|
| |
Matthew
25:14-30
 |
Reading the Text:
|
| Historical References, Commentary and
Comparative Texts:
 | The
Five Gospels Parallels, John W. Marshall, University of Toronto. |
| "Labor
and Industry," Comparative World Scriptures from United
Communities of Spirit. |
|
XLIII.22-38; Tatian's
Diatessaron
(c. 150-160). |
|
III.XVII.3,
IV.XI.2,
Adversus Haereses,
Irenaeus of Lyons.
(c. 180) |
|
1.10,
Paedagogus,
Clement of Alexandria
(c 200) |
|
I.1,
Stromata,
Clement of Alexandria
(c 200) |
|
Chapter XXXV,
On the Resurrection of the
Flesh,
Tertullian (c. 211) |
|
II.XI.4,
First Principles (De Principiis),
Origen.
(c.225) |
|
XIV.8,
XIV.12,
Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew,
Origen. (c.247) |
|
Homily
LXXVIII - Matthew 25:1-30, Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew, St.
Chrysostom (c. 380) |
|
Historia Calamitatum: The Story of My Misfortunes,
Pierre Abélard / Peter Abelard, c. 1140. |
| From the
Catena
Aurea, Patristic Commentary by St Thomas Aquinas. |
| From the
Geneva Notes.
 | "Usury or loaning money
at interest is strictly forbidden by the Bible, Ex 22:25-27 De 23:19,20.
... Finally the master said to him sarcastically why did you not add
insult to injury and loan the money out at interest so you could call
your master a "usurer" too! If the servant had done this, his
master would have been responsible for his servant's actions and guilty
of usury." |
|
| From
Matthew
Henry's Commentary.
| "Christ keeps no
servants to be idle: they have received their all from him, and have
nothing they can call their own but sin. Our receiving from Christ is in
order to our working for him." |
|
| From
Wesley's
Notes.
| "So mere harmlessness,
on which many build their hope of salvation, was the cause of his
damnation!" |
|
| From the
Commentary on the Whole Bible
(Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, 1871).
| "He takes the servant's
own account of his demands, as expressing graphically enough, not the hardness
which he had basely imputed to him, but simply his demand of a
profitable return for the gift entrusted." |
|
| From
The People's
New Testament, B.W. Johnson, 1891.
| "Every attainment of
honor, wealth, knowledge, or spiritual grace helps to render further
attainment more easy and more assured; while it is spiritually as well
as materially true that "the destruction of the poor is their
poverty" (Prov. 10:15)." |
|
|
|
Contemporary Commentary, Studies, and Exegesis:
|
Commentary,
Matthew 25:14-30, Dirk G. Lange, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org,
2008. |
|
Comments
(commentary) and
Clippings
(technical notes for in-depth study), Chris Haslam, Anglican
Diocese of Montreal. |
|
"Talents:
Five, Two and One," Gospel Analysis, Sermons from
Seattle, Pastor Edward F. Markquart, Grace Lutheran Church, Seattle,
Washington. Detailed background and exegesis.
| "To whom much is given much will be
required. We know that this principle is true even if a person is not
religious. That is, a common adage for the whole world is the intuitive
awareness that the more gifts/resources/abilities that God has given to
you, the more that life/God requires of you." |
|
|
"First Thoughts on Year A Gospel Passages in the Lectionary,"
William Loader, Pentecost 27, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.
| "The tragedy is that many people
are afraid of losing or endangering God and so seek to protect God from adventures, to
resist attempts at radical inclusion that might, they fear, compromise God's purity and
holiness. Protecting God is a variant of not trusting God." |
|
|
Exegetical
Notes by Brian Stoffregen, at CrossMarks.
| "When the master
"gives" ("paradidomi") his property to the slaves,
does the money then belong to the slaves -- thus presenting God as being
very generous? Or are the slaves just managers of their master's money
-- thus presenting the slaves as stewards of what belongs to God?" |
|
|
"Recession-Proof Investments," Blogging toward Sunday, Christian
Coon, Theolog: The Blog of The Christian Century, 2008.
| "There's a difference between
what this passage is saying and a simple aphorism. Still, the
parable has provoked me to explore this issue more carefully." |
|
|
Exegesis, Lewis R. Donelson, Lectionary Homiletics sample,
2008.
