“The Minas”

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Found In Luke 19:11-27, this parable of our Lord is similar to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30.

In the parable, a “certain nobleman” is the lead character. He is obviously a man of wealth and power. He goes to a far country “to receive for himself a kingdom.” This would indicate to us that he was a person of royalty, as a king he would be the most powerful man in that kingdom.

He is also a man of wealth, as we see that he has many servants. It doesn’t say that he called all of his servants, although that would be a lot of servants anyway. But rather, the text says that he called ten of his servants, which would indicate that he actually had many more than that, but just used ten of them in this business venture.

He gave them each a mina. Like the parable of the talents, this refers to an amount of money that he distributed. Unlike the parable of the talents, where three men were given money, “each according to his ability,” in this story, ten men receive one mina each.

“A mina was about three months’ wages, so its value was considerable. They were to invest the money while he was gone” (The Bible Knowledge Commentary, New Testament edition, Walvoord and Zuck, page 252).

As with the talents, these servants were expected to invest this money wisely and to increase its value. That’s what people who work for others are expected to do. They are to take what they are given and to make more money for their employer.

“This Parable of the Ten Minas sums up Jesus’ teaching to the disciples. Each disciple had duties given to him by Jesus, and each was to carry out his responsibilities. But parable was addressed not only to disciples. It was also addressed to the nation at large, to show that it too had responsibilities. If the nation did not turn to Jesus, it would be punished” (ibid, page 252).

Why would some of the servants (at least one is specifically stated, only three of the ten are addressed) not do what they should have with their master’s money? The answer he gave was that he was afraid of doing something wrong with the mina, so he didn’t do anything with it. Was that a reason or an excuse? The nobleman was not pleased, leading us to conclude that it was a poor and rejected excuse.

The question for us is, what are we doing with what the Lord has given us? Are we serving Him faithfully with our time and abilities or are we trying to make excuses for not doing so? Is Jesus really the Lord of your life or are you just taking up space and wasting your life? Read Luke 19:27 again for the chilling conclusion to this parable.

--Roger Hillis

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