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Ok the consensus of opinion seems to be that Jesus was teaching "it is wrong to not use our god given talents."
Is this how Christians see it and do they apply it in their lives?
Use our resources and abilities to help others, not just to use them.
Churches are usually about using ones resources and abilities to help the Church and members of the Church. Churches I've been to don't really focus on practical application.
Example: When I was in Junior High, I was home alone and it was about dusk. (We lived in farm country) A man ran out of gas just down the road from us. Town was not an easy walk, but doable. He came to our house. Most farmers had large gas tanks on the premises. Ours had a combination lock on it that I always had difficulty opening. I usually couldn't get it to work for me. Anyway he asked to buy some gas. With him there I tried to open the lock and let him try to open the lock. We didn't succeed, so I sent him across the road to my neighbors. The husband was an elder in our church and his wife was my teacher in Sunday School. I figured the man was in good hands.
They had a long driveway so it was about 10-15 minutes (and now dark) by the time I heard him returning to the road. He was grumbling and cursing. He had to walk around the corner to the next farm.
I asked them the next day why they didn't give him any gas. They said he probably just wanted to see the combination so he could come back later and steal more gas. Needless to say I was very disillusioned. When I told my Dad what happened he changed the combination lock to a key lock so we'd never have to turn someone away because we couldn't get the lock open.
So while people do give willingly to the Church and use their resources to help the church, it doesn't always spill over into daily living and application.
One church I went to used this parable to promote the selling of Christianity to others. Increase membership.
Christianity today is very diverse in beliefs and doctrines. What's in the NT is not a picture of Christianity today. Religion evolves with society.
Jesus was very much about personal responsibility. We are responsible for our actions for better or worse. Many Christians use the "not perfected, only saved" bit to make excuses for not behaving correctly. The preacher who was stealing from our church said "he was still a work in progress." But he didn't stop stealing and the elders let him get by with it because "we aren't perfect."
Edited by purpledawn, : Removed statement
Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion
™ Version 4.2
