Taking Care of Business
And he called ten of his slaves, and gave them ten minas, and said to them, “Do business with this until I come back.” Luke 19:13 NASB
Do Business – Yeshua spoke more about money than he did about heaven. He knew where we are most confused. Here he provides us with a startling parable about economic expectation. We know this story, but we rarely reflect on its dramatic conclusion. Yeshua tells us that the one who safeguarded what was entrusted to him but took no risks on behalf of the master is unworthy of even what was given. His assets will be forcibly taken from him and given to the one who risked the most.
Is that the way you handle God’s investment in you? Are you pushing the edge of the envelope, attempting to do all that you can with what you have been given in order that you may deliver the maximum return to the Master?
Let’s not be confused about this. The Greek word here finds its root in pragma (something to be done). Our word (pragmateuomai) simply means, “taking care of business, to be occupied in trade.” This is not limited to spiritual gifts. This is about the daily give and take of the work-world. It’s about putting all that you have into service for the King while He is absent. The underlying assumption is this: It’s not yours to do with as you please. Your current assets, all of them, are on loan to you in order for you to maximize the return for the owner. That means your time, your natural talent and your treasure. Are you using all of it for His maximum gain?
Consider the fate of the poor servant who thought the goal was safekeeping. He is stripped of what he has and cast out of the kingdom as an unfaithful servant. He didn’t take risks. He didn’t venture forth. He didn’t trade to the max. And he is severely judged for his cowardice. Who do you think God wants as a steward? The one who makes sure nothing bad can happen or the one who risks it all for the sake of the Kingdom? In God’s economics, failure is better than fear and trying is better than timidity.
Everyone is involved in pragmateuomai. We all have assets and we all interact with the world. We are all “traders.” But we are not all adventurers, venture capitalists, explorers, inventors or champions for the Kingdom. Far too many of us squander our assets on everything but return on investment. We spend our trading potential on items that have no serviceable use for the Kingdom. We think accumulating is the same as investing. We fear risk because we do not believe that God will provide. That kind of economics results in Luke 19:26 (“take even what he has”). Yeshua calls these people his enemies!
What kind of return on investment are you producing?
Topical Index: pragmateuomai, doing business, Luke 19:13
Geez, Skip, why can’t you just always be positive and encouraging, like a good Christian, and just make us feel good and happy with ourselves? ; )
lol..because then Skip would not be being Skip and the world would be a smaller place..
Perhaps those positive and encouraging Christians are happy because they have learned that the slaves don’t inherit what belongs to the Father, and as sons and daughters they view /treat their father’s “business” and possessions differently.
Perhaps…..
Perhaps on a different level this parable has more to do with the interaction between master and slave then slave and world. It is right to say are we doing all we can for the master, but in this case perhaps the masters ’10’ is not money but ’10 utterances’ that the Jew would have associated as a number of special spiritual meaning. Have we taken God’s spoken word and put it to profitable use for our selves and the community?
Or have we held (read it, heard it, consumed it) it and returned it as we were given it?
I am beginning to suspect that this parable may have hints of HOW love works in reality, and what true riches really are.
Love is not a noun. Things can be gathered and stored, but love is more like electricity than like money. Love is a creative force; an energy source and a catalyst. As such, love is HOW we connect not only with ourselves, others, God and the cosmos, it may well be the only way we can connect with the present; or, with life itself. Love is a flow; a vector of flow, and not an end result. Love leaves behind itself an endless stream of nouns; of results, and by this trail of goodness, we know that love has passed that way, but by the time you see the ‘evidence’ of things not yet seen, love has already come and passed (past) on.
The things of God are also verbs. By the time they become past tense, materialized in reality, they can be utilized for even MORE goodness (passed on again), or for evil (hoarded like manna, buried in bank vaults like money or grounded out like electricity). If we are to become dealers; vectors of the verbs of God we are going to have to learn to stay in the moment; in the present, where things are not yet things, and riches consist of stuff like how connected you are with all around you and how powerful a charge of love can be sustained THROUGH you at any given moment.
The measure of a good steward may well be the measure of how well we can get out of the way and just let God have His Way in us, and let the dead (past) bury (gather, count and hoard THINGS) its own dead. Love will have already passed (past) on in its pace with the present, or life. Life, ultimately, is not about bread and money. Life is about staying in the place where “every word out of the mouth of God” can be heard. This is the place of creation of reality; of true choice, which, to be free, will be in agreement with the choices that God is making, for He will always be where freedom is. Everywhere else is going to be one step behind; a reaction TO reality instead of the creation OF reality, which only true faith can do. Faith, then, is the hand we use to grab on to true riches, but love is the hand we use to pass them on, like any good electrical current. I suspect that a real storage barn of real riches may look more like a transformer than a bank.
Skip: your lessons are a part of our daily lives.
Laurita: this is true for you too.
God has graced you with wonder filled playgrounds (workplaces) of perspectives that are enlightening. They come from the land of “I would not have thought of that.”. Your playground mansion, indeed, has many varied and lavish rooms.
Thanks.
