Jesus’ Parable of the Talents holds remarkable value in many topics today, including finance. Knowing Jesus’ work and word makes us more savvy in many things, including investing.
By Mark D. Harris
The Bible addresses every part of human existence, from birth to grave to eternity. The God who made the universe also provided instructions in the Bible on how to thrive in His creation. If we do not know how to live, it is because we have failed to discover, or failed to follow, the words of wisdom that our Lord has provided.
Money is one of the most important things in earthly life, because money is required for life, and is a direct reflection of our values. There can be no doubt that wherever our treasure is, there are our hearts also (Matthew 6:21). Man’s greatest need is for eternal life in Christ, but many do not acknowledge that need. Perhaps the second greatest need is for physical health, but many who consider themselves healthy often spend little time or effort meeting that need. For example, less than half of all Americans exercise the medically recommended amount (CDC, 2022). Only 10% meet dietary guidelines for fruit and vegetable intake (Lee, 2022). Conversely, people need money, and they spend much of their daily lives dealing with money…earning it, spending it, investing it, or worrying about it. The Bible speaks often about it, with the word “money” appearing 140 times in the KJV, “prayer” 114 times and “worship” 102 times (Blue Letter Bible, 2019).
The Parable of the Talents is a fictional story that contains powerful truths. Furthermore, it is likely based on a true story, which formed the nucleus for what Jesus taught. In this discussion, the parable will be treated as though it were historical.
The Parable of the Talents
The Parable of the Talents discusses money and its proper use (Matthew 25:14-30). The first and most important truth is that man owns nothing. God owns everything, and merely uses people, Christian and non-Christian, to manage it for Him during their short lives. The Lord does not oppose private property, markets, and other key factors in our capitalist society. The master in the parable owned what he entrusted to the stewards. Unlike various communal societies and theoretical communism, the Bible teaches that God alone, and not any group of people, is the ultimate owner of the universe.
The master knew his servants and gave them a large sum of money to manage. Each unit of money was called a talent, which was 100 pounds of silver. Talents were given in proportion to each servant’s abilities. Then the master went away on a journey, and there is no evidence that he sent others back to check up on them. The most capable servant, the one given five talents, immediately went to work. He bought at a discount and sold at a profit, soon doubling the money entrusted to him. The second servant, given two talents, did likewise. The third servant did not. He seems to have been bereft of the knowledge, courage, relationships, or all of these, that the other servants possessed. Fearful of losing the master’s money, he buried his talent.
After a long time, the master returned. He rewarded the first and second servants in proportion to their skills and performance. The master then asked the last servant to account for what he had done. The third servant began by attacking his master’s character, and then blamed the master’s supposed vices for his poor performance. Finally, he complained that he was afraid, and gave the master back his single talent.
The master replied that even if the third servant’s accusations were true, and the Bible gives no indication either way, the servant failed.[1] Whether just or unjust, any master would have demanded at least interest on his money. The servant failed in the most basic of his responsibilities and blamed the master for his failure. He learned nothing about money or people in this experience, and ultimately was good for nothing to his employer. The master sent him away forever.
For his part, the poor servant probably went to his grave insisting that he had done all he could, that he was innocent of wrongdoing, and that he had been persecuted. Today, the poor servant would have written a book about how he had suffered trauma and been oppressed. He might have tried to sue his master for a hostile work environment or at least attacked him on social media.
Financial Instruments
The Bible gives no indication about how the successful servants grew their investments. Were this parable set in the modern day, money market instruments, short-time and stable, would have been a good choice to begin, at least until better opportunities presented themselves. Since the master was away for a long time, they would have had to be reevaluated and renewed often. While money markets as we know them did not exist in antiquity, any highly liquid and short-term asset can be bought and sold as a de facto money market (Suárez-Blázquez, 2022).
Fixed income and bond instruments were known in antiquity, and the master suggested that his servant should have used one. Even at a low interest rate, a safe bond is a better bet than a hole in the ground. The impersonal banking system that we have today, with many legal safeguards and governmental guarantees in case of crime or default, did not exist. While a few societal safeguards did exist, the choice of who to lend to was primarily driven by personal knowledge of the potential parties. Perhaps the last servant, without a network of friends, acquaintances, and possible business partners, did not know who he could trust to repay his master’s money. Any Bible reader may wonder how well he could judge character and should wonder at the wisdom of blaming his master to his face. Insofar as they were present, such limitations would have made safe or profitable investing much harder.
