this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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Thanks for your response, but I don’t think I was promoting prosperity gospel? I understand that this parable is a favorite of theirs, but as you correct pointed out, there’s more to Jesus than that, and the point of the parable is by no means to rag on poor people, but on people who make poor decisions.
My understanding is that if someone has little talent but still makes the most of it, that person is still more welcome in the Kingdom of Heaven than someone who has a lot but makes little use of it. In other words, if it was the servant who received the most money who ended up burying it and making no profit, it would have been him who would be cast out instead. See also the Parable of the Wedding Feast, where everyone receives exactly the same (an invitation to the king’s wedding), but one person shows up without the proper clothes on.
What types of poor decisions? Decisions in faith? Family? Finance? Fitness? From the top level comment of the comment thread I read it as finance as that's the thing related to food in the original post. I read this story as our stewardship of things God gives us. (Everything from the work of our hands to our minds to our relationships to wealth) He who is given much should use them and not keep them hidden away for later
Talent refers to money in the literal sense (Or more accurately a weight for metals which could be traded as money) It is a large amount of money.
The parable of the wedding feast is about people neglecting their faith and still expecting to be a part of the Kingdom of God. It's not about how much money they have, but instead if they actually practice their faith. If you know the scriptures, but say you'll be righteous later, then you're that person who isn't clothed for the feast. We are called to keep our faith and grow faith in others with the gifts that God gives us.
Supply Side Jesus on the other hand tells us that it's not worth investing our time and resources into people who are poor, and that instead the rich will lead us to have an efficient church. That is fundamentally backwards to Christianity, as it is the poor, the hurt and the suffering who need it the most. There's a reason why some churches put the Beatitudes in their liturgy. But at the same time, this is how our welfare system is run. To get the freeloaders off
Poor decisions with regard to the use of their natural (i.e. God-given) talents. Nobody is ever going to make perfect decisions in all areas of their lives, and that's not what Jesus requires, either. After all, the whole point of people having different talents is for them to work to together so they can complement each other's abilities.
My point was merely to show that the biblical Jesus does in fact stop investing in people because he's not seeing any results from them. It's not really my fault if you're reading in things about shareholder value or whatever, is it?
Yes, but remember that Supply Side Jesus is a caricature, and it's created by exaggerating certain aspects of Jesus and diminishing others. But so is socialist Jesus, who only heals and feeds people for free and never asks for anything in return.
I agree, and there are plenty of exhortations on that in the Gospel where Jesus reminds people to use their riches to take care of the poor among them. But he does not let the poor off the hook either, like in the story you mentioned earlier with the poor woman giving what little she has being more righteous than the rich man who donates very little. Meanwhile, proponents of socialist Jesus seem to think they should only ever receive blessings and not be asked to give anything back. They are like the guy in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, who had his debt forgiven by his master and then beat up his fellow man for owing him a fraction of that.
The long and short of it is that in order for the whole Jesus thing to work, you cannot just sit around all day and wait to be fed. You do at least have to make an effort to contribute something, however little it might me, otherwise you're wasting your talents.