The Illustration Of The Minas

JESUS is perhaps still at the home of Zacchaeus, where he has stopped en route to Jerusalem. His disciples believe that when they get to Jerusalem, he will declare that he is the Messiah and set up his Kingdom. To correct this idea and to show that the Kingdom is yet a long way off, Jesus gives an illustration. "A man of noble birth," he relates, "traveled to a distant land to secure kingly power for himself and to return." Jesus is the "man of noble birth," and heaven is the "distant land." When Jesus arrives there, his Father will grant him kingly power.

Before leaving, however, the man of noble birth calls ten slaves and gives each of them a silver mina, saying: "Do business till I come." The ten slaves in the initial fulfillment represent Jesus' early disciples. In an enlarged application, they picture all those who are prospective heirs with him in the heavenly Kingdom.

The silver minas are valuable pieces of money, each amounting to about three months' wages for an agricultural worker. But what do the minas represent? And what kind of business are the slaves to do with them? The minas represent assets that spirit-begotten disciples could make use of in producing more heirs of the heavenly Kingdom until Jesus' coming as King in the promised Kingdom. After his resurrection and appearance to his disciples he gave them the symbolic minas for making more disciples and thus adding to the Kingdom-of-heaven class.

"But," Jesus continues, "his citizens hated [the man of noble birth] and sent out a body of ambassadors after him, to say, "We do not want this man to become king over us.' " The citizens are Israelites, or Jews, not including his disciples. After Jesus' departure to heaven, these Jews by persecuting his disciples made known that they did not want him to be their king. In this way they were acting like the citizens who sent out the body of ambassadors.

How do the ten slaves use their minas? Jesus explains: "Eventually when he got back after having secured the kingly power, he commanded to be called to him these slaves to whom he had given the silver money, in order to ascertain what they had gained by business activity. Then the first one presented himself, saying, 'Lord, your mina gained ten minas.' So he said to him, 'Well done, good slave! Because in a very small matter you have proved yourself faithful, hold authority over ten cities.' Now the second one came, saying, 'Your mina , Lord, made five minas.' He said to this one also, 'You, too, be in charge of five cities.' "

Next time: Conclusion of The Illustration OF The Minas

The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, 1991