Comparing Two Parables That Teach Us How to Wait for God’s Kingdom

If I mention the parable where a ruler travels to a far country and gives his servants money to do something with until he gets back, you likely think of the parable of the talents recorded in Matthew 25. It’s one of the most familiar parables in the Bible. There’s another parable in Luke 19, the parable of the minas, which I think is less familiar to people even though it’s very similar. I was curious to look at both and compare the two.

Chronologically, the Parable of the Minas comes first in the story of Jesus’s ministry. He shared this parable in Jericho as He was heading to Jerusalem for His final Passover (Luke 18:31; 19:1, 11, 28). The Parable of the Talents is also something He shared before His final Passover, but this time after He entered Jerusalem (Matt. 21); it’s part of what we call the Olivet Prophecy (Matt. 24-25). In between these parables, we have Jesus’s “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem (Matt. 21:1-11; Luke 19:28-40). As He approached the city, He sent two disciples ahead to fetch a donkey’s colt for Him to ride, fulfilling a prophecy recorded by Zechariah (Zech. 9:9).

As prophesied, “the whole crowd of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen” (Luke 19:37, NET). They shouted praises to God, and connected Jesus’s entry to Jerusalem with a Messianic psalm, crying out “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” (Matt. 21:9-11, NET, quoting Ps 118:25-26). Hosanna literally means “Save us now” (Ps. 118:25, WEB) or “O Lord, save us” (NET footnote on Matthew 21:9).

They had Jesus’s identity right: He is the prophesied Messianic king. However, they didn’t understand that He was here this time to die for our sins and that His kingdom-bringing coming was still in the future. That misunderstanding is one of the reasons Jesus spoke the parables we’re looking at today.

Kingdom Context

When Jesus entered Jericho on His way to Jerusalem, “a man named Zacchaeus … a chief tax collector” was so eager to see Him he climbed a tree to get up above the crowds. Jesus called to Him and said, “I must stay at your house today.” Zacchaeus was overjoyed, but the crowds murmured against Jesus for being “the guest of a man who is a sinner” because tax collectors were seen as traitors (NET footnote on Luke 3:12) (Luke 19:1-7).

But Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I now give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I am paying back four times as much!” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this household, because he too is a son of Abraham! For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

While the people were listening to these things, Jesus proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately.

Luke 19:8-11, NET

It’s not immediately apparent what the conversation with and about Zacchaeus might have to do with the parable of the minas, but that is clearly the context. Jesus makes the statement about salvation coming to Zacchaeus because “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost,” then immediately tells a parable to the people who were listening to those words. Luke tells us that Jesus shared this particular parable because people didn’t understand the timing for the kingdom of God.

Not long after, once Jesus was in Jerusalem, He spoke a parable about the kingdom, answered a question about the resurrection, and challenged people about how they viewed the Messiah (Matt. 22:1-14, 23-33, 41-46). He also spoke woes to “the experts in the law and the Pharisees” who taught God’s law, but don’t actually do what God expects (Matt. 23). Finally, as He walked away from the temple courts, He told His disciples that all those buildings would be torn down. This prompted them to ask Him a private question: “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matt. 24:1-3, NET). Perhaps they’d understood the lesson of the first parable–the kingdom of God would not appear immediately–and now they wanted more information. Jesus did give them warning signs to watch out for, but rather than focusing on the “when,” He highlights how His disciples are to prepare for His second coming and what He expects from their conduct.

“Therefore you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

“Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom the master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves their food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom the master finds at work when he comes. I tell you the truth, the master will put him in charge of all his possessions. But if that evil slave should say to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ and he begins to beat his fellow slaves and to eat and drink with drunkards, then the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not foresee, and will cut him in two, and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Matthew 24:46-51, NET

This warning is the immediate lead-in to the parable of the 10 virgins, the parable of the talents, and the parable of the sheep and the goats. The word “slave” is used both here in the warning about being ready and in the parables of the talents and minas. In Greek, it’s the word doulos (G1401). It’s often translated “servant,” but “slave” or “bondservant” is a better translation. Doulos means “one who is in a permanent relation of servitude to another, his will being altogether consumed in the will of the other” (The Complete WordStudy Dictionary: New Testament, Spiros Zodhiates, entry 1401). It could be involuntary slavery, or voluntary and total submission to God. Paul and other apostles frequently use the word to refer to themselves and others serving God, including at times every Christian (Rom. 1:1; Gal. 1:10; Phil. 1:1; Col. 4:12; 2 Tim. 2:24; Tit. 1:1; Jas. 1:1; 1 Pet. 2:16; 2 Pet. 1:1; Jude 1:1). Even Jesus Himself was a doulos of the Father (Phil. 2:7).

