Parables 101

The parables cover a broad subject area. Nor does any one parable carry the sum of the lessons Jesus taught.But let me try to address your issue about the meek.Being meek does not mean being helpless. Even the meek should use the talents (both monetary and 'talent') that they have, try to do the best they can, try to life the charge.One of the problems I have with so much of Christianity today is the idea that Christians are some chosen people, a people given some special place. The meek may well inherit the earth, but that doesn't mean they don't have to work for it.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This is good stuff. The parable worked insofar as it evoked an expression of self. The parable makes no mention of repentance and doesn't Jesus warn that we cannot know when the 'eleventh hour' will come?

Being meek is being more helpless than you. Didn't Jesus teach, 'what you do to the least of my brethren, you do to me'? Most interpretations are in conflict with this. It doesn't make sense to change the narrators character to suit your own. Jesus was genuine and sincere.The parables are not aimed at the 'inadequate' to pull their socks up. Jesus was far more understanding, loving and caring. Jesus shows meekness in various forms throughout the parables. There are innocents, vulnerables and the helpless. I believe everyone does what they can to survive in the only way they know how, right or wrong. I think Jesus clearly demonstrates this in his parables. He makes the point(s) of how we live our lives and what we do to survive. But he tells us there is nothing we have to do to survive. God will provide. We just have choices, which include who we are being as well as what we are doing.

For the least of these. Where is the conflict.Meek originally meant kind or gentle, certainly not helpless.We are expected to use the talents given us. But the message is not that you should just do what is needed for YOU to survive. The message is that we are but stewards. As is said at the offering "Of thine own have we given thee". We are expected to use the gifts we have been given, whether ten talents, five talents or just one talent to increase, to help, to do for the least of these.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Don't you see the servant with one talent as the least of these? and submissive Talent in the parable represents money and the servants in each case did their best according to their abilities.
Didn't the master admit that he does not do his best by reaping what he has not sown? Is that the lesson Jesus would have us learn? Was the master taking more than he needed to survive and leaving the least of his servants with nothing? Edited by pelican, : No reason given.

All three were the least of these. Talents can mean money or strength or brains or health or speed or knowledge or personality or ...And no, the servant with one talent did nothing.No, the Master expects us to do our best. We have no idea what the servants were left with.BUT, as I mentioned up thread, one of the interpretations is that it is political commentary and in the parable Jesus is criticizing the master, the priests.I don't think that really fits in with the whole string of parables there.AbE: submissive is a modern meaning for meek.Edited by jar, : re:meekEdited by jar, : put it in the right place

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

All three were servants but the one with one talent was the least of them in every way. He was afraid. He didn't know how to increase his masters' abundance. He wasn't smart enough to please his master.
We don't know how the other two increased their talents. It could have been by fair or by foul means. What did Jesus mean by talent in the context of the parable? Could any of these alternatives be buried in the ground? Was the master doing his best?

Umm.... Do you mean why should we ask ourselves or why did I get that from the parable? I should think both are pretty obvious.

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Life is like a Hot Wheels car. Sometimes it goes behind the couch and you can't find it.

Obviously not to me but neither is what seems obvious to me, obvious to you. regards

So clarify your question.I think it's obvious that we should ask ourselves if we did the best that we could. If we don't examine our own performance, how can we know if there's room for improvement?And I think it's obvious that the servant didn't satisfy his boss, though he might have done so if he had bothered to examine his performance.So what was the "why" for?

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Life is like a Hot Wheels car. Sometimes it goes behind the couch and you can't find it.

I understand you are coming from the boss's perspective who sets the rules but aren't we all equal under god?The servant with the one talent was the only one who offered an explanation of his performance. The others didn't need to explain as the end justifies the means.Is it a moral right to reap what you did not sow? This is probaly how the other two servants rendered a profit too. How could this master represent jesus' moral obligation or god's for that matter?

I was intending to come from the one-talented servant's perspective. He wanted to please his boss, to preserve his job. He thought he knew which aspect of his boss' character to emulate - the cautious side - but he turned out to be wrong. The boss wanted him to emulate his greedy side.I'm suggesting that examining your options is important. If you get it wrong once, don't get it wrong twice. I have my doubts too that the master and the profitable servants were examples to be followed. That's why I shy away from saying that the master "represents" God. That's why I mentioned a lesson which is a lesson even if it might not be the lesson.

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Life is like a Hot Wheels car. Sometimes it goes behind the couch and you can't find it.

I don't get this from it, though he may have been trying to please his boss, it doesn't actually say so. What it does say is that the servant was afraid of his boss. This seems to be acceptable in many of the interpretations. I realise it's probably normal but I've never been afraid of my bosses. I don't think Jesus would have found it acceptable. I think the servant was right about his master's character, in being afraid of his master. He was proved right by his masters' actions. Yes, there are many lessons if we wish to learn.
I believe that the parable stands true today in the same dynamic way of how we live our lives in order to survive. This isn't equality under god in any shape or form .

In a parable the various details of the story do not stand for something else. Tyndale Bible Dictionary

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I think the servant was right about his master's character, in being afraid of his master. He was proved right by his masters' actions.

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But the servant still didn't do the most with his one talent given his view of his master's character. That's why the master said: The point of the story is that we will be rewarded for faithful stewardship of the gifts given us. Jar said it in Message 127:..that each of us must do the best we can with what we are given...

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This isn't equality under god in any shape or form.

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This parable isn't about equality. It's about reward.

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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

And the servant with but one talent failed.Bringing up far or foul means for the other two is simply unwarranted, we just aren't given that information nor is it even relevant to the parable. Sure. When you don't use the talent that you were given you might as well bury it in the ground. Since the parable is not about the master (there are several of those as well) we can't answer that question.Go back and look again at this section, beginning at Matthew 24:45.This is a whole series of parables centered on the idea that we each much do our duty. There is the contrast between the servant left in charge in the masters absence, then the Ten Virgins, this one (the Talents) and it ends with the Sheep and the Goats.The one common thread throughout all of them is that you will be judged based on your behavior.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!