pounds

171:8.1They did not start from Jeri­cho un­til near noon since they sat up late the night be­fore while Je­sus taught Zac­cheus and his fam­ily the gospel of the king­dom. About half­way up the as­cend­ing road to Beth­any the party paused for lunch while the mul­ti­tude passed on to Je­ru­sa­lem, not know­ing that Je­sus and the apos­tles were go­ing to abide that night on the Mount of Olives.

171:8.2The para­ble of the pounds, un­like the para­ble of the tal­ents, which was in­tended for all the dis­ci­ples, was spo­ken more ex­clu­sively to the apos­tles and was largely based on the ex­pe­ri­ence of Archelaus and his fu­tile at­tempt to gain the rule of the king­dom of Judea. This is one of the few para­bles of the Mas­ter to be founded on an ac­tual his­toric char­ac­ter. It was not strange that they should have had Archelaus in mind inas­much as the house of Zac­cheus in Jeri­cho was very near the or­nate palace of Archelaus, and his aque­duct ran along the road by which they had de­parted from Jeri­cho.

171:8.3Said Je­sus: “You think that the Son of Man goes up to Je­ru­sa­lem to re­ceive a king­dom, but I de­clare that you are doomed to dis­ap­point­ment. Do you not re­mem­ber about a cer­tain prince who went into a far coun­try to re­ceive for him­self a king­dom, but even be­fore he could re­turn, the cit­i­zens of his prov­ince, who in their hearts had al­ready re­jected him, sent an em­bassy af­ter him, say­ing, ‘We will not have this man to reign over us’? As this king was re­jected in the tem­po­ral rule, so is the Son of Man to be re­jected in the spir­i­tual rule. Again I de­clare that my king­dom is not of this world; but if the Son of Man had been ac­corded the spir­i­tual rule of his peo­ple, he would have ac­cepted such a king­dom of men’s souls and would have reigned over such a do­min­ion of hu­man hearts. Not­with­stand­ing that they re­ject my spir­i­tual rule over them, I will re­turn again to re­ceive from oth­ers such a king­dom of spirit as is now de­nied me. You will see the Son of Man re­jected now, but in an­other age that which the chil­dren of Abra­ham now re­ject will be re­ceived and ex­alted.

171:8.4“And now, as the re­jected no­ble­man of this para­ble, I would call be­fore me my twelve ser­vants, spe­cial stew­ards, and giv­ing into each of your hands the sum of one pound, I would ad­mon­ish each to heed well my in­struc­tions that you trade dili­gently with your trust fund while I am away that you may have where­with to jus­tify your stew­ard­ship when I re­turn, when a reck­on­ing shall be re­quired of you.

171:8.5“And even if this re­jected Son should not re­turn, an­other Son will be sent to re­ceive this king­dom, and this Son will then send for all of you to re­ceive your re­port of stew­ard­ship and to be made glad by your gains.

171:8.6“And when these stew­ards were sub­se­quently called to­gether for an ac­count­ing, the first came for­ward, say­ing, ‘Lord, with your pound I have made ten pounds more.’ And his mas­ter said to him: ‘Well done; you are a good ser­vant; be­cause you have proved faith­ful in this mat­ter, I will give you au­thor­ity over ten cities.’ And the sec­ond came, say­ing, ‘Your pound left with me, Lord, has made five pounds.’ And the mas­ter said, ‘I will ac­cord­ingly make you ruler over five cities.’ And so on down through the oth­ers un­til the last of the ser­vants, on be­ing called to ac­count, re­ported: ‘Lord, be­hold, here is your pound, which I have kept safely done up in this nap­kin. And this I did be­cause I feared you; I be­lieved that you were un­rea­son­able, see­ing that you take up where you have not laid down, and that you seek to reap where you have not sown.’ Then said his lord: ‘You neg­li­gent and un­faith­ful ser­vant, I will judge you out of your own mouth. You knew that I reap where I have ap­par­ently not sown; there­fore you knew this reck­on­ing would be re­quired of you. Know­ing this, you should have at least given my money to the banker that at my com­ing I might have had it with proper in­ter­est.’

171:8.7“And then said this ruler to those who stood by: ‘Take the money from this sloth­ful ser­vant and give it to him who has ten pounds.’ And when they re­minded the mas­ter that such a one al­ready had ten pounds, he said: ‘To ev­ery one who has shall be given more, but from him who has not, even that which he has shall be taken away from him.’”

171:8.8And then the apos­tles sought to know the dif­fer­ence be­tween the mean­ing of this para­ble and that of the for­mer para­ble of the tal­ents, but Je­sus would only say, in an­swer to their many ques­tions: “Pon­der well these words in your hearts while each of you finds out their true mean­ing.”

171:8.9It was Na­than­iel who so well taught the mean­ing of these two para­bles in the af­ter years, sum­ming up his teach­ings in these con­clu­sions:

171:8.101. Abil­ity is the prac­ti­cal mea­sure of life’s op­por­tu­ni­ties. You will never be held re­spon­si­ble for the ac­com­plish­ment of that which is be­yond your abil­i­ties.

171:8.112. Faith­ful­ness is the unerring mea­sure of hu­man trust­wor­thi­ness. He who is faith­ful in lit­tle things is also likely to ex­hibit faith­ful­ness in ev­ery­thing con­sis­tent with his en­dow­ments.

171:8.123. The Mas­ter grants the lesser re­ward for lesser faith­ful­ness when there is like op­por­tu­nity.

171:8.134. He grants a like re­ward for like faith­ful­ness when there is lesser op­por­tu­nity.

171:8.14When they had fin­ished their lunch, and af­ter the mul­ti­tude of fol­low­ers had gone on to­ward Je­ru­sa­lem, Je­sus, stand­ing there be­fore the apos­tles in the shade of an over­hang­ing rock by the road­side, with cheer­ful dig­nity and a gra­cious majesty pointed his fin­ger west­ward, say­ing: “Come, my breth­ren, let us go on into Je­ru­sa­lem, there to re­ceive that which awaits us; thus shall we ful­fill the will of the heav­enly Fa­ther in all things.”

171:8.15And so Je­sus and his apos­tles re­sumed this, the Mas­ter’s last jour­ney to Je­ru­sa­lem in the like­ness of the flesh of mor­tal man.