I wanted to spend some time on this word before we get into the parables themselves because it’s easy to misunderstand, whichever translation you’re reading. The people in these parables are not hired servants who can just walk away whenever they want, but they’re also not in the terrible, involuntary condition that we think of when we read “slave” with our modern eyes. They are bound to the king in the parable the same way Paul was bound to Jesus Christ and God the Father.

The King Goes Away

The two parables begin in a similar fashion.

 Therefore he said, “A nobleman went to a distant country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. And he summoned ten of his slaves, gave them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Do business with these until I come back.’ But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to be king over us!’ 

Luke 19: 12-16, NET

“For it is like a man going on a journey, who summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.”

Matthew 25:14-15, NET

We’re talking about a lot of money in these parables. For the first, “A mina was a Greek monetary unit worth 100 denarii or about four months’ wages for an average worker based on a six-day work week” (NET footnote on Luke 19:13). Putting that in perspective, the median income of an American in 2022 was $37,600 a year, so four month’s wages would be about $12,533. That’s a pretty large sum of money to hand someone all at once, but the amount in the second parable is even larger.

In the second parable, Jesus says the man gives his slaves a talent. This “was a huge sum of money, equal to 6,000 denarii. One denarius was the usual day’s wage for a worker” (NET footnote on Matt. 18:24). That’s about 250 months, or almost 21 years worth of an average worker’s wages. Using our median American salary again, it’s about $783,333 for one talent. The one who got five talents would have about $3.9 million. A mina is a decent chunk of money, but a talent is an unbelievably large sum.

I wonder what people thought hearing these parables, especially the people who heard both parables. The 12 disciples would have heard both, and I doubt they were alone in following Jesus all the way to Jerusalem and continuing to listen to Him. Imagine yourself listening to that first parable, possibly putting yourself inside the story. The boss called you, one of just 10 employees, and said, “Here’s $12,500 to do business with until I get back. Let’s see how you handle it.” Then you listen to the second parable, and it’s a similar situation except this time the boss calls just three of you in and gives one person $800,000, one person $1.6 million, and the last person $3.9 million. It might seem unfair, or leave you confused. You’d be hanging on every one of Jesus’s words to find out what happened next.

The Rewards

Some time passes in both parables. We don’t know how much, but there’s time for the bondservants to conduct business and increase the money they’d been entrusted with. Then the ruler returns, apparently without sending advance notice of the date of his arrival, the same way Jesus says He will at His second coming.

When he returned after receiving the kingdom, he summoned these slaves to whom he had given the money. He wanted to know how much they had earned by trading. So the first one came before him and said, ‘Sir, your mina has made ten minas more.’ And the king said to him, ‘Well done, good slave! Because you have been faithful in a very small matter, you will have authority over ten cities.’ Then the second one came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has made five minas.’ So the king said to him, ‘And you are to be over five cities.’ 

Luke 19: 15-18, NET

In this parable, the rewards are directly tied to the outcome. The king gave each bondservant identical amounts of money, and he rewarded them according to what they’d done with the money. The parable of the talents flips this.

 The one who had received five talents went off right away and put his money to work and gained five more. In the same way, the one who had two gained two more. But the one who had received one talent went out and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money in it. After a long time, the master of those slaves came and settled his accounts with them. The one who had received the five talents came and brought five more, saying, ‘Sir, you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’ His master answered, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave! You have been faithful in a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.’ The one with the two talents also came and said, ‘Sir, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have gained two more.’ His master answered, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave! You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.’

