Continue with The Sign Of The Last Days-The Illustration Of The Talents

Jesus continues the discussion with his apostles on the Mount of Olives by telling them another illustration, the second in a series of three. A few days earlier, while he was at Jericho, he gave the illustration of the minas to show that the Kingdom was yet a long time in the future. The illustration he relates now, while having a number of similar features describes in its fulfillment activities during Christ's presence in Kingdom power. It illustrates that his disciples must work while still on earth to increase "his belongings."

Jesus begins: "For it [that is,circumstances connected with the Kingdom] is just as when a man, about to travel abroad, summoned slaves of his and committed to them his belongings." Jesus is the man who, before traveling abroad to heaven, commits to his slaves-disciples in line for the heavenly Kingdom-his belongings. These belongings are not physical possessions, but they represent a cultivated field into which he has built a potential for bringing forth more disciples.

Jesus entrusts his belongings to his slaves shortly before ascending to heaven. How does he do that? By instructing them to keep on working in the cultivated field by preaching the Kingdom message to the most distant parts of the earth. As Jesus says: "To one he gave five talents, to another two, to still another, one, to each one according to his own ability and he went abroad."

The eight talents-Christ's belongings-are thus distributed according to the abilities, or spiritual possibilities, of the slaves. The slaves stand for classes of disciples. In the first century, the class that received the five talents evidently included the apostles. Jesus goes on to relate that the slaves who received the five and the two talents both doubled them by their Kingdom preaching and making of disciples. However, the slave who received the one talent hid it in the ground.

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The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, 1991