Last Sunday, in the intro talk to our message series "Focus", we talked about the parable of the talents from Matthew 25. We talked about how Jesus was teaching about the kingdom of Heaven, but the real issue that He was teaching everyone about was how to live and maintain in uncertain times...in situations where there is limited info and visibility is hampered.
In that parable, we learned that that zeroing in on the small things...the moment by moment decisions and honoring God with each one, keeps us in focus (which, is all about zeroing in on the small things and that's why they are so big.)
In that context, we talked about the guy with the 5 talents, 2 talents and the 1 talent...interesting bit of knowledge on those guys that I forgot to bring out. A talent was the largest single unit of money back then in Jerusalem. It was equal to 10,000 denari. Interestingly enough, a denari was basically looked upon as one days wage....or 10,000 days of work. If you worked somewhere for around 40 years, you'd probably hit 10,000 days of work or somewhere thereabouts...which in our culture is basically your working lifespan as an adult, give or take a few years. In a sense, the talent was a life or a life's work.
When you begin to look at the parable of the talents as basically a "life" producing other "lives" and multiplying themselves in the Christian context...you begin to see the picture even more clear, as the layers of this teaching story really play out. It spoke to me as in "what am I doing to multiply life with the life that I've been given?" Or in other words, with this life-giving gospel that God has charged us all to take to masses and masses of spiritually dead people...am I hiding it in a hole in the ground or am I working smartly to allow God to use me to increase what He has?
Please pray for us at Bay West Church as we attempt to be the Church of Jesus to the people in West Palm Bay, Florida.
No comments:
Post a Comment