In the past, I have preached, written, and taught that the Parable of the Talents was about using what God has given us so that we can multiply it for Him and therefore, get eternal reward from Him in heaven. I taught that we all need to be like the first servant, or at the bare minimum, like the second, but we should avoid at all costs being like the lazy, unprofitable third servant.
I now believe that this interpretation is completely opposite of what Jesus meant by that Parable. Though I imagine some will call me a heretic (again), let me explain…
As I have researched, studied, and written my thesis, I have come to see that the cultural lens through which we read Scripture is completely foreign to the cultural lens in which it was written or originally read. If we really want to understand the meaning and significance of what was written, we need to understand the cultural background of the people who wrote and originally read it.
We live in a materialistically-driven culture, governed by greed and the accumulation of stuff. The Bible was written in an honor culture, where stuff and money didn’t matter. People wanted honor. Someone could be insanely rich, but if they had no honor, they had nothing. Wealth and possessions were thought to be of limited supply, and so the only way someone could accumulate more wealth is if they took it from someone else. The rich get richer at the expense of the poor, which was a very shameful way to live.
Now, take this lens, and re-read the Parable of the Talents in passages like Matt 25:14-30 or Luke 19:11-27. In our economic-driven culture, the heroes are the servants who accumulate more stuff. But in an honor-based culture, they are actually the villains, because the only way they were able to get more stuff was by taking it from someone else. The hero of the story if the third servant, who did not become richer, but instead was content with what he was given, and didn’t even put his one talent in the bank to collect “interest” (read “usury”). The master gets mad at this third servant and tries to shame him by taking away (read “stealing”) his possessions and giving it to the one who is already rich.
In this reading, the master does not represent God, or Jesus, but instead the morally reprehensible behavior of certain people of the world who steal from the poor. Jesus is teaching that this is the kind of behavior Christians can expect from the world when we try to live according to His new code of honor ethics.
One of the many books which has helped me in this area is the Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels by Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003). If you want to understand the gospels, go buy this commentary. The “reading scenarios” at the end of the book are more than worth the price of the book. The commentary has rocked my world and allowed me to see and read the entire Bible in a whole new light. If we want to understand the Bible, we need to read it as it was written, not as we want it to be read.
