The Parable of the Talents isn't about talents

Maybe it's not about playing the piano. Maybe it's about our relationship with God.

Being a Latter-day Saint often comes with a need to do more.

That’s the church culture I grew up in, anyway. Maybe you had the same experience. There was always more I should be doing. I was never reading the scriptures as much as I could. I was never doing enough service, or doing enough home-teaching-turned-ministering.

Stained glass by Thomas Denny, installed at Trinity Church Wall Street in 2022.

The Parable of the Talents is not super helpful in this. Read in the standard way, it embraces a “more is more” message: regardless of how many talents you have, you should be out there getting more. Twice as many, ideally. Sticking with what you’ve got is unwise, and unrighteous. You need more. More, more, more.

But there’s another reason the Parable of the Talents has never felt quite right to me, and it’s because the interpretation has always felt a little too on the nose. The master gives each servant “talents,” which they should multiply. The deep, rich meaning behind this metaphor? We have all been given talents, which we should multiply. I never would have come up with that.

Jesus used parables as a pedagogical technique; we’re probably familiar by now that parables can be understood at multiple levels. When the disciples press Him to explain one of His parables, He tells them that they’re designed specifically so that certain people will understand at depth, while others won’t:

And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:

That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand…

Which is why I feel like I’ve never gotten much from the Parable of the Talents. Using “talents” as a metaphor for “talents” is not exactly God-level storytelling,¹ and the idea that we should develop our skills feels shallow compared to other parables that illuminate the nature and character of God²—not to mention how toxic the “more is more” mindset can be.

So, what if this parable isn’t about doing more, but about understanding who God really is?

You know the story: A master gives talents—an amount of money, perhaps a large amount—to three servants, in amounts of 5, 2, and 1. Then he leaves. The first two servants engage in some sort of trading and double their money; the master rewards their faithfulness. The third servant buries his money, and when the master comes back, he takes away this servant’s one talent and gives it to the one who now has ten.

I think every time I’ve been taught this lesson—in talks, in lessons, or wherever—the lesson has been that God gave us each literal talents, meaning skills. If we magnify them, we’ll be given more; if we hide them under a bushel, then what we have will be taken away. So, if it’s not about developing talents, what is it about?

To me, the Parable of the Talents isn’t a parable about doing more to win God’s favor. It’s about trusting who God is.

Let’s jump in.

14 ¶ For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.

The “man” in this parable (or “lord” later, or “master” in other translations) is assuredly the Lord.³ The man’s absence throughout the body of the parable can represent our mortal tenure, where we are separated from God. We are the servants, and this parable tells the story of our being with, being separated from, and then being reunited with God.

The Lord undoubtedly gave us gifts—“His goods”—when we came to this world. Beyond “talents” meaning skills and abilities, our Heavenly Parents gave us goodness. They gave us grace.

15 And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.

The fact that the man gives to each “according to his several ability” is very important; it doesn’t and can’t mean that the Lord gives more love or more grace to people who have more ability. Grace, by definition, is unearned and unmerited. The Greek word for “ability” here is δύναμις, which is most commonly translated in the New Testament as “power.” Instead of this meaning that certain people are given more because they are more deserving, perhaps it’s that we’re each given what we will have the opportunity and capacity—or “power”—to use.

Sometimes we read a scripture like this and attribute it to the Lord’s “fairness”—He gives more to those who earn it. But we should remind ourselves that God is wildly unfair. He gives us way more than we could ever earn. Fairness is not the point.

16 Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents.

17 And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two.

18 But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.

The first two servants multiply what they’ve been given by interacting with other people. They give the talents, and receive more in return. This is not something you can do on your own; you have to engage with others.

I desperately want salvation to be an individual pursuit, but the more my faith develops and matures the more I realize we are all interconnected. Our common humanity as citizens of the world and children of God ties us together in ways we can’t imagine. Each of us is the main character in the story of an eternal journey. We all have worth in the sight of God, even when we try so hard to diminish each others’ worth in this life.

The first two servants took the grace and love they received as gifts from God and shared them around. Maybe they gave grace to others by assuming someone had good intentions, instead of assuming they worst about them. Maybe they did this by making space for others who didn’t feel like they belonged. God has given us abundant grace in His willingness to forgive us; maybe these servants paid that forward, and forgave others.

When they gave grace in these ways, even more came back to them. This is the beautiful reality of that common humanity. Everything we’ve received was given to us by God. And when we give that to others, we get even more.

