Stewardship - Talents and Gifts

Stewardship - Talents and Gifts

September 26, 2014 at 8:08am

If there were a prize given for the clearest explanation of the all-encompassing profound concept of Christian stewardship, Jesus would have easily won it with His parable of the talents.

Reality number one: We all have talents. Note in the parable that all the servants receive one or more talents. No
one is left without some talent. That is the first truth Jesus wanted to impress upon His disciples.

Reality number two: We do not all have the same number of talents. It is a fact of life that we will have to accept. Some people are gifted in many ways while others are not so multi-talented. Those who have several talents
should never look down upon others who have fewer talents. Jesus’ point is clear: The quantity of our talents is not the most important; what we do with whatever we have been given is what matters.

Ellen White writes, “The Lord will not require from those who are poor that which they have not to give; He will not require from the sick the active energies which bodily weakness forbids. No one need mourn because he cannot glorify God with talents that were never entrusted to him. But if you have only one talent, use it well, and it will accumulate.  If the talents are not buried, they will gain yet other talents. (Nichol, Volume 5, p. 1100)

Reality number three: Some refuse to use their talents. Some never recognize the talents they have. Sadly, no one reminded them of their gifts. Or they did realize their gifts but, for a variety of reasons, refused to invest any energy in developing them. Perhaps they spent their time, as in the quote above, mourning that they didn’t have someone else’s talent. What a loss!

Reality number four: Not using your talents is a serious business. The “worthless servant” gets no second chance. He is thrown “into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 25:30, NIV), a symbolic description of the utter nothingness of eternal death. Not using what God has entrusted to us not only impairs us in this life but jeopardizes our eternal life. This means that the issue of being faithful stewards is not something that belongs to the periphery of our Christian experience. It is the vital characteristic of discipleship.