'The Parable of the Talents' by Bern Leckie - 25 July 2021
What can you do that you love to share? In this talk, Bern Leckie looks at Jesus’s story about people trusted with incredible resources that they managed to multiply. It’s described as money, but is it really something else? What if we can overcome the things holding us back from sharing our talents, like comparing ourselves with others, and what if we can’t? Can this warning and encouragement from Jesus help us to grow good things in our relationships and ourselves?
Story illustrations from freebibleimages.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence.
Questions for reflection and discussion
What do you think the parable of the talents (Matthew 25) means? Does it conflict with anything else you understand about the gospel, for example whether or not God accepts you without having to earn blessings from him? (Other scripture referenced in this talk: Psalm 139 on how God made us well and knew us before birth, Romans 5:8 on how Jesus died for us before we turned to him, and Ephesians 2:8-10 on how we are saved by God’s grace, even our faith is given as a gift, and we are created to do good works - but getting the order right is important!)
Where do you get to give things away and not have any less - maybe even have more? In the talk, Bern called this “creativity”, and it could apply to ideas, jokes and creative arts, but also to the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5), gifts of the Spirit (e.g. prophecy and many more), and many other things. If it’s something which helps someone when shared, and grows your confidence to share more when you do, it could be one of your talents!
What gets in the way of sharing your talents? This could include anxiety, which is natural when we compare ourselves with other people that we think have more talent. Have you noticed times when you have held back something you might have enjoyed sharing?
What help and encouragement do you need to dig up your buried talents and put them to good use? Prayer and sharing with friends could help you to do this - who could you ask about it?
Resources for encouragement and personal growth
The Life of Try - Jordan Seng discusses talents with the encouragement that God doesn’t call us to succeed, but to try.
Who does God say you are? (PDF) - originally by Freedom In Christ Ministries
”The SHAPE of you” course resources - includes Bible readings, discussion starters and practical help to identify your heart’s desires, talents, spiritual gifts and ways of working better with different kinds of people.
Bonus video
Bern Leckie looks at a fringe, but interesting, theory that maybe we've interpreted this story wrongly for centuries by not realising how its original audience understood the characters and what they were doing. Could there be another message in this well known story ready for us to discover?
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