🏠 Parables of the Bible — Unit 14: Foundations and Faithfulness

Orientation

Matthew's Gospel contains five great blocks of Jesus' teaching, and the first and last of them end with parables that look ahead to a day of testing. The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) closes with two builders whose houses face a great storm. The Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24–25), Jesus' last extended teaching before the cross, closes with a series of parables about servants who must give account when their master returns, including the parable of the talents. The two parables in this unit belong together. The first asks what we are building on; the second asks what we are doing with what we have been given. Both look toward the day when every life will be tested.

This unit brings the study of individual parables to its end. The final unit will teach how to preach the parables. It is fitting that the last two parables we study are about hearing and doing, receiving and investing, for that is exactly what Jesus asks of every student of His parables.

I. The Wise and Foolish Builders (Matthew 7:24–29)

"Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock" (7:24). The word "therefore" gathers up the entire Sermon on the Mount: the Beatitudes, salt and light, the deeper righteousness, love for enemies, secret prayer and giving, freedom from worry, and the narrow gate. Jesus ends His greatest sermon not with another teaching but with a picture that demands a decision.

In the land of Israel there are dry streambeds called wadis. In the summer they look like pleasant, level, sandy places, perfect for a house. But when the winter rains come to the hills, a wadi can become a raging torrent in minutes, sweeping away everything in its path. The wise builder did the hard work; Luke says he "dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock" (Luke 6:48). The foolish builder took the easy way. For a season, both houses looked the same. The difference only appeared when "the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house" (7:25). One house stood. The other fell, "and great was its fall" (7:27).

Near where we lived in Mississippi there was a subdivision called Bogue Chitto Heights, built near the river. Most of the time it was a lovely place to live, but every so often the water rose, and in 1990 a flood reached the homes. You would not build there on sand. Yet many people build their spiritual lives exactly that way.

The foundation of sand is hearing without doing. Hearing is necessary, since no one can be saved without first hearing the message of Jesus. But hearing alone is sand. "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves" (James 1:22). Many build on other sands as well. Some build on selfishness, doing only what they like, like a child who says, "I don't want to." Some build on ambition, pushing others aside to succeed. Some build on the opinions of others, so that the voice of their neighbors is louder than the voice of God. Many build on work or things; many men reach retirement wishing they had spent less time earning a living and more time with their children. "Do not love the world or the things in the world" (1 John 2:15). All of these may look fine in the dry season.

The foundation of rock is hearing and doing, which is another way of saying obedience. Faith is more than agreeing with an idea; it involves a commitment to obey. A sailor in the British Royal Navy once described towing a small vessel through a rough sea. Suddenly the captain shouted, "Down!" Every man dropped to the deck instantly, and at that moment the steel towline snapped and whipped across the ship where they had been standing. Their lives depended on obeying without hesitation. Other teachers give advice; Jesus calls for that kind of wholehearted obedience. Building on the rock is hard work. It is not easy to pray for enemies, to return good for evil, or to trust God instead of worrying. That is why the storm matters.

The storm comes to every life. There are storms of trials (James 1:2), storms of loss of jobs, money, family, and friends, and finally the storm of death and judgment: "it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). Just before this parable, Jesus warned that many will say, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name?" and He will answer, "I never knew you" (7:22–23). Religious activity is not a foundation. The only true foundation is Christ Himself: "For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:11). When the Sermon ended, the people "were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority" (7:28–29). The One who came from heaven is the only one who can tell us how to get there.

II. The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14–30)

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them" (25:14). The parable stands in the Olivet Discourse between the ten virgins, who must be ready for a delayed bridegroom, and the sheep and the goats, where the nations are judged by how they treated "the least of these." All three teach how to live while the Master is away.

The master gave one servant five talents, another two, and another one, "to each according to his own ability" (25:15). A talent was an enormous sum, roughly fifteen to twenty years of a laborer's wages. Even the servant who received one talent was entrusted with a fortune. Our English word "talent," meaning a natural ability, comes from this very parable, but in the story a talent is money, and it stands for everything God entrusts to His servants: time, abilities, opportunities, possessions, and above all the message of the kingdom.

Notice that stewardship begins with receiving. Before we can give anything to God, we must first receive from Him. Everything the servants had came from their master. They were not owners but stewards, exactly like the tenants of Unit 13. "Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful" (1 Corinthians 4:2).

The first two servants went at once and traded, and each doubled what he had received. The third "went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord's money" (25:18). Burying money was considered the safest way to protect it in that culture, and Jewish law of the time treated a man who buried money entrusted to him as having taken proper care of it. From the world's point of view, he did the careful thing. But he was not given the money to keep it safe. He was given it to put it to work.