I worry that we’re all going to catch a glimpse of this beautiful reality, and in the next moment go back to our worlds of cable news and social media outrage, and all of it will be lost. I’m not sure that any of us are capable of getting more than glimpses of the kind of love our Heavenly Parents have for each of us. But the way we catch those glimpses is by trying to have that same love for others.

19 After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them.

20 And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.

21 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.

22 He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them.

23 His lord said unto him, Well done, 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.

When we generously share that which we’ve been given—unconditional, unmerited, and undeserved grace—then that’s when we might have this moment, when God says to us, “enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”

This takes me immediately to 2 Nephi 31, where we hear something similar. Nephi has just talked about how everything we think we’ve accomplished has come through relying wholly on Jesus Christ. And if we continue to do that, then we’ll hear the Father say to us, “Ye shall have eternal life.”

I can only imagine what that must feel like.

The first two servants understood that their master was rooting for them all along. He’d given them something precious, and they knew that he simply wanted them to succeed. He wanted nothing more than to have them enter into his joy.

The amounts they were given, and the amounts they received back, didn’t matter. The Lord said the same thing to each of them, for making the most of the grace they’d been given.

24 Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed:

25 And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.

26 His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed:

27 Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.

28 Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents.

29 For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

30 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

But the third servant didn’t understand his master. He had a different image of God in his mind. Instead of seeing God as loving, merciful, and parental, he sees his lord as “hard,” cold, and unforgiving. And with that understanding of God, his inclination is to protect what he’s been given. Not only does he not share the grace he’s received, he makes sure to shut everyone else out.

The problem here is not that God is harsh and unyielding. The problem is that the third servant can’t see him any other way.

This last servant believed his own reality, either that he’d been taught or that he’d created. He actively prevented grace from multiplying in his life. While the story suggests that the master took away the servant’s one talent at the end, it may be that the servant never truly received that grace in the first place. Those who recognize they have grace will receive more; those who can’t see it don’t even have the chance to experience it. The outer darkness is not a place where the servant is sent, it’s where he already lives—a place where he can’t understand or accept God’s abundant grace.

There’s a moment from when I was a teenager that has stuck with me—one of those seemingly-random moments that ended up forming a core memory. I’d slept in, and I was running late for school. Being late to school was something I could deal with, though. What was worse was that the moment I went downstairs, I’d have to answer to my mom and dad. Why was I late? How could I be so irresponsible? Like the third servant, I believed my parents would be harsh and unforgiving. A scolding and even punishment were stair steps away.

But that’s not how my story ends. When I came down, my mom immediately saw that I was late, and leaped into action. She gathered a few things together for me to take as a lunch, and helped me hurry out the door. She wasn’t interested in scolding me. She wasn’t there to discipline me or make me pay for my error. She wanted me to succeed. If I was late to school, she wanted to help me get there as soon as I could.

The mercy and grace that my mom provided was far more than I could have expected.

The scriptures are full of these stories, stories of people who have gone so far down a given road, only to find that it ends in overwhelming, confusing grace. Paul stood by while Stephen was stoned, before the very Savior he was persecuting made him the New Testament’s great missionary. Alma the Younger went out to destroy the church of God, only to run headlong into that same grace. The woman taken in adultery braced for the impact of the scribes’ and Pharisees’ stones, before the Lord extended His hand of mercy to stop them.

I believe in a God that wants all of us back. Our Heavenly Parents have given us abundant, life-giving grace in hopes that we will give it to others—by seeing them as whole human beings, by forgiving them, and loving them, whether we see them as neighbors or enemies. When we do that, the grace we get back can be almost more than we can handle.

When we understand this parable through this beautiful lens, it changes dramatically. It’s no longer about how many things we’re checking off the to-do list, and stops being about whether we’re outperforming, outrighteousing everybody else we see on Sunday. It’s not about doing enough, because I don’t believe in a God that keeps track of how many minutes we’ve read the scriptures or takes attendance in Church meetings.

I believe in Heavenly Parents who love us unconditionally—me and you both. And who wants nothing more than to welcome us back into Their joy.

1. Note that in Matthew and Mark the term “talents” is used, but in Luke 19 it’s “pounds.” In the NIV it’s “bags of gold” (a talent of gold weighed ~200 pounds), and in the NLT it’s “bags of silver” (a talent of silver weighed ~100 pounds).

2. I’ve written about the Parable of the Prodigal Son and the Parable of the Ten Virgins along these lines.

3. Anytime you have a lord or master in a parable, this is probably a good place to start.