Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 19-20.

There are two aspects of the Parable of the Ten Minas (as the translators title that parable here) that I want to focus on.  One of them I am not sure I ever noticed before.  In the version of this parable which Matthew recounts, three servants received different amounts of money to manage.  Here in Luke, ten servants each received the same amount.  This puts a completely different perspective on the story, as Jesus only notes the outcomes for three of the ten.  This puts a completely different understanding of what this means.  Jesus doesn’t tell us what results the other seven had, I think we are to consider the one who invested and got a return of 10 minas and the one who hid it and gave his Lord back the mina he had been given with no return to both be outliers.  As a result, the one who earned ten minas is outstanding.  He did not start with any more than anyone else.  He just put in extra effort.  While the one who earned nothing looks even worse, because he had just as much to work with as the one who earned ten.  Finally, it seems like the majority did something similar to the one who earned five, but some of them may have only earned one.  In any case, only the one who did nothing with what he was given received punishment.

I have noticed the other thing I want to write about today, but I never thought it mattered.  In addition, I do not recall anyone ever commenting on it (except maybe in passing).  The man who gave out the money to his servants was going to a distant country to have himself made king, but the people of that distant country hated him and sent him a message saying that they did not want him to be king.  Yet, he was made king despite their objections.  First I want to point out that the man was going to have himself appointed king.  He was not called by someone in that distant country to come and be king.  He took the initiative to go and get himself made king over that country.  Second, the people of that country rejected him as king, but he was made king anyway.  I felt like as I spelled out this part of the parable to which we usually pay little or no attention I would come to some understanding about what message it added to the parable.  So, while I did not come up with why Jesus included this detail to the parable, I think it is important that we look at such details.  There is a reason Jesus, and Luke, included those details, when the time is right the Spirit will reveal it to us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.