Matthew 25:16-23, NET

In this parable, the bondservants were given different amounts of money, to “each according to his ability” (Matt. 25:18, NET). Then the king came back, and the two who’d doubled the amount of money were given the same commendation for faithfulness and the promise that the king would put them “in charge of many things.”

I find it interesting that in the parable of the minas, everyone gets the same gift and then the rewards reflect what they did with the gift. Then in the parable of the talents, the gifts reflect the people’s known abilities and when they do something with the gift, they receive the same commendation. Taken together, I find both of them reassuring messages. They indicate that while God does pay attention to our abilities and what we do with the gifts He gives us, everyone who does something with those gifts receives a reward. And it’s a good reward, often with very little difference between what you get and what someone else gets.

The One Who Did Nothing

If the parables stopped there, the message wouldn’t contain any warning or urgency. But Jesus is trying to teach people about the kingdom of God. He wants them to know it’s not happening right now, but that they need to be doing something while they wait. And so we return to one last bondservant, one who didn’t do as the ruler expected with the gift he’d received.

Then another slave came and said, ‘Sir, here is your mina that I put away for safekeeping in a piece of cloth. For I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You withdraw what you did not deposit and reap what you did not sow.’ The king said to him, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! So you knew, did you, that I was a severe man, withdrawing what I didn’t deposit and reaping what I didn’t sow? Why then didn’t you put my money in the bank, so that when I returned I could have collected it with interest?’ And he said to his attendants, ‘Take the mina from him, and give it to the one who has ten.’ But they said to him, ‘Sir, he has ten minas already!’ ‘I tell you that everyone who has will be given more, but from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.’”

Luke 19: 20-26, NET

Then the one who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Sir, I knew that you were a hard man, harvesting where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’ But his master answered, ‘Evil and lazy slave! So you knew that I harvest where I didn’t sow and gather where I didn’t scatter? Then you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received my money back with interest! Therefore take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten. For the one who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough. But the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless slave into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Matthew 25:24-30, NET

The phrasing is almost exactly the same in the two parables. One bondservant hid the mina or talent and said it was because he was afraid. The ruler is harsh, he explained, and so it was better not to do anything at all. Maybe the bondservant was afraid of losing money, of not measuring up, and so he was paralyzed by his fear of imperfection (as we might be as Christians, if we worry that God will judge us harshly when we fail). Or perhaps the clue to this bondservant’s motive is in the master’s criticism of him as “evil and lazy;” maybe he knew to do better but thought he’d have more time or that it wasn’t all that important and so didn’t bother doing anything (as we might if we think God doesn’t or shouldn’t expect anything from us).

In both cases, the ruler judges the servant based on his own excuse. If the ruler is a harsh man who expects to receive something back that he didn’t work for himself, the bondservant could have at least put the money in the bank so it was earning interest. It did no good to anyone sitting in a hole in the ground or wrapped up in the back of a drawer. I often think of this as saying, “Well, God, you expect too much so I thought it would be better not to do anything” and having God say something like, “You could have at least gone to church and tithed to support other people who were doing what I asked them to.”

Though we’re living about 2,000 years after the people who first heard these parables, we’re in a very similar situation. We wonder when Jesus is coming back. Sometimes we think it could be very soon, sometimes it feels like a long way away. We need to remember that we are living in the end times (John said we have been since the first century [1 John 2:18]), but also that we’re not permitted to know the exact time of Jesus’s return (Acts 1:6-7). We also need to remember that what might seem like a delay is actually God showing great patience and mercy (2 Peter 3:8-10).

The parables of the talents and minas remind us that we have a responsibility to honor the master who gave us great gifts and asked us to do something with them while He’s gone. He is coming back and we’ll give an accounting to Him for how we’ve lived our lives and the choices we’ve made. That’s a good reminder for us, particularly now as we approach Passover this year mindful of Paul’s admonition to examine ourselves before participating in the Passover. God is merciful and gracious. He doesn’t expect too much of us, just that we stay faithful to Him and do something with the gifts He’s given us. If we find we’ve fallen short of that charge, we still have time to repent and ask Him for guidance to follow Him more faithfully.

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