"For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."
Luke 19:26-27
These verses sound pretty scary out of context, but in context they aren't that bad. This is the very end of the parable of the pounds, which is very similar to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. They are basically the same story, but they differ in minor ways. They might be each individual's retelling of the original story that Christ told, or Christ could have told it differently to different audiences as he traveled. The stories in context are clearly not about monetary wealth/consequences, but about spiritual wealth/consequences, but I think maybe the shock value of monetary inequity and deadly physical consequences is what either gets people to dig into it further or drives them away, thus separating those who are "able to hear" from those who are not yet ready (Mark 4:33).
Specifically for our purposes here, there are differences in the ending of the two versions of the story. Matthew's version says "cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness" rather than talking about slaying his enemies, which I think points to both of these parables being about the final judgement. At the judgement, everything will be taken into account... what we did with the life that God gave us. If we learned and grew and became better, then those improvements will be expanded upon, and if we did nothing, then we are going to lose the opportunities that we had in this life to grow and change and prepare ourselves to return to God.
It's sort of like the parable of the 10 virgins in that regard... if we have oil, we go into the wedding feast, and if we do not, we won't be admitted. The parable money or oil is spiritual so it isn't something that we can share or give away to others, it is something that each person gains through spiritual effort... such as baptism (symbolically asking God into our lives and being reborn into that relationship), prayer, repentance, studying the scriptures, attending church, joining in gospel discussion, following the prophets, obedience to the commandments, etc. It's similar to building your testimony. On the other side, the people who don't wish God to rule over them, and who accomplish nothing in life... or less than nothing because they are actively evil and make the world worse instead of better--those are the people that will be consigned to death, or outer darkness, or who are the tares, or the bad fruit, or who don't get into the feast (representing heaven) ... whatever parable you pick, they are the ones who are cast out or burned at the last day. Luckily, those people will be very few, because you have to actively work against God, knowing what you are doing, to get cast into outer darkness... that's satan-level stuff, not the mistakes that most of us or our friends are making, and likely zero of the people reading a scripture blog and actually trying to increase their understanding of the scriptures are going to fall into that category. :)
Today, let's make sure that we're improving on what God gave us, and working to be better people than we were yesterday. As we work to grow and help others, developing our relationship with and testimony of God, we're multiplying those spiritual pounds or talents, or gaining that oil, and we're preparing ourselves for a better life with God, rather than staying exactly as we are and wasting all that God has offered us. That's all he is asking us... to take advantage of the gifts that we are given, including the atonement, and embracing repentance and positive change. As we do, we will quite easily avoid outer darkness, and in time perhaps multiply our pounds or talents or oil even more.
No comments:
Post a Comment