This week's episode, God as a Businessman, and other reasons why business professionals like the parable of the talents. Welcome back to Theology of Business, the show that helps marketplace leaders integrate their faith into their businesses to make a greater impact in society and in eternity. If you want to learn more about how to partner with God in your business, this show is for you. This is a podcast by Christian business leaders or Christian business leaders. I'm your host, Darren Schear, author of the book Marketing Like Jesus and founder of High Bridge Books, which offers professional book publishing services for inspiring thought readers. If you're interested in publishing a book to spread your ideas, I want to share two free author training videos that I created for you. One is titled How to Write a Great Nonfiction Book, and the other is 12 Ways to Sell More Books. You can get the links to view both of these videos by requesting them at hybridgebooks.com forward slash videos. Based on my experience, if you ask a Bible-believing business professional to name a passage of the Bible that relates specifically to doing business, the person will most likely first mention the parable of the talents. And that is the parable as told by Jesus in Matthew chapter 25, verses 14 through 30. Of course, there are many other portions of scripture that relate directly to uh business people and helping them to apply biblical truth in the marketplace. Of course, the book of Proverbs is just chock full of incredible business wisdom. And in fact, most of the parables that Jesus told had a marketplace context. But today we're talking about the parable of the talents and specifically five reasons why I think this parable resonates, particularly with Christian business professionals. The first reason is that the master is being portrayed as a businessman in this parable. The parable of talents gives us a perspective of God that we don't usually hear about in modern churches on Sunday morning. Because in this parable, God isn't being presented as Father, Son, or the Holy Spirit, or as our Savior, friend, creator, or a miracle worker. In this parable, he's being portrayed as a businessman. Approximately 90% of the working population in the US works in a for-profit company. So because most of these people spend a significant portion of their lives in a business setting, viewing God as a businessman comes quite naturally for many of these business professionals. The second reason why I think this parable is so popular, why it resonates particularly with Christian business people, is that the master in this parable, who is really representing God, he gives challenges and assignments. In the parable, the master gave a clear challenge and assignment to his stewards, and that was to bring back more, basically to bring back more money than I'm giving you. He was about to go on a long journey and he called his stewards. And we don't know if there were more than three of them, but there were three of them that he said, You're in charge of my possessions. Go and do business with this investment that I'm giving to you and bring back more money than I'm giving you. What's the implication of why he entrusted this money? And so he gave a challenge, he gave an assignment to these stewards. And I think that business professionals really resonate with this because they like a good challenge, uh, especially when it's accompanied by clear expectations, and especially when it comes to the challenge of generating income. That's what business people do is generate income. The third reason why I think this parable resonates is because the master in this parable rewards diligence and productivity. The stewards in the parable the talents, they worked in an economic system in which they could be rewarded in proportion to their efforts and to their productivity. So you can imagine their morale was quite high working in this type of a situation. The parable seems to imply that God rewards hard work, which is an ethic that I think any successful business professional can appreciate. Business people, they enjoy working in environments where they can be rewarded for their diligence and results. In the parable, the diligence and productivity of the two faithful stewards, the two responsible, uh, the two hardworking stewards that actually produce results, their diligence and productivity is being contrasted with the slothfulness of the quote wicked, lazy slave, as Jesus said in Matthew 25, 26. So not only does God reward diligence from what we see here in the parable, but he punishes laziness. And that's how the marketplace works, and business professionals usually can appreciate that. The fourth reason why I think this parable resonates is because the master that we see here in the parable invests in his people. Although the master didn't give each of the three stewards equal amounts of currency, they received at least one talent to invest. So a single talent was about six thousand denarii, a denarius was one day's work. So a single talent was equivalent to the standard pay for approximately 20 years of labor. So 6,000 days of labor is about 20 years worth of labor. And if you basically went with uh about the average pay for uh for an employee in the US, that would come out to about half a million dollars over the course of 20 years. So 500,000 US dollars was approximately the equivalent of one talent. And and so even the one, even the steward that only got one talent, it would that talent was worth about a half a million dollars. So a very significant amount of money that this master entrusted to and really invested into these into these stewards. The fifth reason that I want to close out here with is that I think this parable speaks to and resonates with business people so much because it shows us that the master trusts his people and wants to partner with them. God wants to partner with his people. God trusts his people. Before the master went away on his journey, he told his three stewards, I'm leaving and I'm placing you three in charge. Now, of course, the master wouldn't have entrusted his possessions, especially we're talking about millions of dollars worth of talents that he entrusted to him. He wouldn't have done that if he didn't trust him. So the parable to me seems to imply that God has entrusted a certain amount of decision-making autonomy to his people. Consider what God has entrusted to us as his children, as his people, as his stewards. In 2 Peter 1 3, we see that he's entrusted everything pertaining to life and godliness. In Ephesians 1 3, every spiritual blessing in heavenly places God has given to us. In Matthew 28, he's given us his mission, the great commission. And seven in John 17 14, he's given us his word. In Genesis 1 28, he's given us the earth to subdue and to rule. In John chapter 17, he's given us his glory. In Matthew chapter 16, verse 19, he's given us the keys to the kingdom of heaven. In 1 Corinthians 4 1, he's given us his mysteries. In Deuteronomy 8 18, it says that he's given us the power to produce wealth to establish his covenant. In Genesis 12 2, he's given his people a great name. In 1 Corinthians 6 18 and 19, he's given us the temple of God and actually made us the temple of God in which to dwell. In John 3 16, he has given his only son. In Romans 11, 29, he has given his gifts and callings, which are without revocation. They cannot be revoked. And 1 Corinthians 4 7, in case we miss anything, it says that everything we have, we brought nothing into this world and we can take nothing out. So everything that we have has come to us because God trusts us. So when the master returned from his journey, he said to one of the two diligent stewards, Well done, good and faithful slave, you are faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master. So accepting and honoring the master's trust on the part of these faithful stewards resulted in even more responsibilities for them. When the master returned from his journey, notice that he didn't say, Now give me my money, you know, thanks a lot. Now give me my money and get back to work, you guys. Instead, he invited them to quote, enter into the joy of your master. What does that mean? I think, in other words, it means that he wanted them to recognize that they were in partnership together with the master. He didn't view them as merely peons and tools to get things done. He wanted them to see things from the master's perspective. And now consider that more than stewards, like are being depicted in this particular parable, it says in Romans 8.17 that we as his people, we are heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. And I think the parable of the talents helps to illuminate this reality for us. This reality that God wants to partner with us, that he wants us to see things the way he sees them. So here's our question for today. How does the parable of the talents speak to you concerning your business? I mean, does this parable resonate with you? And if so, in what way? That's all for this week. Thanks so much to Dr. Richard Peters and Mrs. Pamela Lee for taking the time to leave a five-star review for the Theology of Business podcast on iTunes. I so appreciate any multi-star reviews. I appreciate the feedback that I get there on iTunes. If there's a topic that you'd like to hear discussed on the Theology of Business podcast, feel free to reach out to me personally on Twitter at Darren Shear or through Theology of Business.com. I'd love to hear your feedback. And I would especially love to hear testimony of what God is doing in your business. Thanks for listening and keep partnering with God in your business.