The parable of the talents
Three servants, and the only one who failed was the one who was afraid.
A man goes on a journey and hands his property to three servants: five talents to one, two to another, one to the third, "to each according to his own ability". Two of them trade and double what they were given. The third digs a hole and hides the money.
In English, "talent" came to mean a natural gift because of this parable. In the text, a talent is an enormous sum of money — and that changes how the story sounds.
The story, step by step
- Matthew 25:14–15Five, two and one talent, to each according to his ability
- Matthew 25:16–18Two trade and double it; the third buries his
- Matthew 25:19–23The master returns and says the same words to the first two
- Matthew 25:24–25The third explains: I was afraid, and hid it
- Matthew 25:26–30His talent is taken and given to the one who has ten
- Luke 19:11–27A similar story in Luke, with ten minas
The line the story turns on
His lord said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.'
The master says exactly the same sentence to the servant who made five and the one who made two. The praise is not proportional to the result; it is for faithfulness. And he calls "a few things" what, in the money of the time, was a fortune — which says something about the size of the "many things" that come after.
What it means
The third servant loses nothing. He hands back exactly what he received. His failure, in his own words, was fear: "I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the earth" (Matthew 25:25). He had a hard picture of his master, and the picture froze him.
The parable sits in the middle of a block about waiting for the Lord's return, between the ten virgins and the judgment of the nations. What it asks for is not success. It is that the waiting be lived with what was entrusted, and not buried for fear of getting it wrong.
One parable a day, with the question around it
Walking with Jesus has a collection called The Parables of Jesus that takes them one a day — each with the question he was answering, a short reflection, a prayer, and one thing to carry into the day.
It is a one-time purchase, about five minutes a morning, and it never asks you to catch up on days you missed.
Questions people ask
- Where is the parable of the talents in the Bible?
- Matthew 25:14–30. Luke 19:11–27 has a similar parable, the ten minas, with significant differences in detail.
- What was a talent in Jesus' time?
- A measure of weight used for money, usually silver. A talent was worth about six thousand denarii, and a denarius was a day's wage — so close to twenty years' work. The sense of "natural ability" came later, from this very parable.
- Why was the servant who hid his talent punished?
- Because he did nothing with what he was given, and the reason he gives himself is fear. The parable sets him against the other two, who took a risk and were praised in the same words regardless of how much they made.