Fivetalentguy is my moniker on Gmail, and I used to use it on Yahoo! and Hotmail. I’ve often been asked what my five talents are, a question I’ve tried to answer here. Just listing them, however, without context or background to give them meaning seems shallow. So allow me to introduce my self and offer an explanation for why I think of myself as fivetalentguy.
I was raised in a Christian home, what would now be called a Fundamentalist Christian home, even though it lacked the rigid discipline, structural ignorance, and hostility to liberal ideals often now associated with fundamentalist Christianity. I received my first award for perfect church attendance at the age of three. The church presented me with a handsome red-letter edition of the King James Version of the Bible. I had that Bible for many years, and once I learned to read, I pored over it assiduously. There were many things in it that I did not understand, but I kept at it, learning to love and cherish it. I spent time meditating on its meaning and trying to apply what it said to my own life.
It should come as no surprise, then, that several years ago, I spent several days pondering a story Jesus told often called 1The Parable of the Talents1. In it, Jesus describes a businessman who goes on an extended trip. Before leaving, he calls in three of his trusted employees and gives each of them a sum of money to invest. To the first he gives five talents—on the order of $10 million in today’s currency. To the second he gives two talents, and to the third one talent.
The first employee shows initiative and drive. He finds worthwhile investments and puts the boss’s money to work. Before long, he has doubled his investment. The second employee does the same, likewise doubling his boss’s money. But the third employee takes the money, digs a hole in his backyard, and buries the talent he received.
After some time, the businessman returns from his trip and summons the three employees to account for what they have done with this money. The first brings in his ten talents and says, “Look, sir, you gave me five talents, and I used them to earn five more.”
“Well done!” says the businessman. “I will put you in charge of ten divisions in my multinational corporation.”
Like wise, the second employee says, “Look, sir, you gave me two talents, and I used them to earn two more.”
“Well done!” says the businessman. “I will put you in charge of four divisions.”
Everyone turns to the third employee. He says, “Sir, I know what a tough businessman you are, making hostile takeovers and corporate raids, so I was afraid. I kept your talent safe. See, here is what belongs to you.”
“A lazy bum! That’s what you are,” the businessman replied. “I will evaluate you by your own words. So you knew I was a tough businessman, did you? Then why didn’t you put my money on deposit with a lender? Then I would have at least received interest on it. Instead you did nothing at all with what I gave you. You’re fired. Get out!”
Then he turned to his assistant. “Take the talent from him,” he said, “and give it to the guy who has ten talents.”
“But, sir,” said the assistant, “he already has ten.”
“That’s right,” said the businessman. “Everyone who has will be given more, but he who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him..”
I had been considering this parable for several days and found myself identifying more and more with the lazy man who had been given just one talent. I was just coming out of a period of depression, and as I looked back over my life, it seemed to me that I had done so little with the talents God had give me. I felt that God must be disappointed, maybe even angry, with me.
One day I was out walking late at night, feeling the weight of my own inadequacies and mulling over this parable. I was praying and confessing my weaknesses and telling God how sorry I was for being a one-talent loser. The truth is, I was feeling sorry for myself and indulging in self-pity. Quite unexpectedly, God spoke to me.
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced God speaking to you. I will try to describe it. It was not an audible voice. I did not feel myself to be in the presence of anything spooky or otherworldly or eerie. Rather, my thoughts were interrupted by a thought that was so completely alien to what I was thinking and feeling at the time, that I can only describe it as coming from outside myself, though of course it was in my head. What the voice in my head said was this:
“You are not the one-talent guy in the story.”
“I’m not?” I asked incredulously.
“No,” said God, “You are the five-talent guy.”
I can hardly describe the impact those words had on me. In an instant my whole thinking about myself changed. I forgot my self-pity. I suddenly saw myself as capable, as having abilities I had not yet tapped, but that I could still put to use. By the time I returned home from my walk, I was a changed man. I had set out a one-talent loser, but I had returned a five-talent guy. I had faith. I had hope. I had initiative. I had drive. From that day, I began to do what I could with what I had.
- You can find this parable in Matthew 25:13-30. I have taken a few liberties with it and made it more capitalist, so I could relate to it better. ↩︎
Footnotes
- 1The Parable of the Talents