Amy C Walters

The Parable of the Ten Minas | Luke 19:11-27

About two-thirds of the Parable of the Ten Minas focuses on what happens when the king returns. For the servants who obeyed and invested their minas, there is great reward. But for the servant who hid, and for the enemies of the king, there is punishment.

A large portion of this story, about two-thirds of it, is focused on what happens when the king returns. So the king is very interested in what has happened while he was away. 

Before he left, the king gave each servant a mina (a unit of money) and told them to “engage in business.” The intent was that they would invest in order to multiply what he gave to them. 

When he returns, the king calls the servants to give a report. The first servant says, “Lord, your mina has earned ten minas more.” So the servant first acknowledges who the mina has come from. He hasn’t forgotten that it belongs to the king. 

Notice too, that the servant does not take responsibility for the multiplication of that mina. He says, “Your mina has earned ten minas more.” He gives the mina agency, crediting it with its multiplication. This is one of the reasons that Kent Hughes believes that the minas refers to the gospel. 

So this servant has successfully completed the assignment. He has multiplied his mina. And the king responds wonderfully to this. He says, “Well done, good servant.” The king commends the servant, honoring him in front of everyone who is there. 

The king also rewards the servant for his obedience. He says, “Because you have been faithful in a little, you shall have authority over ten cities.” This reminds me of what Jesus says in the Parable of the Dishonest Manager, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much” (Luke 16:10). And here we see that the king who has entrusted a little bit to the servant is now entrusting him with being in charge of ten cities. 

This is a huge reward for the size of the investment. The servant started with one mina (equal to three month’s salary), and is now in charge of ten cities. What a jump! That ratio from seed money to reward is wildly generous on the part of the king. 

Finally, the servant gets to share in the reward of the king. The king has returned to rule his kingdom and he’s just handed a portion of that rule to the servant. 

Next, we have the second servant who comes forward and gives a report. He says, “Your mina has earned five minas.” So it’s not as much as the first servant, and yet it is still obedient because he has multiplied the investment. He has done what the king has asked, and the king rewards him for that faithfulness. 

Notice that the reward is directly related to what the servants had earned: ten minas is ten cities, and five minas is five cities. It’s consistent.

So, so far, so good with these reports from the servants. But then we come to the third servant. And he comes forward, pulls out a handkerchief that’s covered in dust and cobwebs from wherever it has been hiding. He opens it up and hands the original mina back to the king. That same mina that was given to him had been hidden away that whole time. He did not engage in business. He disobeyed the king’s orders. 

It reminds me of those memes where it says, “You had one job,” and then shows pictures of complete incompetence in those jobs. That’s what we see from this servant.

The servant makes excuses for his behavior, saying he did it out of fear. “I was afraid of you because you are a hard man.” The servant then describes the king as taking what he didn’t deposit and reaping what he did not sow. This is an unflattering description. It makes the king sound like a thief, that he takes what he has no right to take.

Now, if this servant had seen him as a king, he would have acknowledged that the king has the right to take whatever he wants. That’s part of being king. It all belongs to him. It’s only those who oppose his claim to be king, who accuse him of taking what’s not his. 

This sounds like a rebel, not a servant. It sounds like those who hated him and tried to block his coronation. It seems to me that this servant has believed the lies of the rebels that he has lived among, and it leads him to disobey his king.

How does the king respond to this? He calls him a wicked servant. So it’s not just that he’s inept or unskilled or that he made a mistake or he’ll do better next time. The king makes what the servant has done a moral issue. 

The king also doesn’t accept the excuse that the servant was afraid because the servant’s own words condemn him. The servant had said the king was hard and reaped what he did not sow. If he really believed that about the king, then he would have tried even harder to please him. He would have done something, at least putting the money in the bank. 

So the servant then has to face the consequences of his disobedience. The king orders that the third servant’s mina be taken away from him and given to the first one who has the ten minas.

Some other people who were standing by complained saying, “But he already has ten!” What do they mean by this? It’s not fair. They disagree with the king’s punishment because they think it’s unjust to give the mina to the one who had ten. 

The king responds to that with, “To everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away.” The emphasis here is not on fairness, but on faithfulness. The king will entrust his wealth to those who will be faithful with it.

The story is not yet over. The king then calls for his enemies, all of those who opposed his rule. He says to “bring them here and slaughter them in front of me.” 

This part seems really harsh. But there are a few things that we need to keep in mind.

First, one of the main points of this story is that there are consequences to what we do while the king is away. It may look like people are getting away with things for a time. But when the king returns, they will have to answer to him. The story shows us that God takes rebellion seriously, but he also rewards faithfulness seriously.

Second, let’s take a moment to think about this parable from the perspective of Jesus’ disciples. Just a few chapters from now, the disciples will see Jesus, the king, grabbed by an angry mob, put through an unjust farce of a trial, tortured, mocked, spit on, killed. What would be justice for actions like these? What should happen to those rebels who opposed King Jesus’ reign? The king’s response is just.

Our key truth for today is that the king will reward and punish. 

In this story, there are three ways that people respond while the king is gone. They invest, they hide, or they rebel. Their response is a big deal because when the king returns, it determines whether they will live with much, live with nothing, or die. 

Paul says something similar in 1 Corinthians 3:14-15, but he uses instead a word picture of building on a foundation. “If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” 

We must decide what we will do while the king is gone.