And he said to those that stood by, Take from him the mina and give [it] to him who has the ten minas.
The master's last word about the unfaithful servant is not a threat. It is a transfer. He hands the unused sum to the servant who already has the most. Commentators take up three questions here. What does the mina stand for? Why does an idle servant lose it? And why does the richest servant receive it? (Some writers below call the coin by its older English name, a pound.)
In Luke's parable every servant receives the same sum. So the difference at the end lies wholly in the servants. One writer sets Luke's parable beside the similar one in Matthew.
Matthew shows the sovereignty and the wisdom of the giver, who varies His gifts to fit the ability of His servants. Luke shows more the responsibility of the servants. They each receive the same sum, and one gains more by it, for his master, than the other does.
Since the sum is the same for all, it cannot stand for natural ability. One writer ties it to the theme of Luke's Gospel: God made known in His grace. On that view every believer holds it, however small he feels.
You may be very small in your own eyes, and hardly able to claim the place of a servant at all. Yet the pound has been given to you as well as to those who appear great and gifted. You are responsible to be active with it just as they are. I suggest that the pound represents the way the Gospel of Luke presents God to us, as glorious in His grace. The knowledge of this is given to us; it has shone into our hearts from the face of Jesus Christ.
Others describe the mina as the chance to serve. Everyone who professes to follow Christ receives it, and the time for using it runs out.
The mina represents the opportunity for service given to each professed disciple... The use each servant makes of his opportunity will decide his place and service later on... So we see how just the award is: "Take the mina from him, and give it to the one who has the ten minas." Now is the time of testing in service. The one who does not use his opportunity will lose it for ever. The one who has used his best will have the greatest opportunity later.
The servant lost the mina because of what he thought of the giver. His excuse was an accusation, and one writer says the slander alone deserved judgement.
He wanted an excuse for his complete indifference to the claims of his absent Master, so he slandered His character: "I feared you, because you are an austere man: you take up what you did not lay down, and reap what you did not sow." This wicked servant stands for people who are Christians in name only. They never dream of using their powers and possessions for Him whose name they bear... They fully deserve their judgement, if only for their miserable twisting of the character of One who is infinitely gracious and good.
In the next verse the bystanders protest that the man already has ten. One detail answers them: the master let the faithful servant keep what he had earned for him. It also answers the charge that the Master is austere.
The man had gained the ten minas for his master. It rightly belonged to his master once he brought it in, yet the servant was still holding it! His master let him keep it! What we honestly gain for the Lord we really gain for ourselves. How far He is from being an austere master! ... The one who proves faithful in valuing what God gives will receive more. The one who places no value on God's grace will lose even what he could have used to gain more.
The same writer looks past this life to what follows.
What we gain spiritually here, in spiritual intelligence and in the knowledge of God in power, is not lost in the other world. On the contrary, we receive more, and receive the glory of the inheritance in proportion to our work. All is grace.
- One mina each. Luke's parable gives every servant the same sum. The test at the end is not ability but use.
- The mina is grace known. It stands for the knowledge of God in His grace, and the chance to serve. The smallest believer holds it as truly as the most gifted.
- Trading is now. This life is the time of testing. The servant who never uses his chance loses it for ever. The one who uses it best gains the most later.
- Slander cost him. He did not lose the mina through weakness. He lost it through a false view of his Master, calling One who is gracious and good an austere man.
- Gain is kept. The master let the faithful servant keep all he earned, and gave him the idle man's mina too. What we gain for the Lord we truly gain — and all of it is grace.
And they said to him, Lord, he has ten minas.
The bystanders break in here. The master has just taken the idle servant's mina and given it to the man who earned the most. Their protest asks the question the parable answers: why does the Lord give more to the one who already has much?
These words are an aside. The master is not speaking; the onlookers are. One writer points out what their surprise shows: the successful servant was still holding the money he had earned for his lord.
Notice the aside in verse 25: "And they said to him, 'Lord, he has ten minas!'" The man had gained the ten minas for his master. It rightly belonged to his master once he brought it in, and yet the servant still had it! He was allowed to keep it! What we gain honestly for the Lord we really gain for ourselves. How far He is from being a harsh master! This man received everything he had gained, plus the Lord's praise, plus authority over ten cities, plus the mina that the other man had not valued!
The objection meant to expose unfairness ends up showing generosity instead.
One writer looks past the story to what a believer keeps after this life ends.
That which we gain spiritually here, in spiritual intelligence and in 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. All is grace.
What was each servant handed? One writer reads the parable inside Luke's Gospel and says what the coin stands for.
This parable is not like the parable of the Talents in Matthew's Gospel. There the number of talents matched the ability of each servant. Here each servant is given one pound. The pound is that great treasure which the Lord brought into the world. It is the knowledge of God in His grace. Luke's Gospel opens this up for us in a special way.
(Older translations call the coin a "pound"; the ESV keeps the Greek word "mina.")
The bystanders see a gap between the man with ten and the man with none, and it looks like favouritism. But the gap was not there at the start.
