Power of Leveraging
Bible Texts
(Concordant Version of the Old Testament and Concordant Literal New
Testament with keywords Concordance (Main text: Matthew 25:24-29)
“24 Now, approaching, the one also having
gotten the one talent, said, 'Lord, I knew you, that you are a hard man,
reaping where you do not sow, and gathering whence you do not scatter.
25 And, being afraid, coming away, I hide your talent in the earth. Lo! you
have what is yours!'
26 "Now, answering, his lord said to him, 'Wicked and slothful slave! You
were aware that I am reaping where I do not sow, and gathering whence I do not
scatter.
27 It was binding on you, then, to be depositing my silver with the bankers,
and on coming, I should recover what is mine together with interest.
28 Take the talent away from him then, and give it to the one who has the ten
talents.'
29 For to everyone who has shall be given, and he shall have a superfluity, yet
from the one who has not, that also which he has shall be taken away from him”
Have you ever
heard from someone saying mother does it all? This is not to single out mothers
but to lay more emphasis on the fact that you may not need to do it all by yourself.
The world is changing but I am surprised that many people are not leveraging to
achieve their objectives. Leveraging your talents can help you to work smart instead of working hard.
However, it is sad that some bury their talent(s) when they can leverage them. Why is this so?
According to an online
Cambridge dictionary, leveraging is when you use what you already have to
achieve something better. I believe it is a way of administering your available
resources to work for you while you sleep or do something else. For your information, talent is a
measure of valuable things like gold and silver. However, it is also a valuable
gift that can be utilized to generate monetary value. This scripture passage actually connotationally discuss something of monetary value. However, we can learn from this passage because talents are also gifts that can help generate profits, dividends, goals, interests and desired results.
In the above
passage, Yeshua spoke of a man among the three Stewards who were given talents
to trade with while their Master went away for a far journey. When the Master
arrived, he summoned these three Stewards to give account of how they had traded with the talents given to them.
My focus is
mostly on the third Steward. He was the person expected to do his best at just
one talent trusted into his hands by his Master. However, he was not able to trade with it. You may be wondering why he was afraid to trade his talent for profit. He was probably afraid of losing it or afraid of not
making profit from it. He may also be afraid of not being able to impress his Master whom somehow always have
high expectation from his Stewards.
Somehow, this third
Steward buried the talent trusted to his hands. This is a shame. It means he
could not carry out the assignment given to him. He forgot about this
assignment and went around doing something else. When his Master arrived, he had
to rush and dig out the talent from the ground to give back to his Master. If
you were this Master, what would you have done to this Steward? Would you say all
is well? No!
His responses to the Master were disgraceful. He stated
that his Master expected too much from him. He stated that his master was a
hard man. He stated that his Master likes to reap from where he did not sow. He
ended up by saying that his Master likes to gather from where he does not scatter.
The question is, was this third Steward correct? Absolutely not! You see, Hosea
4:6 says that my people perish due to lack of wisdom. Wisdom is the principal
thing because the beginning of wisdom is to first acquire wisdom. Then, with
all your acquisitions, acquire understanding (Proverbs 4:7).
This third
Steward was schooled by his Master on how to apply wisdom to life. He simply
told him that he accused him wrongly because he lacked wisdom. What was the
wisdom this third Steward lacked? He should have deposited this talent with the
bankers so that the talent would have yielded more interest. Wow! So, you, see?
If the third Steward had applied wisdom to his life, he would have made interest
on the talent trusted into his hands just like the other 2 Stewards.
For lack of wisdom,
the talent trusted into his hands was given to the first Steward who more
talents were entrusted into. Why? It was because he had demonstrated wisdom
by yielding 5 more talents on the 5 trusted into his hands. Meanwhile, the
third servant was cast out of his Master’s house and he became jobless. He cried
for mercy and it appeared that it was too late. He was slothful, shallow-minded
and full of excuses. Yahweh loved people to be hardworking but he also loves
people to apply wisdom on their given task(s). Please, understand that the wisdom
from above (i.e. from Yahweh) is first, indeed, pure, thereupon peaceable,
lenient, compliant, bulging with mercy and good fruits, undiscriminating,
unfeigned (James 3:17). Therefore, if anyone of you is lacking wisdom, let him be
requesting it from God, who is gives to all generously and is not reproaching,
and it shall be given to him (James 1:5). Please, do not say you do not have
talent. You do not want someone else to have it, belief me.
In conclusion,
many people are practicing leveraging without knowing it while some people are
yet to do so. In my humble opinion, I believe if everyone digs out their
talents and leverage them through those who can help promote them, we can make more profits from these talents. So, I encourage everyone to trust in
Yahweh for blessing our talents as we leverage them to those, he sends to
us/send us to in order to achieve our goals. Remember that that you do not have
to do it all by yourself. Someone needs to plant while someone else needs to water
for Yahweh to bring increase. Among other people in the scriptures that
leveraged their talents were Abraham (while he was trying to save Lot); Moses
(while he was facing Pharaoh and when Jethro advised him on delegating people for service); Yeshua (during his ministry) and Paul (during
his ministry). They needed others to help them achieve their ultimate goals. Will you do the same from today? You too can achieve your goals through other people. Stop making excuses!
I hope this week’s
blog has blessed you too.
Shalom!
References:
https://www.concordant.org/version/read-concordant-new-testament-online/01-matthew/
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/leverage
A kind of relative sense message on how to dig out our unused or under-utilized talents...and leverage them through other people we delegate to help us achieve our overall goals.
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