| The parable of the talents ends with the Master | | | | us to have the faith to ask Him for wisdom. When |
| saying, "So take the talent from him, and give it to | | | | we receive His wisdom and increase our wealth, He |
| him who has ten talents. For to everyone who has, | | | | will give us more. He gives more wealth to those that |
| more will be given, and he will have abundance; but | | | | can multiply it, even if they don't know Him. Proverbs |
| from him who does not have, even what he has will | | | | 13:22 tells us that even the wealth of the sinner is |
| be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant | | | | "stored up for the righteous." |
| into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and | | | | When it comes to money, creating wealth should be |
| gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 25:28-30) | | | | our first priority because it is God's first priority. He |
| The servant ends up losing what the Master gave | | | | will even allow sinners to create wealth because the |
| him, and it is given to the one who had turned five | | | | time will come when He will give that wealth to the |
| talents into ten. When we say, "The rich get richer | | | | righteous. But I'm sure that He would rather have the |
| and the poor get poorer," we usually see that as an | | | | righteous create the wealth in the first place. |
| indication of how unfair life can be. But when we look | | | | Throughout the history of religion, people have |
| at this parable we see that this is actually God's plan. | | | | wondered if someone can be both rich and righteous. |
| The servant who had received the one talent had | | | | And many religions have taught that money is evil, |
| taken it and hidden it in the ground. By taking the | | | | and that a truly holy person is someone who had |
| talent out of circulation, he had made it completely | | | | denounced all worldly goods and pleasures. |
| worthless. But the benefit of keeping money in | | | | The Bible tells us that Jesus came so that we would |
| circulation, and creating wealth, is that it increases the | | | | have life and abundance (John 10:10). And that God |
| supply of wealth that is available to everyone. | | | | has given each of us, no matter where we are, |
| The Bible tells us that Solomon was the wisest man | | | | everything we need in order to be successful. |
| that had ever lived. His wisdom not only brought him | | | | Our success isn't measured by our possessions, but |
| great wealth, but in 2 Chronicles 1:15 we read about | | | | by our faithfulness with the wealth God has |
| Solomon "he made silver and gold as common in | | | | entrusted to us. He expects us to be faithful with |
| Jerusalem as stones." | | | | money before He will give us the true riches, and |
| God is a Creator, and His desire is to see everything | | | | that means that we are to multiply our wealth. No |
| bring forth more and more fruit, even multiply. The | | | | matter where we are, whether in an American |
| reason is that He wants to increase the blessings | | | | mega-church, or a house church in the poorest |
| that are available to everyone. He does that by | | | | country of the world, we can be faithful with what is |
| giving us everything we need in order to create | | | | available to us. We can all seek God for His wisdom, |
| wealth. He expects us to do it because He knows | | | | and find ways to bring blessing to those around us. |
| that it will benefit everyone around us. | | | | We all have our talents, and we can all multiply them. |
| When God puts money into our hands, He expects | | | | |