He said therefore, A certain high-born man went to a distant country to receive for himself a kingdom and return.
The crowd near Jerusalem thought the kingdom of God was about to appear in public glory. Jesus answers with a picture of a nobleman who travels far away to receive royal power, and only then comes home to reign.
Commentators tie the parable to the moment. Jerusalem was near — and so was something the crowd had not counted on.
Some were straining for that kingdom to begin at once. They were deceiving themselves. If He was near Jerusalem, He was near the cross, not the showing of His kingdom yet.
Commentators name the figures in the story plainly. The going and the returning are both personal, not just spiritual.
Who is meant in the parable by the nobleman? Certainly the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Where has He gone? Into the far country, into heaven. Why has He gone there? "To receive a kingdom, and return." Now how did He go? Merely in some spiritual sense? No. He went away in person. So He will return in person too. He comes to take possession of the kingdom He went into the far country to receive.
The verse tells us only that the nobleman went away. It does not show what happened when he arrived.
The prophet Daniel supplies what this parable leaves out. He takes us into the "far country." There he shows us the very act of the nobleman receiving the kingdom (Dan. 7:13) … See how Scripture agrees with Scripture.
He receives the kingdom in heaven. But He will not exercise it there — which is why the words "and then return" matter.
The Lord gets His title to a kingdom sealed in heaven — but where is He to administer it? Not in heaven; He comes back to earth first. … Here are three parties: the nobleman, gone away and hidden in a distant country for a time; the servants, left to carry on until he returns; and the citizens. This is a picture of the very moment you are living in.
The town where He told it gave the parable a sharp edge.
Was it mere coincidence that He spoke such a parable in Jericho? Where could He have spoken it more fittingly? A palace of Archelaus still stood there. He had gone to Rome to have royal power confirmed to him. His citizens did send a message after him to block his plan. But he returned to reign, despite all their efforts to turn Augustus Caesar against him.
Their refusal did not end when they rejected Him. It carried on after He had gone.
Such was the spirit of the Jews. They not only rejected the Messiah. As another has well said, they sent a message after Him in the martyrs they killed. They refused Him in glory just as they had refused Him in His humiliation.
Between the going and the returning stands the trust handed to the servants.
The ten servants of the nobleman (v.13) speak of those given a place of responsible testimony today. They are disciples called to fulfil a sacred trust: to represent Him while He is away. For the words "Occupy till I come" imply that they are to occupy His place of testimony till He comes. How serious and holy a trust!
When he comes back with the kingdom, he settles accounts. The servants do not all receive the same reward.
One servant receives authority over ten cities, the other over five. That is, a share in the kingdom according to their labour. The servant does not lose what he has gained, though it was for his master. He enjoys it. Not so with the servant who made no use of his pound. … What we gain here — spiritual understanding and the knowledge of God in power — is not lost in the other world. On the contrary we receive more, and the glory of the inheritance is given us in proportion to our work. But all is grace.
- Delay — The parable corrects a wrong timetable. Near Jerusalem meant near the cross, not the kingdom on display.
- Departure — The nobleman is Christ, the far country is heaven, and He went in person, so He returns in person.
- Grant — Daniel 7 shows the scene the parable only points to — the nobleman receiving the kingdom in heaven.
- Refusal — The citizens' message did not stop with His rejection. It went on while He was away, in the martyrs they killed.
- Reckoning — Each servant carries a sacred trust while He is away. At His return He gives cities according to each one's work — and all of it is grace.
And having called his own ten bondmen, he gave to them ten minas, and said to them, Trade while I am coming.
Jesus told this parable near Jerusalem, to a crowd that expected God's kingdom to appear at once. Verse 13 is the heart of His answer: before the nobleman leaves, he hands each servant money and one order for the gap until he returns.
The people had the timing wrong. A journey to receive a kingdom, and only then a return, corrects their expectation and sets the servants their task in between.
Christ was going away to heaven to receive the kingdom from God there — He was not about to take it from man now and in this world. So it is clearly a picture of the Lord's return at the second advent, after having received a kingdom. It was not a question of human willingness or power, but of receiving from God. But then, further, He shows that meanwhile His servants are called to occupy themselves till He comes.
Older translations render the order "Occupy till I come." That older word means trade, not sit still.
The Master said to His trusted servants, "Occupy till I come," or, as it is otherwise translated, "Trade while I am coming." Now, this trading implies anything but idleness. You are entrusted with your Master's money, and He expects the same back with interest. What a trust! Such a trust as no angel ever knew. As surely as we belong to Him, so surely He entrusts some grace to us — some privilege, or opportunity, or means of witnessing to Him or suffering for Him.
Ten servants, ten minas — one each. Older translations call a mina a pound.
The emphasis, however, falls on the different results among servants who all receive the same amount to trade with on his behalf. Here the parable of the pounds differs from that of the talents in Matthew... "Matthew presents the sovereignty and wisdom of the giver, who varies his gifts according to the ability of his servants. In Luke it is more the responsibility of the servants, who each receive the same sum. One gains more by it, in his master's interest, than the other."
What does the mina stand for?
The pound is that great treasure which the Lord brought into the world. It is the knowledge of God in His grace... The Lord brought the true knowledge of God from heaven into the world, but He did not take it away when He returned. He left it here. He has committed it to us... This is the silver pound, and we are responsible to put it into circulation on our Lord's behalf, to trade for Him with it until He comes.
The next verse names the citizens who refused His rule. That is the marketplace we trade in.
But our service is in the world that hates Him. Let us not try to disguise or reason away this sad fact. Its citizens said, "We do not want this man to reign over us," and they have never changed that decision. We must face this to see where we stand with the world. It hates the One who loves us, and we are called to do business for Him in it.
This order does not split life into sacred hours and ordinary ones. It claims all of life.
Clearly, then, this is the chief business of our lives. We are not here, in the first place, to be mechanics, shop-keepers, or professional men, or to run the house or raise the children. Still less are we here to live lives of selfish ease. We are here to trade for our absent Lord. Our very lives are His, as well as the pound He has delivered to us. We may be able to put the pound out at the best rate of interest as we follow our business and run the home. We do that while rubbing shoulders with others in the affairs of this life. But this will only happen as, in these things, we serve the Lord Christ.
The order has an end point, and that end point works two ways on the conscience.
It should also be an incentive to faithfulness in service... The coming of Christ is a double motive to faithfulness; it holds out encouragement to the faithful, and it gives a warning to the careless servant. The first will say with joyful anticipation, "My Lord is at hand, and therefore I must seek to be diligent before He comes." The second, if he thinks at all, will surely think, "What will my Lord say if He finds me, at His coming, both careless and unfaithful?"
- Entrusted. Before the Master left, He put something of His own into every servant's hands. No one is left out.
- Equal. Each servant gets the same sum. So the test is what he does with it, not how much he holds.
- Trade. The order means do business, not sit still. Put the treasure into circulation in ordinary work, home, and witness.
- Opposed. We trade in a world that refused His rule. Faithfulness here meets hostility, not applause.
- Reckoned. He is coming back to ask what each servant gained. That steadies the diligent and unsettles the careless.