Good and faithful servant

“His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”Matthew 25:21

Reflection

In the parable of the talents, the master travels and distributes his fortune among three servants: five talents to one, two to another, one to the third — "to every man according to his several ability". A talent was a fortune (about twenty years of wages), but the point of the story is not the amount: it is what each one did with what he received. Two invested and doubled. The third buried his — and his excuse reveals everything: "I was afraid". Fear is the gravedigger of talents.

Notice an apparent injustice that is actually the greatest lesson: the servant with five and the servant with TWO received exactly the SAME praise, word for word: "well done, good and faithful servant". God does not compare harvests of different sizes; He compares faithfulness. You will not be measured by the talent you did not receive — the stage you never had, the voice you were not given, the capital you did not inherit — but by what you did with what was in your hands. Heaven’s question is not "how much did you produce?", it is "what did you do with what I gave you?".

And what are the "talents" today? Everything entrusted: the ability to teach, the gift of cooking and gathering people, the way with children, the ease with numbers, the car that can give a ride, the house that can host, time, health, life experience (even overcome pain becomes a talent when it consoles someone). The third servant’s error was not stealing or squandering — it was NOT USING. There is a way to lose the gift without committing any spectacular sin: just bury it. A church full of buried talent is a locked barn in a time of famine.

And note the faithful one’s reward: it is not retirement — it is MORE responsibility ("I will make thee ruler over many things") and shared joy ("enter thou into the joy of thy lord"). In the Kingdom, the reward for serving well is serving more — because serving, there, is not punishment: it is honor. Today, dig something up. That gift you stored away out of fear, shame or laziness ("I’m not as good as so-and-so") — take it out of the ground and put it to work: at church, at home, at work. The Lord of the parable returned and settled accounts. Ours will return too. And there is a sentence worth a whole lifetime waiting to be heard: "well done, good and faithful servant".

Bible text: King James Version (public domain).