<p>19:23 <i>Why then did you not put my money in the bank, that at my coming I might have collected it with interest- </i>The Lord may have in view the money exchangers whom He so despised and whose tables He overthrew in Mt. 21:12. It&rsquo;s as if the Lord is saying that He was willing to make major concessions to the man- if he had done at least something, even if that &lsquo;something&rsquo; was far less than ideal. A Rabbinic teaching claims that bankers should never be trusted and therefore &ldquo;Money can only be kept safe by placing it in the earth&rdquo; (<i>b. B. Mes&rsquo;ia</i>&nbsp;42A, quoted in R.T. France,&nbsp;<i>The Gospel of Matthew</i>&nbsp;(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985) p. 954). The Lord is consciously deconstructing Rabbinic views. If we had more access to such contemporary texts, we would likely understand many of the more enigmatic and difficult passages of Scripture- probably they are alluding to and deconstructing contemporary writings.</p><p>The Lord will&nbsp;<i>receive&nbsp;or </i>collect back His own. Strong defines this as &quot;to carry off, away from harm&quot; (the same word is used in Heb. 11:19 about&nbsp;Abraham&nbsp;<i>receiving</i>&nbsp;Isaac from the dead). There is the suggestion that the Truth which the Lord has given us is valuable to Him, and He fears our losing it; those who lose the faith lose the personal possession of the Lord Jesus. But at the judgment, when we hand it back to the Lord, He (not to say, we) will have that deep knowledge that now we can't fail Him any more, we no longer have the possibility of causing harm and loss to the treasured wealth which has been entrusted to us.&nbsp;We need to remember, however, that there was no banking system as we have today. Lending money to exchangers was a highly risky business and often resulted in the loss of money; money was safer stored in the earth, as the man did. So the Lord&rsquo;s point was that he should have taken a risk; indeed, all such trading requires risk taking which may leave us looking foolish. But the Lord may be implying that if he had taken that risk for the right reasons, all ultimately would have worked out well.</p><p>&quot;My own money&quot;reminds us of the fact that He is Lord&nbsp;<i>of all</i>. This means He is owner of absolutely everything to do with us (Acts 10:36). At the judgment, this fact will be brought home. The Lord will ask for &ldquo;my money... my own&quot;; we will be asked what we have done with our Lord's money (Mt. 20:15; 25:27). All we have is God's; it is not our own. Therefore if we hold back in our giving and trading, we are&nbsp;<i>robbing God</i>. Israel thought it was absurd to put it like this: But yes, God insisted through Malachi (3:8-12), you are&nbsp;<i>robbing me</i>&nbsp;if you don't give back, or even if you don't give your heart to Him in faith.&nbsp;<i>And will a man rob God?&nbsp;</i>Will a man...? We must give God what has His image stamped on it: and we, our bodies, are made in His image (Mt. 22:21); therefore we have a duty to give ourselves to Him. We are not our own: how much less is 'our' money or time our own Like David, we need to realize now,&nbsp;<i>in this life</i>, before the judgment, that all our giving is only a giving back to God of what we have been given by Him: &quot;Of your own have we given you&quot; (1 Chron. 19:14). The danger of materialism is the assumption that we are ultimate owners of what we 'have'.</p><p>Explaining how the man could have entered the Kingdom is surely the basis for the gnashing of teeth. To have it explained like that&hellip; is harder than any hell fire of classical imagination. He ought to have given the talent to the exchangers. Either he should&rsquo;ve given it to the Gentiles, or he should have at least done something, in lending it to his Jewish brethren- even against the Law. Very possession of the minas meant we have to, we must, share it with others in some way- we are all preachers.&nbsp;</p><p>The man being told how he could have entered the Kingdom is after the pattern of rejected Adam and Eve having the way to the tree of life clearly shown to them after their rejection (Gen. 3:23,24). Again, notice how the judgment is for the education of those judged and those who witness it. He will shew them how they should have given their talent, the basic Gospel, to others, and therefore gained some interest. This has to be connected with the well known prohibition on lending money to fellow Israelites for usury; usury could only be received from Gentiles (Dt. 23:20). Surely the Lord is implying that&nbsp;<i>at the least</i>&nbsp;this person could have shared the Gospel with others, especially (in a Jewish context) the Gentile world. This would have at least&nbsp;brought some usury for the Lord. This would suggest that issues such as apathy in preaching, especially the unwillingness of the Jewish believers to share their hope with the Gentiles, will be raised by the Lord during the judgment process. Of course, the Lord hadn't told the servant (in the story) to lend the money to Gentiles; he was expected to use his initiative. The overall picture of the story is that at least the man should have done&nbsp;<i>something</i></p><p>Alternatively, it could be that we are intended to understand that the Lord would even have accepted him if he lent money on usury, something which the Law condemned; if he'd have done&nbsp;<i>something</i>, even if it involved breaking some aspects of God's will... Instead, his attitude was that he had been given the talent of the Gospel, and he saw his duty as to just keep hold on it. He was angry that the Lord should even suggest he ought to have done anything else We really must watch for this attitude in ourselves. He justifies himself by saying that he has &quot;kept&quot; the money (Lk. 19:20), using the word elsewhere used about the need to&nbsp;<i>keep</i>&nbsp;or hold on to the doctrines of the One Faith (1 Tim. 1:19; 3:9; 2 Tim. 1:13; Rev. 6:9). He had done this, he had held on, he hadn't left the faith. And he thought this was enough to bring him to the Kingdom. Sadly, many understandings of spirituality has almost glorified this very attitude. Any who show initiative have been seen as mavericks, as likely to go wrong. The emphasis has been on holding on to basic doctrinal teaching, marking your Bible with it, attending weekly meetings about it (even if you snooze through them), regularly attending...&nbsp; And, son, you won't go far wrong. The Lord, in designing this parable as he did, had exactly this sort of complacency in mind.&nbsp;In view of the man&rsquo;s beliefs about the Lord, he still should&rsquo;ve acted accordingly.</p><p>Both sheep and goats register their surprise at their Lord's comments on various specific actions of theirs which he discusses with them- &quot;When did we see you...?&quot; (Mt. 25:44). The thought that at least some of our deeds will be discussed with us at the judgment should surely make some impact on our present behaviour. Lk. 19:23 implies not only that there will be a discussion with our judge, but that Jesus will point out to the rejected what they should have done to be accepted.</p><p>The parables of the Kingdom speak of the eternal consequences of the judgment. The Lord will require His own at the judgment (Lk. 19:23). This doesn't mean, as the one talent man thought, that He will require us to give back to Him the basic doctrines of the Gospel which we were given at conversion. The Greek means to exact regularly, in an ongoing sense (s.w. Lk. 3:13); Strong defines it as meaning &quot;to perform repeatedly... not a single act&quot;. When the Lord examines our lives at the judgment, He will expect to keep on receiving the result of what we have achieved for Him in this life. This is the ultimate encouragement for us in our preaching and encouraging of others, as well as ourselves; what we achieve now will yield eternal, continual fruit to the Lord. &nbsp;See on Mt. 25:27.</p>