The Parable of the Ten Minas

 

God gives each person talents and abilities and it is a privilege to develop them over time. If you let authority issues and hostility get in your way, you are cutting off your nose to spite your face.  No good ever comes from these kinds of attitudes. Ask God how he can help.

Luke 19:12-27 (TLV) 12 Therefore He said, “A certain nobleman went to a faraway land to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. 13 And calling ten of his own slaves, he gave them ten minas and said to them, ‘Do business until I come back.’ 14 But his citizens detested him and they sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We don’t want this fellow to reign over us!’ 15 When he returned after receiving the kingdom, he called for those slaves to whom he had given the money. He wanted to know how much business they had done. 16 Now the first appeared, saying, ‘Master, your one mina has made ten.’ 17 The master said to him, ‘Well done, good slave! Because you were faithful with so little, take charge over ten cities.’ 18 Also, the second slave came, saying, ‘Your mina, Master, made five.’ 19 Then he also said to this one, ‘You are likewise over five cities.’ 20 But another came, saying, ‘Master, here is your mina. I was keeping it safe in a handkerchief, 21 for I was afraid of you because you are a strict man. You take what you did not make and reap what you did not sow.’ 22 He said to him, ‘By the words of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked slave! You knew that I am strict, taking what I did not make and reaping what I did not sow? 23 Then why didn’t you put my money in the bank, so that when I came back I could have collected it with interest?’ 24 Then to the bystanders he said, ‘Take the mina from him, and give it to the one who has ten minas.’ 25 But they said to him, ‘Sir, he has ten minas!’ 26 ‘I tell you, to everyone who has, more shall be given. But from the one who doesn’t have, even what he does have shall be taken away. 27 But those hostile to me, who didn’t want me to reign over them, bring them here and execute them before me.’”

8/27/2023

Unfaithfulness to God

 

Metaphors are meant to make you think a little.  Not in Hosea.  God says what the metaphors mean. It is painfully clear how much a lack of respect in marriage, family life and toward God hurts everyone. It deeply and sometimes terminally wounds all involved.

Hosea 1:2 (TLB) 2 Here is the first message: The Lord said to Hosea, “Go and marry a girl who is a prostitute, so that some of her children will be born to you from other men. This will illustrate the way my people have been untrue to me, committing open adultery against me by worshiping other gods.”

8/19/2023

The Unforgiving Servant

 

This parable speaks to the mercy of God. Regardless of how much you owe him, God will forgive your debt as you acknowledge him.  Likewise, you are to be merciful to others who owe you what they cannot repay. If you do not, you are squarely in the path of God's accountability.

Matthew 18:23-35 (TPT) 23 The lessons of forgiveness in heaven’s kingdom realm can be illustrated like this: “There once was a king who had servants who had borrowed money from the royal treasury. He decided to settle accounts with each of them. 24 As he began the process, it came to his attention that one of his servants owed him one billion dollars. So he summoned the servant before him and said to him, ‘Pay me what you owe me.’ 25 When his servant was unable to repay his debt, the king ordered that he be sold as a slave along with his wife and children and every possession they owned as payment toward his debt. 26 The servant threw himself facedown at his master’s feet and begged for mercy. ‘Please be patient with me. Just give me more time and I will repay you all that I owe.’ 27 Upon hearing his pleas, the king had compassion on his servant, and released him, and forgave his entire debt. 28 “No sooner had the servant left when he met one of his fellow servants, who owed him twenty thousand dollars. He seized him by the throat and began to choke him, saying, ‘You’d better pay me right now everything you owe me!’ 29 His fellow servant threw himself facedown at his feet and begged, ‘Please be patient with me. If you’ll just give me time, I will repay you all that is owed.’ 30 But the one who had his debt forgiven stubbornly refused to forgive what was owed him. He had his fellow servant thrown into prison and demanded he remain there until he repaid the debt in full. 31 “When his associates saw what was going on, they were outraged and went to the king and told him the whole story. 32 The king said to him, ‘You scoundrel! Is this the way you respond to my mercy? Because you begged me, I forgave you the massive debt that you owed me. 33 Why didn’t you show the same mercy to your fellow servant that I showed to you?’ 34 In a fury of anger, the king turned him over to the prison.

8/13/2023

Disobedience brings Curses

In the first 14 verses of this passage, God speaks to those motivated by positive promises. In these verses - and notice how many more curses there are than blessings - he speaks to the negatively motivated, those who learn best when threatened with punishment.

