The Parable of Ten Minas (Luke 19:11-27)

The Parable of Ten Minas

 

Luke 19:11-27

 

Today’s text is Jesus’ Parable of Ten Minas. It was when Jesus was traveling toward Jerusalem in order to be crucified. In a few days, Jesus would suffer and die on a cross, rise again, and ascend to heaven. Jesus already told his disciples several times about what he would go through in Jerusalem (Luke 9:22; 9:43-45; 13:33; 18:31-34). But people’s expectation was quite different. Verse 11 says, “While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.” The kingdom of God that the people were envisioning was the messianic kingdom that would be restored by the Messiah promised by God. It was their dream to drive out the oppressors and build a strong, rich, and secure nation enjoying freedom and prosperity under the leadership of the Messiah. And many people believed that Jesus was the Messiah sent by God. When Jesus was approaching Jerusalem, they thought that the kingdom of God would come immediately. All the people were looking at Jesus. Knowing their hope and expectation, Jesus told them today’s word the Parable of Ten Minas. This parable explains how the kingdom of God comes upon the world. One important fact we should remember is that the kingdom of God comes upon “me” first, and then upon the world through me. Of course, the kingdom of God comes through Jesus. In founding the kingdom of God on earth, what Jesus does first is preparing “God’s people.” This is like God first prepared the people through Moses when the Lord was founding the kingdom of Israel. Before leading them into the Promised Land, God raised people who would trust and obey Him. Even if the Promised Land overflows with milk and honey, it cannot be a paradise if those living in the land do not have a paradise in their heart. So, Jesus wants to found the kingdom of God first in “me.” In this matter, we are quite different from Jesus. Jesus wants to build the kingdom of God in me. So, he looks at me and tells me. But my eyes are distracted away to something else. I want the kingdom of God to come upon my bank account, my barn, my workplace, and my children’s SAT scores. We both talk about and hope the kingdom of God, but Jesus and I are looking at different places. This is quite a difficult problem.

 

Jesus’ Parable of Ten Minas is as follows. A noble man went to a distant country to be king and return. So, he called ten of his servants, and gave a mina to each of them so that they would do business with the money until he returned. When the noble man became king and returned, he called the servants to see what they gained with the mina. One of them made ten minas more. The master praised him and gave him authority over ten cities. To another servant who made five minas more, he also gave authority over five cities. Then, there was a servant who kept the mina in cloth and didn’t do anything with it. So, this servant gained nothing from the mina. The master rebuked him, and took his mina and gave it to the servant who made ten minas more. In order to understand this parable, I believe, what is most important is to figure out what “mina” means and what it is “to work with the mina.” “Mina” is a weight unit of precious metals such as gold and silver. In verse 23, the master says to the wicked servant, “Why didn’t you put my silver on deposit ......” So, mina in this parable is a weight unit of silver. In Jesus’ days, a mina of silver was 100 denarii, which was about three months’ wage of a worker. As to the spiritual meaning of mina, there are a number of different opinions. Some say that it is “faith,” some “gifts or talents given to individuals,” and some “opportunities to serve God and people.” With these interpretations, we can get quite meaningful lessons from the parable.

 

I have another idea about the spiritual meaning of mina. It is “power.” In this parable, the king who returned praised the servants who had made five and ten minas more, saying “You have been faithful in a very little,” and he gave them “authority” over five and ten cities, respectively. That is, the master gave them “bigger authority.” Considering this, we can understand that “a very little,” namely, the mina that the noble man gave to each of his servants was “small authority.” Furthermore, this parable emphasizes the noble man’s “becoming king.” King is one who has the highest authority, and he gives his vassals “works to do (missions)” and “power (authority) to do the works.” Some of the people didn’t want him to be their king (14). And at the end of the parable, the king orders, “Those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them - bring them here and kill them in front of me.” To the king, the most heinous enemies are those who do not admit the king’s authority and even hate his being their king. If the noble man gave “power” to such people, they would have mocked him, saying, “Hey, do you think you are a king? How dare you give me power?” If the noble man gave them “a work to do,” they would have defied him, saying, “Why do I have to obey you and work for you? Are you my king?” Yes, it is. Only those who receives the noble man as “king who would return in the future” will obey his authority and work with trust in the authority. In this sense, while the receiver’s faith is crucial, faith itself is not mina, but Jesus’ power, which comes down through the receiver’s faith and obedience, is mina that is active in the believer and performs productive works in him. Accordingly, mina is authority that Jesus gives to his disciples.