Modern style equity investments in public companies through stock markets were not present. Buying contracts for the future has been possible since ancient times. The best and second-best servants probably did not set up a small store, but more likely began large scale trading. A talent was a great deal of money, and short and long-distance trade was widespread from the early days of the Roman Empire (Suárez-Blázquez, 2022). Lucrative deals were high risk and required a great deal of trust in the trading network, and in the societal safeguards, to succeed. Strong interpersonal skills are a prerequisite for this kind of work.
Mutual funds, derivative and option investments were not options for the servants with the talents, at least not in the modern sense. The first modern corporation, for example, was the Dutch East India Company, and corporate structures are important for much of the financial world today (Puttevils, 2015). But since a derivative is simply an investment whose value depends on another investment; creative financiers undoubtedly did derivative-style deals with an imagination that would impress the savviest trader today. Chances are that the top two servants engaged in such deals. Given the importance of diversification, which has been understood for centuries, these men probably had a variety of investments and financial resources.
Risk and the Parable of the Talents
One might ask how risk mitigation/avoidance and risk tolerance relate to return strategies/expectations for each of the five types of investments? Generally speaking, the first and second servants were confident enough in themselves, their relationships, their society, and probably their master to be willing to take risks. Short-term investments have less risk than long-term ones, and the master was gone a long time.[2]
The last servant was extremely risk averse, so much so that he trusted no one, and buried his talent in the dirt. It bears saying that the unfaithful servant lacked trust in his network of acquaintances, however small it may have been. He did not even trust the financial and legal systems that undergirded his country. This man resembles a person who, having lost faith in everything, retires to a distant forest far from others, grows his own food, generates his own power, gathers guns, and keeps whatever money he has in a hole or mattress.
Conclusion
To paraphrase Jesus’ conclusion, everyone who has shall be given more… and everyone who does not have, even what he does have will be taken away. We see this as unjust, but He does not. Each man and woman is responsible for all he or she does, and will pay a price for evil, in this world. Only those protected by the blood of Jesus Christ will avoid paying the price for their wickedness in the next.
Christians today have much to learn from the Parable of the Talents. We can be tempted to reject society as hopelessly wicked, much as the unprofitable servant seems to have done, and withdraw, burying our talents in the dirt. Believers are obligated to learn the society in which they live, including the rules for finance. We are also called to unite with others in doing His work. We must be in the world, guiding and preserving it as light and salt. We must trust our master, and even trust that He will use the society in which we live to glorify Himself and do good for us. No one wants to end up like the poor servant.
References
Blue Letter Bible. (2019). Bible Search and Study Tools – Blue Letter Bible. Blueletterbible.org; Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/
CDC. (2022, December 15). FastStats – Exercise or Physical Activity. CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/exercise.htm
Lee, S. H. (2022). Adults Meeting Fruit and Vegetable Intake Recommendations — United States, 2019. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 71(1). https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7101a1
Puttevils, J. (2015). Tweaking financial instruments: bills obligatory in sixteenth-century Antwerp. Financial History Review, 22(3), 337–361. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0968565015000207
Suárez-Blázquez, G. (2022, March). https://liberty.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/openurl?institution=01LIBU_INST&vid=01LIBU_INST:Services&%253Fctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi%252Fenc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid%252Fsummon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi%252Ffmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Globalization. Liberty.alma.exlibrisgroup.com. https://liberty.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/openurl?institution=01LIBU_INST&vid=01LIBU_INST:Services&%3Fctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi%2Fenc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid%2Fsummon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi%2Ffmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Globalization
[1] The Greek word for knew is εἴδω eidō, which means to perceive, to see, or to experience. Notice that the other servants did not make the same accusations and had enough courage to try to grow their master’s money. Perhaps they did not see their master in the same way. Jesus’ point is that whether the master was good or evil, the servant was cowardly and did not serve his master well.
[2] Investment risk comes in two forms. First is the risk of default, that a company in which you buy stock, for example, goes bankrupt. The second is the risk of not meeting one’s investment goals. If investor X buys stock in company A hoping for an 8% annual ROI, and company A returns only 6%, and investor X did not invest in company B, which returned 10%, investor X lost money. As an example, 15-year mortgages offer a lower interest rate than 30-year mortgages because the risk premium is lower for the shorter term. The future is hard enough to see in the short term, and impossible in the long term.
