Jesus told the parable or story to explain what the Kingdom of God looks like. He began saying, there was once a rich man who was going to a long journey. He called his 3 best servants and put them charge of his money. To the first servant, he gave 5 bags of gold, to the second, he gave two bags of gold and to the third, he gave one bag of gold.
The first servant who had received 5 bags of gold, immediately invested it in the market place and gained 5 bags more. He had doubled his masters money.
The servant who received 2 bags of gold also invested the money wisely and got 2 more bags for his master.
But the servant who was given one bag of gold said to himself, “my master is a hard man, who gets a big harvest when he did not do the planting, and I am afraid to use his money in case my investments go wrong”. So he dug a whole in the ground and put the bag of gold there for safe keeping.
After a long time, the master returned and asked his servants how they had invested the money he gave to them. The servant who had received 5 bags of gold showed his master that he had invested it well and received another 5 bags. The master was very pleased.
The servant who had received 2 bags of gold had invested the money well and got another two bags back. When he showed all the bags to his Master, he was pleased with his servant for making good decisions.
But when the servant who had received one bag of gold returned the bag of gold, he explained to him, “I knew that you are a hard master, who gets big harvests where you have not sown seed, so he hid it because I was afraid”. His Master was very cross because he had not even tried to do something good with what he was given.
“You wicked, lazy servant”, said the master. “So you knew I got big harvests where I had not sown seed. Well then, he continued, you should have put my money on deposit at the bank which would have earned some interest for me”.
So the Master said, “take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has received ten bags of gold. Then, throw this worthless servant outside into the darkness where it is hard and cold”.
Jesus wanted to make the point that we are all given things that we are good at. And, when we use them to bless God, He will give us more. But if we do not use what we are good at for God, because we believe God He has no right to our loving service, He will send us away.
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