Faithfulness: Talent or Obedience?

In the Parable of the Talents as recorded in Matthew 25, people often associate the talents given to the servants by their master as symbolizing the talents we personally use in the service of the Lord today. The Greek word for "talent" as used in the parable is talanton which is defined as money. Because English Bibles translate the word as "talent" people naturally make the association between talanton and personal talents when applying this parable to them personally. The popular reasoning follows that a faithful servant will make use of their talents in their service of the Lord. By extension, they even reason that God will take away their talents for unfaithfulness just as the master took away the one talanton from the unfaithful servant.

I however believe this supposed natural association between the Greek word talanton and the English word "talent" is weak at best and self-serving at worst. First, the talanton was given from the master to the servant. The talanton was not something the three servants had within themselves. It was external and came only from the master. Furthermore, its growth was external to the servant. To claim that the talanton could be compared to a person's talent is to associate a talanton with the servant's trading ability not the physical object of the money being traded. Secondly, within the context of the parable the master was not interested in the development of the servant's talanton trading ability. Rather, the master was interested in the servant's faithfulness. Faithfulness is not measured according to a person's talent, but rather by their obedience whether they have talent or not. In my opinion, the talanton represents the Gospel message, and the faithful servant will preach the Gospel. The unfaithful servant was not condemned for losing money; rather, he was condemned for not having the faith to honor the contract and trade the talanton while the master was away on his journey.

I believe people like to associate the talanton with their talents because the idea of having their talents developed appeals to them. Unfortunately, it's largely a selfish concern masked in the appearance of service to the Lord. Rather, when we have a view of the talanton as being the Gospel we see God growing His church through the work of His servants. The development of our personal talents is at best a side effect of us honoring God with our faithfulness through obedience whether we have talent or not. As Ray Comfort says, "the quality is in the seed not the sower." The sower need only be faithful to sow the seed. The unfaithful servant needed only to be faithful by trading or investing his talanton while his master was away. This does not mean that we should not seek to become better equipped to serve (because we should) but we must remember it's about who we serve not what talents we think we do or do not possess.