Become More: The Parable of the Talents

The parable of the talents is often read as a story about money, productivity, or making the most of what we have. But underneath it lies something far more personal for me: a challenge to conquer myself. To conquer oneself is to confront the fears, insecurities, weaknesses, appetites, habits, and limitations that prevent us from becoming who we were created to be. In this sense, the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14–30 remains profoundly relevant. Lord Jesus tells a story of a master who entrusts his servants with “talents,” giving each one an amount “according to his ability.” The master does not give everyone the same amount, but each person is given something with which they are expected to work, and thus, making them solely responsible for what has been placed in their hands.

The significance is not simply in how much each servant received, but in what they did with what they received. The servant with five talents developed them and gained five more. The servant with two did the same and gained two more. But the servant with one, fear-stricken, buried it in the ground. His mistake wasn’t that he had less; it was that he neglected and utterly refused to develop what he had. That is still painfully relevant today. We live in an age of comparison, where it is easy to look at someone else’s opportunities, gifts, income, lifestyle, and assume we are falling behind and need to lock-in. However, we are not all given the same circumstances, intelligence, resources, or responsibilities. Some people are given five talents, others two, and perhaps another only one, but not one person on earth is given nothing. We waste our potential when we become so consumed with what someone else has on their plate that we neglect the ‘food’ that's staring at us on our own plate.

The “talents” can therefore represent far more than money. They can represent our time, creativity, relationships, opportunities, character, knowledge, and potential. At the end of the day, what matters is whether we cultivate them. We are tasked to take the talents that GOD put inside of us and enhance them externally. A person who practices wisdom develops greater wisdom. Someone who repeatedly chooses courage becomes all the more courageous. Someone who practices responsibility becomes capable of carrying greater responsibility. Lord Jesus establishes this principle where he would later say, “For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.” (Matthew 25:29 NIV). This is the expansion of our beingness in full display: we don’t merely acquire more, we become capable of handling more. The talent grows, but so does the person holding it. In that sense, we can take comfort that the talents were given “according to their ability.” God is not careless with what He places on us. He sees the limits we cannot always articulate, the burdens we already carry, and the potential we have yet to harness. 

And this brings us back to the conquest of self. Before we can properly steward greater things, there are parts of ourselves that must be brought under control or eliminated entirely. Fear must be demolished. Laziness must be challenged. Pride must be humbled. Every time we make better decisions with the ‘talents’ we are given, we expand our capacity. We become individuals who can carry what the person we used to be could not. And perhaps this is why GOD seems to give us “more” precisely after we have become capable of carrying more–not because our worth has increased, but because our capacity has. Capacity attracts responsibility. He will give us more once we become more, provided we understand “become more” not as becoming more valuable to GOD, but as developing greater capacity to faithfully steward what He entrusts to us. You don’t become more valuable as you cultivate your talents, you become more capable. 

Ultimately, the Parable of the Talents challenges us to stop measuring our lives solely by what we have and begin measuring them by who we are becoming. We cannot always choose how many talents we are alloted, where we started, or what circumstances surround us at every given moment. But we can decide whether we shall cultivate the talents we were given or if they will accompany us to the grave. The parable asks us to recognize that even what seems small can contain the beginning of something greater. Perhaps the greatest question is therefore not, “How much did God give me?” but “What am I becoming with what He’s already given me?” To conquer ourselves is to refuse to remain the person we were when we first received our talents.