised joy

Another brushstroke of the parable that paints something about the kingdom is the notion of the master’s joy—a surprising element of the parable. In a parable that tells what seems to be a transactional story of slaves investing their master’s money and being judged based on their performance, that little line infuses a wondrous sense of relationality into it all: “Enter into the joy of your master!” (Matt 25:21).

This feels like a mismatched detail—a slightly off-kilter movement from transaction to relationship: Enter my joy. Whatever that line means, it most certainly points beyond what we might expect for a story about slave and master, ledger and investment. It is one of the places where the story bleeds into reality.

Those who live in covenant loyalty with their Lord will share in the joy of their Lord (τὴν χαρὰν τοῦ κυρίου σου; Matt 25:21, 23). While in two other Matthean parables, we hear of human joy over the kingdom (13:20, 44), this is the only time we hear Matthew allude to divine joy. For the faithful, this is what lies ahead.

5. God as harsh master?

What about the description of the master offered by the third slave? He claims, “Master, I know you to be a harsh man, harvesting where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter seed And because I was afraid, I went out and hid your talent in the ground” (Matt 25:24–25). Is this one of those brushstrokes that illuminates something about the kingdom and specifically its king?

Given what we have just heard about the master’s welcome and joy, this description seems a poor fit. The question–answer shape of the master’s response intimates that he doesn’t agree with the slave’s assessment. “You knew, did you, that I harvested where I did not sow and gathered where I did not scatter seed? Then you should have invested my money with the bankers” (25:26–27). He follows the slave’s logic without conceding his premise.

Thomas Long proposes that the parable is “about the collision of two different worlds: the kingdom of heaven and not-the-kingdom,” with the third slave embodying “a pinched and punitive view of God” quite at odds with the relationship and generosity displayed toward the other slaves.

What does it matter?

Is the parable of the talents meant to teach us about financial stewardship or even successful ways of investing money today? We sell this parable short by reading it as a snapshot of present reality meant as a financial guide.

Jesus tells the parable to portray something about God and God’s coming kingdom. With bold colors and sometimes allusive brushstrokes, Jesus paints a portrait of a reality where everything belongs to and is encompassed within God’s benevolent and generous reign.

We look ahead to the return of the one to whom we belong. And we commit ourselves in loyalty to Jesus, who has first offered loyalty to us. What lies ahead as we pursue faithfulness to God and neighbor? Sharing in the joy of the master. And that is something to truly look forward to.

Resources mentioned in this article

Beyond Money: What the Parable of the Talents Really Teaches

The parable of the talents as eschatological discourse