Deuteronomy 28:15-68  15-19 “If you won’t listen to the Lord your God and won’t obey these laws I am giving you today, then all of these curses shall come upon you: Curses in the city, Curses in the fields, Curses on your fruit and bread, The curse of barren wombs, Curses upon your crops, Curses upon the fertility of your cattle and flocks, Curses when you come in, Curses when you go out. 20 “For the Lord himself will send his personal curse upon you. You will be confused and a failure in everything you do, until at last you are destroyed because of the sin of forsaking him. 21 He will send disease among you until you are destroyed from the face of the land you are about to enter and possess. 22 He will send tuberculosis, fever, infections, plague, and war. He will blight your crops, covering them with mildew. All these devastations shall pursue you until you perish. 23 “The heavens above you will be as unyielding as bronze, and the earth beneath will be as iron. 24 The land will become as dry as dust for lack of rain, and dust storms shall destroy you. 25 “The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will march out to battle gloriously, but flee before your enemies in utter confusion; and you will be tossed to and fro among all the nations of the earth. 26 Your dead bodies will be food to the birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away. 27 “He will send upon you Egyptian boils, tumors, scurvy, and itch, for none of which will there be a remedy. 28 He will send madness, blindness, fear, and panic upon you. 29 You shall grope in the bright sunlight just as the blind man gropes in darkness. You shall not prosper in anything you do; you will be oppressed and robbed continually, and nothing will save you. 30 “Someone else will marry your fiancée; someone else will live in the house you build; someone else will eat the fruit of the vineyard you plant. 31 Your oxen shall be butchered before your eyes, but you won’t get a single bite of the meat. Your donkeys will be driven away as you watch and will never return to you again. Your sheep will be given to your enemies. And there will be no one to protect you. 32 You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break with longing for them, but you will not be able to help them. 33 A foreign nation you have not even heard of will eat the crops you will have worked so hard to grow. You will always be oppressed and crushed. 34 You will go mad because of all the tragedy you see around you. 35 The Lord will cover you with boils from head to foot. 36 “He will exile you and the king you will choose to a nation to which neither you nor your ancestors gave a second thought; and while in exile you shall worship gods of wood and stone! 37 You will become an object of horror, a proverb and a byword among all the nations, for the Lord will thrust you away. 38 “You will sow much but reap little, for the locusts will eat your crops. 39 You will plant vineyards and care for them, but you won’t eat the grapes or drink the wine, for worms will destroy the vines. 40 Olive trees will be growing everywhere, but there won’t be enough olive oil to anoint yourselves! For the trees will drop their fruit before it is matured. 41 Your sons and daughters will be snatched away from you as slaves. 42 The locusts shall destroy your trees and vines. 43 Foreigners living among you shall become richer and richer while you become poorer and poorer. 44 They shall lend to you, not you to them! They shall be the head and you shall be the tail! 45 “All these curses shall pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed—all because you refuse to listen to the Lord your God. 46 These horrors shall befall you and your descendants as a warning: 47-48 You will become slaves to your enemies because of your failure to praise God for all that he has given you. The Lord will send your enemies against you, and you will be hungry, thirsty, naked, and in want of everything. A yoke of iron shall be placed around your neck until you are destroyed! 49 “The Lord will bring a distant nation against you, swooping down upon you like an eagle; a nation whose language you don’t understand— 50 a nation of fierce and angry men who will have no mercy upon young or old. 51 They will eat you out of house and home until your cattle and crops are gone. Your grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, and lambs will all disappear. 52 That nation will lay siege to your cities and knock down your highest walls—the walls you will trust to protect you. 53 You will even eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters in the terrible days of siege that lie ahead. 54 The most tenderhearted man among you will be utterly callous toward his own brother and his beloved wife and his children who are still alive. 55 He will refuse to give them a share of the flesh he is devouring—the flesh of his own children—because he is starving in the midst of the siege of your cities. 56-57 The most tender and delicate woman among you—the one who would not so much as touch her feet to the ground—will refuse to share with her beloved husband, son, and daughter. She will hide from them the afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can eat them: so terrible will be the hunger during the siege and the awful distress caused by your enemies at your gates. 58-59 “If you refuse to obey all the laws written in this book, thus refusing reverence to the glorious and fearful name of Jehovah your God, then Jehovah will send perpetual plagues upon you and upon your children. 60 He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you feared so much, and they shall plague the land. 61 And that is not all! The Lord will bring upon you every sickness and plague there is, even those not mentioned in this book, until you are destroyed. 62 There will be few of you left, though before you were as numerous as stars. All this if you do not listen to the Lord your God. 63 “Just as the Lord has rejoiced over you and has done such wonderful things for you and has multiplied you, so the Lord at that time will rejoice in destroying you; and you shall disappear from the land. 64 For the Lord will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship heathen gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone! 65 There among those nations you shall find no rest, but the Lord will give you trembling hearts, darkness, and bodies wasted from sorrow and fear. 66 Your lives will hang in doubt. You will live night and day in fear, and will have no reason to believe that you will see the morning light. 67 In the morning you will say, ‘Oh, that night were here!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘Oh, that morning were here!’ You will say this because of the awesome horrors surrounding you. 68 Then the Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships, a journey I promised you would never need to make again; and there you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves—but no one will even want to buy you.”

8/6/2023