Glad you feel that way. I often wonder if I am just disturbed and wandering around looking for a door to get inside.
Skip, you are on an amazing journey of guess-and-check, which is obedience, if you stop and think about it, for you are honoring your sovereign gift of choice by exercising it in ever new ways. We should all learn how to not accept anybody else’s choices when it comes to our own salvation, but be Berean. Your obedience opens up the possibilities for obedience of all around you. Thank you for paving the way!
Lloyd, I want to thank you, and especially your ears, for, believe it or not, I am beginning to believe that without your ears, and the ears of others, I would not ‘get’ what I get, either. I literally ‘get it’ when you do! I would be so less me without you. THANK YOU, and all of you, too, for making me rich. I get given what you all happen to get BECAUSE you get it, and, in the process, I get it too! Hurray for the Body!
This comment is not about me but by way of processing as an example, call it transparency of heart. It seems we must discern the vast differences between the Kingdom of Jahh and the Kingdom of this present world system, the two being simultaneously coexisting but mutually exclusive. Be mindful we are not talking about organic matter but rather driving principles of it’s use and outcomes with it. I have long struggled with the limits I have had on my ability to gain or make wealth. The kind of wealth I see about me has long eluded me. Yet the potential remains. That can be disheartening and frustrating. However the longer I walk with Jahh the deeper my trust in him grows and the less I feel the loss of this worlds rewards. Mainly because since I started in the University I have been guided by the command “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.” I long pray and hope for the season for the adding. Yet as I reap, sow and bundle and sell the harvests of my life it seems the thing that is building the fastest is my trust and wisdom in Jahh not my bank account. Someone said to me during an interview for a project “you have a huge personality.’ Perhaps my soul is out growing my bank account and that pleases Abba? It’s hard to seek first the kingdom of God when this worlds pleasures, and profits are so readily apparent and his is well, less valued, less considered, and less rewarded. Not to go off tangent on your fine encouragement to get at the work of getting all you can get Skip. But your challenge is not as simple or easily resolved in the context of a moral and just God and our place in a wicked and self serving culture. One that tends to reward lying cheating and stealing more than righteousness. it simply is not as easy to make an honest buck as used it to be. but perhaps all this is but an evasion technique from receiving needed conviction? I hope not…
“Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength…and mount up with wings like eagles” A poem on pressing on in Messiah, his way…from worksofwords.live
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Looking for a better life, trusting in the God of lights.
Ready for a better way, It’s time today.
The old things have passed away, ready for a new way; at last it’s today.
We to often sit and hide in fear rather than advance into what’s clear.
To doubt and hesitate is to sit beside the prison gate, don’t sit until it’s too late!.
I am not what I do nor with whom I do it; I am defined more by why I am about it.
Our self-serving schemes obscure our dreams and hinder the grasp of reality. We see what we want or want what we see, missing what’s real amidst the fog of need or greed.
To feel and be truly present with our companions along the way is what makes me real today!
My plans have brought me here too this place that’s so near and yet so far from satisfying.
But what is the answer in finding my way oh my God and master?
“Contentment, in the path revealed as you follow me into your dreams should be your Ideal.”
I stand beside the doors, of past and future opportunities. I can not truly see what’s behind or before yet I trust and wait beside the door!.
All I know is that I go not alone, and he who has led me this far will lead me further still.
“Trust in me to lead that is your need”!.
To trust in you to lead that is my need and greatest hope to succeed!
Hello folks doesn’t the Lord constantly remind us that he wants to bless the work of our hands!!!!!! Whether good or bad the Lord is not mocked whatsoever we so we shall also reap not just with the lifestyle choice following the Lord or not the fruit of the spirit of the fruit of the flesh definitely about finances cast your bread upon the Water and it shall come flowing back to you some add, and the same amount of attention you give to His word it will return to you some 40 fold some 60 fold and some 100-fold. Something that I am very interested in . Insights anyone? Thank you.
All we have to do is wiggle and He will show up to push and steer, is what I have found.
I find the issue really is to step out of the boat. Peter did not walk on water; no one can not do that. He stepped out in and then onto real faith, it is a very solid supernatural substance. It’s getting out of the comfort of the boat that is the trick…
Agreed, I believe we need to step out of the boat, but at the Lord’s request as in the case of Peter and walking on water whent he Lord said, “Come.”
I received, in answer to a specific prayer about direction, ‘forge ahead and I will show you the way.
‘ In this answer to the particular prayer request, I was encouraged to forge ahead as I was desiring with the knowlege that the way would be provided as I do so. However, since then in the “working world” and without prayer at first, I forged ahead and “failed” in my desired endeavor. I did not place my request before the Lord but in my on strength and of my own volition I forged ahead.
So, get out of the boat, but preface you getting with prayer and wait on the Lord.
Sorry for the typographical errors.
The message is trust God and watch how the kingdom grows.
OR, trust in yourself and watch the chips fall where they may.
Scripture says: “for it is God who works in you to will and to act
according to His good purpose.”
Either you believe that, act on it, or you don’t.