Verse for the week of November 13th:
His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’
(Matthew 25:23)
This verse is part of a larger parable that Jesus tells. It is the parable of the talents—where the master goes away and put some of his slaves responsible for a specific amount of money (talents). Two of the three servants use the talents wisely and grew the amount of money that the master entrusted to them. However, the third servant was fearful of the master and did what he thought may have been the safest thing (bury it in the ground). {This may seem like a strange thing; however it was not that uncommon of a practice of the time.}
The third servant gets chastised for the choice he made to bury the talent—the master tells him he should have at least invested it with bankers to get the interest (which is interesting since charging interest is forbidden for the Jewish people according to Exodus 22:25 and Leviticus 25:35-38).
I think that the main point of this parable is that we are not supposed to waste the talents/resources that God has given to us. We are to view all that we have as gifts from God and the worst thing that we could do is to ignore the gift and not use it to benefit the kingdom of God.
It would be like receiving a Christmas gift or a wedding gift and looking at it and then sticking it in the closet never to be used ever. When that would happen, I would think that the giver of the gift would not be amused. Most of us want the gifts that we give to be used and appreciated.
This is the same with God. God is the ultimate giver of gifts and never desires that his blessings be laid aside and ignored.
Rather God desires for us to use His gifts so that he may say to us ‘well done good and faithful servant.’