But in the second passage, Luke 19, the nobleman calls his ten servants before him and gives them ten pounds in equal portions. They all started on exactly the same level.
Everyone started level, so the gap at the end is not about ability. One writer says what it does measure.
Rewards are not handed out according to gift, but on the ground of devotedness... The amount given to each depends on the sovereignty of the Giver; devotedness is the exercise of the one who receives.
Does this scene put a person's standing with God at risk? One writer keeps two things apart.
When He comes to the world, and His people take their places with Him and share in His government, then dignities, honours and rewards for work will find their place. It will be "You shall have authority over ten cities" — "you are to be over five cities." But other things are never gained by any work of ours, and so they are never lost by it either. These are salvation, righteousness, the child's place with the Father, membership of the body of Christ, our relationship to Christ as His bride, and even our being kings and priests to His God and Father. Christ has obtained them for us, and grace gives them — grace, and grace alone.
So what should we be trading with now?
Let us have no doubt or question about this: we can only gain by trading with the pound. The knowledge of God revealed by Christ Jesus, now told out in the gospel, is the only thing that can bring people to God and subdue them to Christ. Everything else will fail, however convincing and popular it seems... Knowing this, may we long to keep putting it into circulation "until He comes."
- The gift — every servant got the same pound: the knowledge of God in His grace, given equally, not by ability.
- The trading — the capital was the same for all. So the difference at the end measures devotedness, not talent.
- The gain — what we gain here is not lost in the other world. The servant kept his ten, and the inheritance matches the work.
- The protest — "he has ten already" was meant to expose unfairness. It showed the master's generosity instead.
- The limit — cities and authority reward work. Salvation and the child's place with the Father are never earned and never lost. All is grace.
For I say unto you, that to every one that has shall be given; but from him that has not, that even which he has shall be taken from him.
These words close the parable of the pounds: the master takes the unused pound from the servant who hid it and hands it to the man who already had ten. The rule sounds unfair — so what does a person "have" here, and how can anything be taken from someone who has nothing?
The saying belongs to a story about a master who goes away. His absence is not empty time.
The time of the kingdom would come, and all His enemies would be destroyed. But first comes a period of His absence, which would test the faithfulness and diligence of His servants. The master entrusts the same sum to each servant, so the difference in the result came from their diligence and skill, or the lack of it. The servant who did nothing only showed that he did not really know his Master. In the end he not only missed the reward — he suffered loss.
Every servant received the same sum — a pound, which some translations call a mina. So what is it?
The knowledge of God in the infinite grace of His heart is the silver pound, and our Lord has committed it to us. It is a great treasure and is so described in 2 Corinthians 4. "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." This is the silver pound, and we are responsible to put it in circulation on our Lord's behalf, and to trade with it for Him until He comes.
The reward is not more money but more room to serve. And it does not stop when this life ends.
The pound stands for the opportunity to serve, given to everyone who claims to be His disciple. In this all are alike. What each gains shows the use each has made of it. And the servant's use of his opportunity decides his place and service later on. Service is not limited to this world, though its character will change. The master made the servant who traded during his absence a ruler when he returned. So we see the justice of the award: "Take the mina from him, and give it to the one who has the ten minas." Now is the time of testing in service. Whoever does not use his opportunity will lose it for ever. Whoever has used his best will have the greatest opportunity later.
Notice where the ten pounds end up. What the servant gained for his master stayed in his own hands.
The man had gained the ten minas for his master. It belonged to his master when he brought it in, yet the servant still held it! His master let him keep it! What we honestly gain for the Lord we truly gain for ourselves. How far He is from being a harsh master! This man received all he had gained, plus the Lord's praise, plus authority over ten cities, plus the mina that the other man had not valued! The one who proves faithful in valuing what God gives will receive more. The one who places no value on God's grace will lose even the gift he might have gained more with.
The third servant kept his pound, yet the verse counts him among those who "have not." His idleness came from how he pictured his master.
In this parable the wicked servant is not cast into outer darkness; he loses even what he had. The subject here is reward. If he had hard thoughts of his Master, he should at least have acted on them in a legal way, if he could not act according to grace. But under grace, not knowing grace takes away the sense of responsibility. The man does nothing. Under law it is not so. A man who is truly under law will work and toil out of fear.
No servant is locked into the size of his first gift.
Suppose we have only one talent. Every day's believing use of it will carry us some way towards two. We are not shut in by the limits of God's first gift. We may shut ourselves in — and by hiding our talent in the ground, lose both what we have and the power to gain more.
- Same trust. Every servant starts with one pound — the knowledge of God in His grace — so nobody can plead a smaller share.
- Use decides. The pound grows only when you put it to work. The difference between servants is diligence, not ability.
- Use enlarges. Use opens into more: ten cities for ten pounds, and service that carries on past this life.
- Disuse empties. The man who hid his pound thought his master harsh. That false picture killed his sense of responsibility.
- Disuse forfeits. He loses the gift and every gain it could have made. The loss here is reward. The faithful servant keeps all he gained — and receives the idle man's pound too.