<p>19:12 <i>He therefore said: A certain nobleman went into a far country, to receive for himself a kingdom and then return</i>- The Lord has recently spoken of how <i>we</i> are to 'receive the kingdom' as a child if we are to enter it (18:17). The nobleman here refers to the Lord Jesus. He doesn't ask us to do anything which in essence He has not done. He received the Kingdom as God's &quot;holy child&quot; (Acts 4:27,30), and He asks us to do likewise. This makes 'receiving the Kingdom' mean accepting that really, we shall be there. It is ours, even now. &quot;Yours God's is the Kingdom&quot;, but it is given to the Lord Jesus &quot;for himself&quot;, just as it is to us too. For us it is an ongoing experience- &quot;we receiving a Kingdom... let us have grace&quot; (Heb. 12:28).</p><p>The parable has some similarities with events recorded by Josephus. Herod Archelaus travelled to Rome in order to be given his kingdom; the Jews sent an embassy to Augustus, the Caesar, while Archelaus was travelling to Rome, to complain that they did not want Archelaus as their ruler; when Archelaus returned, he arranged for 3000 of his enemies to be brought to him at the temple, where he had them slaughtered. The palace of Archelaus was near Jericho, and as the Lord has just left Jericho, this would explain the allusion to him in this parable- perhaps the Lord was building on a passing discussion about Archelaus, ever eager to turn secular chit chat into spiritual teaching- just as we should be.</p><p>Absentee landlords were unpopular; and the accusation was that they reaped what they had not sown, demanding harvest which they had not laboured for. And the one mina man makes just this complaint. The Lord presents Himself in this parable as a man deemed to be unreasonable and unpopular- when in fact this was not the case.</p>