What We Will Explore: How does Jesus' parable of the talents illustrate the relationship between ability and capacity?
What's New: How can the example of the servant receiving one talent help us evaluate our capacities by another?
What We Will Learn: What lessons can we learn from the parable of the talents, and how can it help us love ourselves?
1. For it is like a man who, going on a journey, called his own servants and entrusted them with his goods. To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his ability, and went on his journey. The one who had received five talents immediately went out and began trading and earned five more talents. Likewise, the one who had received two talents earned two more. But the one who had received one talent went away, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master's money (Matthew 25:14–18) *
* This text and the rest of Jesus' parable are taken from Matthew 25. New American Standard Bible Translation. https://biblehub.com/nasb_/matthew/25.htm
2. Capacities and abilities. The relationship between opportunities and abilities is well illustrated in practice in Jesus' parable of the talents *, recorded in the Bible (Matthew 25:14–28). The parable tells of a man who distributed talents among his servants before going away for a long time. He did this with the intention that upon his return he would receive a profit from his turnover with the money changers (exchange of money).
• "To one he gave five talents, to another two, and another one, to each according to his ability, and he went on his way" (Matthew 25:15).
Note that the owner of the talents did not distribute them equally among the servants, but "to each according to his ability." But in fact, the phrase "to each according to his ability" based on an analysis of the Greek language is translated as "to each according to his own strength" **. What is the fundamental difference?
* [c] 15. A talent was worth about fifteen years of a hired laborer's wages. https://biblehub.com/nasb_/matthew/25.htm#fn
** Matthew 25:15. Analysis of the Greek text. https://biblehub.com/text/matthew/25-15.htm
3. The difference. To answer this, let us turn to the key ancient Greek words "ἰδίαν", "δύναμιν" used in this phrase and their meanings. The word "ἰδίαν" is an adjective from the word ἴδιος - (idios) meaning "properly, definitely one's own, characteristic of an individual" *. The word "δύναμιν" is a noun from the word δύναμις - (dunamis) meaning "(miraculous) power, might, strength" **. So, we clearly see that the owner of the talents entrusted all three servants with one task - to make a profit using their "idios", that is, the property belonging to each of them individually. At the same time, he gave different volumes of his performance for a certain period (before his return) - to receive five, three, and one more talents, using "idios" "dunamis", that is, the power inherent in each one individually. Maybe the owner was lenient to the other two servants, to whom he gave much less? Or maybe the owner was not so concerned about how much profit his servants' activities would bring him? Let the owner himself answer.
* Strong's Greek: 2398. ἴδιος (idios) - one's own, one's own... https://biblehub.com/greek/2398.htm
** Strong's Greek: 1411. δύναμις (dunamis) - (miraculous) power... https://biblehub.com/greek/1411.htm
4. The owner's response. "Then you should have put my money in the bank, and when I returned I would have received mine with interest" (Matthew 25:27) *. As you can see, he expected to get his talents back and the interest from their turnover. It is also clear from his response that he did not doubt the servants' ability to profitably invest their talents into turnover. There is no doubt that this is not the owner of talents' omission, but his ability to know the limits of the strength (capaсities) of his servants. The key idea is that everyone is given different capacities (potential), and it is within the limits of their capacities that they can develop their abilities. How does the way talents are distributed characterize the owner?
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