| "The
timidity of the third slave must lie in a refusal to love with the
vulnerability and abandon Jesus demands. He has wasted the lives of
others and ignored their needs." |
|
|
Dylan's Lectionary Blog,
Proper 28. Biblical Scholar
Sarah Dylan Breuer looks at readings for the coming Sunday in the lectionary
of the Episcopal Church.
| "The
live question for us, I think, about this Sunday's gospel is whether we
can really believe that, if we really can trust in that enough to risk
living as Jesus taught us rather than according to the demands of those
who try to set themselves up in Jesus' place as our lord, who try to
enslave us to wordly standards by telling us that our security is in
acquiring resources for ourselves and striking out at our enemies." |
|
|
"Trojan Horse," James Howell, The Christian Century, 2005.
| "As it is, we print up catchy
mailings, we wheedle and cajole; pledges bump up by 7 percent, and
we celebrate. Isn’t that the equivalent of the burial of the one
talanton, and isn’t it the harbinger of the burial of the church?" |
|
|
"The Parable
of the Extortionist,"
Larry Broding's Word-Sunday.Com: A
Catholic Resource for This Sunday's Gospel. Adult Study, Children's
Story, Family Activity, Support Materials.
| "Have you ever felt like an outcast?
What attitude or chain of events caused your feelings?" |
|
|
Matthew in the Margins, by
Brian McGowan, Anglican priest in Western Australia. |
|
"The
Good and Faithful Servant,"
Jerry Goebel, One
Family Outreach. "Focus on scripture from a justice perspective." Exegesis, study, and teen study
and activities.
| "If
I can be faithful in the 'puny things' or for this 'short duration,'
he doesn’t promise me retirement or rest, but instead deeper
involvement! To be more enraptured by serving him. To be in charge
of many things
[polus] translates best as 'abundance in a great age.'" |
|
|
"The
Parable of the Talents," Rev. Bryan Findlayson, Lectionary Bible
Studies and Sermons, Pumpkin Cottage Ministry Resources. Includes detailed
textual notes. |
|
Wellspring of
the Gospel, Ordinary 33A, Catherine McElhinney and Kathryn
Turner, Weekly Wellsprings. |
| "The
Parables in the Olivet Discourse," by Hampton Keathley IV at the
Biblical Studies Foundation.
| "The
works are indicative of the relationship with the master. The third
slave had no works which in the gospels is the same as having no faith." |
|
|
| Articles & Background:
|
"Parable of
the Talents," wikipedia. |
|
"Matthew's Nonviolent Jesus and Violent Parables," Barbara E. Reid, O.P.,
(other resources at)
"Parables,"
Christian Reflection, The Center for Christian Ethics
at Baylor University, 2006.
| "Jesus' Sermon on the Mount instructs us to not
return violence for violence; instead we should be like God, who offers
boundless, gratuitous love to all. But in the same Gospel Jesus tells
eight parables in which God deals violently with evildoers. Which of the
divine ways are we to imitate?" |
|
|
The Parable of
the Talents applied to secular economics in Parables for
Entrepreneurs, by John Sanders (investor and student of the dynamics of
small business).
| "The New Testament seems to state
that failure is not necessarily the loss of capital, but a lack of
effort to increase it. Indeed, from my perspective as a venture
capitalist, the worst situations are ones in which the management meets
with a measure of success and then says, "Well, we've gone far enough.
Let's not risk what we've gained." This is really the worst case.
In fact, the entrepreneur who doesn't use his resources or his talents
is thrown out of the Kingdom. He also undergoes "weeping and gnashing of
teeth," which is caused, I suspect, from seeing his most ambitious
managers quit and the price of his stock plummet." |
|
|
| Articles in
ATLAS Journals. (Direct link when you are
subscribed and logged in to
ATLASerials online collection of Religion and Theology Journals.):
| Bartlett, David L.,
"Rejoice in the Lord Always," The Living Pulpit, 1996. (see
Joy issue focus of
The Living Pulpit, 5.4, 1996.)
Image Browse -
PDF |
| Brisson, E. Carson,
"Between Text & Sermon, Matthew 25:14-30," Interpretation,
2002.