 

Like the noble man gave minas to his servants, power flows from king down to his servants who trust and obey. John 2 tells us about Jesus’ first miracle that he turned water into wine at a wedding banquet in Cana. In the banquet, the wine was gone, and it was a very serious problem. Jesus might have solved it by bringing wine from heaven like rain. But Jesus didn’t solve the problem that way. What Jesus did was flowing his power down through those who believed in his authority. First, Jesus’ mother Mary brought this issue to Jesus. Then, she said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” After this, Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And when they filled to the brim, Jesus told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” The servants obeyed this far. Then, the water had already turned into choice wine. Jesus had the power to turn water into wine. But he didn’t work directly onto water. Instead, he cascaded his power down through Mary, and through the servants prepared by Mary. And finally, the power reached the water in the jars and changed it into wine. Like cascade falls, the power of king in the highest flew down through people of faith and performed the wondrous miracle. Acts 3 tells us the story that Peter and John raised a man crippled from birth. This man begged every day at the temple gate. Seeing this man, Peter said, “Look at us!” and also said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” Then, this man’s feet and ankles gained strength, and he jumped to his feet and began to walk, praising God. In terms of money, Peter was as poor as the crippled man. But he had what Jesus gave to him, his “mina.” It was the power of Jesus Christ. To the people filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to the crippled man, Peter said, “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?” And he testified to the secret of this power, that is, the power of Jesus, saying, “By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see” (Acts 3:16). Yes, it is. It was the power of Jesus’ name that healed this man. Peter did not hide the power of Jesus’ name entrusted to him. At the temple gate crowded with many people, Peter declared the name openly and boldly, and helped the crippled man to believe the name and get healed by its power. In this way, the power that Jesus gave to Peter was delivered again to the poor crippled beggar and turned him into a man with the right to become a child of God (John 1:12).

 

In the parable, the servant who gained ten minas more said, “Master, your mina has earned ten more.” In ESV, this verse is translated, “Master, your mina has made ten more.” Interestingly, the servant didn’t say, “Master, I made ten more with your mina.” He said, “Your mina has made ten more.” According to his word, it was not “the servant’s merits” that made ten more. It is the mina itself that the master gave to the servant. That is, the mina had in itself the power of life and production growing and bearing fruit. In Mark 4:26-27 as well, Jesus says about the kingdom of God, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.” Like a seed grows by itself, a mina gains more by itself. The only work the servant should do is scattering the seed. It is witnessing the name of Jesus. In the word quoted above, Peter denies strongly, “Oh no! It’s not my power or my godliness that made this man walk!” It’s Jesus himself who healed the poor man and regenerated him into God’s child. It is the power of his name. What Peter did was only having revealed the name and the power, and helped the man to believe. It was like a farmer scattering the seed in the field. Then the seed roots and grows by its own power. As the farmer knows this power, he scatters the seed with confidence. He doesn’t believe in his own power. He believes in the power of the seed. This is his faith. This is also the case for the good and faithful servants in today’s parable. They believed in “mina” that they received from the master, the power given by the Lord who is their true king. They worked hard so that the power might reach as many people as possible, and gained much more. In fact, however, it was the power itself that worked and gained more.

 

While the good and faithful servants had made much more from a mina, another servant came and said, “Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.” This man didn’t do anything with the mina that the master had given to him. And he excused his unprofitableness by saying to the master, “I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man.” But his master called him “You wicked servant!” In the Parable of Talents in Matthew 25, which is a variation of the Parable of Ten Minas, the master calls this man “You wicked, lazy servant!” We see that his wickedness is in his laziness. He didn’t do anything only because he was lazy, but instead of repenting his laziness, he blamed his idleness on the master’s sternness. He was saying that he couldn’t do anything because his fearful master scared him. These days we rather tolerate those with a fear problem. Why do we fear? Of course, it is because there is something or someone fearful and scary out there. And if we cannot get rid of the scary one, we may have to live in fear through our lifetime. In this sense, we may take fear for granted. Maybe this servant thought this way. In the Bible, however, fear is often regarded as laziness. This servant is one of the examples. And Proverbs 22:13 says, “The lazy man says, ‘There’s a lion outside!  I’ll be killed in the public square!’” Another similar verse is Proverbs 26:13, saying, “The lazy man says, ‘There’s a lion in the road, a fierce lion roaming the streets!’” Lazy people often put up “fear” in order to cover up their “laziness.” Under the pretense of fear, the wicked and lazy servant didn’t lift a finger for his master. We can think in the opposite way. That is, the good and faithful servants work hard even with many dangers and difficulties. In 2Corinthians 11:23-27, St, Paul lists many sufferings and dangers he had experienced while traveling around to serve the churches. Some of them are: “...... I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked” (26-27). He endured all these dangers for his Lord Jesus and the churches. These dangers couldn’t scare him at all. 1John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” Yes, it is. One who loves overcomes fear. But one who is lazy fears. It is not because his master is fearful. It is because of his own fault, his laziness.

 

With this parable, we can see the whole picture of a believer’s life, its beginning, its process, and its ending. And all these phases are related to mina from the king, our Lord Jesus Christ. It begins when Jesus calls him and gives him a mina. And it proceeds through his commitment to the work of the mina. And in its end, he brings the mina back to the king for final settlement. And the mina is the authority of king Jesus. A believer is a man with Jesus’ kingly authority. Jesus calls a believer, and gives him the divine authority so that he may carry out the king’s commandment. What is the commandment to the believer? It is replicating him in his friend, making the friend receive Jesus as his king and receive a mina from the king. Then, the kingdom of God comes upon the friend. The mina in us always tells us to speak out, “Jesus is the king!” Then Jesus will be received by the listeners who believe, and the kingdom of God will come down upon them. May the Lord give us a good and faithful heart so that we trust and obey Jesus our king and help people to trust and obey Jesus their king!!!