Financial Responsibility

Matthew 25:14-15, “For it (the Kingdom of God) is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey.”

As much as I want to make the Parable of the talents about talent, time, energy, effort, the Holy Spirit will not let me escape the fact that the literal interpretation is about money. As a continuation of my post “Money… Money… Money” I feel as if God is holding me accountable not for the tithe, but for the other 90%, after all it ALL belongs to Him. God is the “Man” of the parable, and His absence from earth in fleshly form is part of the “journey.” And so clearly on one level God does observe our financial responsibility.

In Luke’s version of a similar parable the master gives money (minas) to 10 slaves not just three. The ending is slightly different in that only 3 return with any money at all. The other seven are not mentioned by I suspect, like most of us, they just went out and spent the money, and at the end of the period their bank account looked just like mine.

And so I don’t know that this is a doctrine for all of Christianity, but for me I feel God is very much observing me, wanting me to make good, godly decisions with what I earn. And not just godly decisions, but to have godly priorities. For me I have a keen godly driven desire to have no credit card debt. I feel that every month where the balances do not come down on the cards is a failure. In my household we have a budget. We may not always know where every penny is going, but we at least know where every penny has gone and work vigilantly to reduce that outflow. This I feel is God's desire and lesson for me.

I am working to having an emergency fund. I am working towards having three to six months reserves in the bank for time of famine like Joseph saved for, and Dave Ramsey preaches. But it is a slow process, and some days selfish desire conquers the discipline to obey. But step by step I get closer to learning God’s financial discipline for my life.

In the end God’s lesson is not about the financial, but about the responsibility. In the parables the reward for growing the money is more responsibility. So though financial responsibility is not a “salvation” issue it certainly is a reward issue that God would love to see us all attain. And beyond the spiritual/eternal consequences there are global real time kingdom consequences as well. Such as the reputation we give our faith when we confess Christ and then don’t pay our bills on time or at all. How many do we make stumble? Or have we considered the consequences of our inability to give to those in need because we have wasted God’s 90% on something considerably less meaningful.

I have to ask myself. What if Christ’s warning against the “love of money” was a warning of beware what and how you obtain it, and doesn't even apply to how you use it? And what if the parable of the talents and minas is a warning of beware how you use it? How many of us would miss our reward in heaven?

I for one am thankful that Christ does not want me to miss a single thing, and therefore instructs me daily how to move to be more like Him so that my reward can be all that He intended it to be. According to my ability as the parable says.