Image Browse -
PDF |
| Carpenter, John B., "The Parable of
the Talents in Missionary Perspective: A Call for Economic
Spirituality," Missiology, 1997.
Image Browse -
PDF |
| Chenoweth, Ben, "Identifying the
Talents: Contextual Clues for the Interpretation of the Parable of the
Talents," Tyndale Bulletin, 2005.
Image Browse -
PDF |
| Chilton, Bruce D., "Talents and the
Art of the Parable," The Living Pulpit, 1997.
Image Browse -
PDF |
| Culpepper, R. Alan, "Matthew
25:14-30," Interpretation, 1980.
Image Browse -
PDF |
| Dipboye, Carolyn, "Matthew
25:14-30--To Survive or to Serve," Review & Expositor, 1995.
Image Browse -
PDF |
| Hiebert, Paul G and Sam Larsen,
"Partnership in the Gospel: Misers, Accountants and Stewards,"
Direction, 1999.
Image Browse -
PDF |
| Howell, James C., "Trojan Horse,"
the Christian Century, 2005.?
Image Browse -
PDF |
| Jones, Verity A.,
"Choosing Faith for Those Who Can't," Journal for Preachers,
2004.
Image Browse -
PDF |
| Lovette, Roger,
"On Not Missing the Circus," The Living Pulpit, 1997.
Image Browse -
PDF |
| McGaughy, Lane C., "Fear of Yahweh
and the Mission of Judaism: A Postexilic Maxim and Its Early Christian
Expansion in the Parable of the Talents," Journal of Biblical
Literature, 1974.
Image Browse -
PDF |
| Neville, David J., "Toward a Theology
of Peace: Contesting Matthew's Violent Eschatology," Journal for the
Study of the New Testament, 2007.
Image Browse-
PDF |
| Reid, Barbara E., O.P.,
"Violent Endings in Matthew's Parables and Christian Nonviolence,"
The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2004.
Image Browse -
PDF |
| Thysell, Carol, "Unearthing the Treasure, Unknitting
the Napkin: The Parable of the Talents as a Justification for Early
Modern Women's Preaching and Prophesying," Journal of Feminist
Studies in Religion, 1999.
Image Browse -
PDF |
| Toussaint, Stanley D.,
"A Critique of the Preterist View of the Olivet Discourse," Bibliotheca Sacra, 2004.
Image Browse -
PDF |
|
| Reviews:
| Wilson, Alistair I.,
When Will These Things Happen?: A Study of Jesus as Judge
in Matthew 21-25. PaterNoster Press, 2005.
Review
by Samuel Subramanian, Review of Biblical Literature, 2006. |
|
| Sermons:
|
"How Are You Managing?"
26 Pentecost - 13 November 2005, Samuel Zumwalt, Göttinger Predigten im Internet: Every Sunday Sermons based on the
RCL by a team of Lutheran theologians/ pastors. |
|
"Talents:
Five, Two and One,"
Sermons from Seattle,
Pastor Edward F. Markquart, Grace Lutheran Church, Seattle,
Washington. |
|
"The Stewardship
of Pain," Frederick Buechner, 30 Good Minutes, Chicago Sunday
Evening Club, 1990. |
|
"The
Story of Two Parables," Phyllis Tickle,
Day 1, 2002. |
|
"Reluctant Servants," the Rev. Bob Bohl,
Day 1, 1997. |
|
"We Reap
What We Do Not Sow," Leah Grace Goodwin,
Cambridge Swedenborg Chapel, Cambridge, MA. |
|
"Vocation, Vocation, Vocation: Your Pathway to Immortality," Delle
Chatman, 30 Good Minutes, Chicago Sunday Evening Club, 2004. |
|
"Be Fruitful,"
John Jewell, 1999. |
| The
Talents or Money in Trust by Don Schwager, Washtenaw Covenant
Community |
| Father
Andrew M. Greeley, "Priest, Author, Sociologist," Commentary and
Homily
|
|
| With Children:
|
| Drama:
|
| Graphics & Bulletin Materials:
|
| Hymns and Music:
|
| Fine Arts Images Linked at The Text This Week's
Art Index: |
| Movies scenes with the following themes,
listed at The Text This Week's Movie Concordance: |
| Study Links and Resources for the
Book of Matthew |
|