"After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them" (25:19). The delay is important. The master was gone a long time, long enough for faithfulness or unfaithfulness to become clear. Every servant would give an account. "So then each of us shall give account of himself to God" (Romans 14:12). Accountability protects us from ourselves. In 1995, Barings, the oldest bank in Britain, collapsed after a single young trader in its Singapore office lost nearly a billion dollars on risky bets. Investigators found that he had been allowed to control both his trading and his own record-keeping. No one was checking his books. Without accountability, temptation becomes overwhelming.

To the first two servants the master said exactly the same words: "Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord" (25:21, 23). The man with two talents received the same praise as the man with five. God does not measure us by the size of our gifts but by our faithfulness with what He has given. Faithfulness, not the amount, earns the "well done."

Luke records a similar parable, the parable of the minas (Luke 19:11–27), told as Jesus approached Jerusalem. There each of ten servants receives the same amount, one mina, and they produce different results: one earns ten minas, another five. Matthew's servants receive different amounts and are praised equally for equal faithfulness. Read together, the two parables teach complementary truths. God gives some gifts to all His people alike, such as the gospel and the privilege of serving, and He distributes other gifts differently according to ability. In both, what He looks for is the same: faithful use of what He has entrusted until He comes.

The third servant explained himself: "Lord, I knew you to be a hard man... And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground" (25:24–25). His problem began with a false picture of his master. He saw him as harsh and demanding, so fear paralyzed him. The master called him "wicked and lazy" and said he could at least have put the money with the bankers to earn interest (25:26–27). Then came the principle we met in Unit 7: "For to everyone who has, more will be given... but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away" (25:29; compare Mark 4:25). Gifts used grow; gifts buried are lost.

The unprofitable servant was cast "into the outer darkness" (25:30). Christians read this sentence in different ways. Many understand the third servant as someone who belonged to the master's household outwardly but never truly knew or trusted him, so his judgment shows that he was never a genuine servant. Others read him as a believer who suffers severe loss of reward, though that reading must explain the strength of the language. Still others see here a warning that a person who once professed faith can fall away through unbelief. Students should know these views. All agree on the urgent point: we must not bury what God has entrusted to us.

Faithfulness is not always measured by visible results. Victor Landero, an uneducated farmer in Colombia with a scandalous past, was converted and became a gifted evangelist. In fifteen years he led hundreds, perhaps thousands, to Christ and planted churches in village after village. Then he moved deep into the jungle to reach a tribe that had never heard the gospel. Fifteen years later a missionary visitor asked whether there was a church among them yet. "No," Victor answered quietly. Then he added, "I will spend the rest of my life with them, because that is where my heart is." That is the faithfulness the master praised.

III. What the Two Parables Teach Together

These two parables stand at the end of Jesus' first and last great discourses, and together they answer two questions every disciple must face. First, what are we building on? Second, what are we doing with what we have received? The wise builder hears and does. The faithful servant receives and invests. The foolish builder hears and does nothing. The unfaithful servant receives and buries. In both parables, the difference is invisible for a time: two houses look alike in the dry season, and a buried talent looks safe while the master is away. But the storm comes, and the master returns.

Neither parable teaches that we are saved by our works. The wise builder's house stands because of the rock beneath it, and that rock is Christ. The faithful servants work with money that was entirely their master's gift. But both parables teach that genuine faith always shows itself in obedience and faithfulness. As James put it, faith without works is dead (James 2:26). A foundation that is really on the rock will produce a house that stands; a servant who really knows his master's goodness will not bury his gift in fear.

IV. Preaching Foundations and Faithfulness

The builders preach well in three movements: the foundation of sand (hearing without doing, and the false foundations of selfishness, ambition, opinion, work, and things), the foundation of rock (obedience and Christ Himself), and the storm (trials, loss, and finally death and judgment). The talents can be preached as a series of contrasts: it is not how much time we have but how we use it; not how much we have but how faithfully we invest it; not how successful we look but how faithful we are; not what we keep for ourselves but what we put to work for the Master. Close either sermon with the day of accounting and the joy of hearing, "Well done."

Closing

Two houses stood side by side in the sun, and no one could tell the difference until the storm. Three servants received their master's goods, and no one could tell the difference until he returned. The storm is coming, and so is the Master. The question is not how impressive our house looks or how large our gift is. It is whether we have built on the Rock, and whether we have been faithful with what He placed in our hands. May every one of us hear at the last, "Well done, good and faithful servant... Enter into the joy of your lord."

— Dr. Wayne Cook
Chapala Theological Seminary

Submit Exam & Check Pass Reset