Wednesday, May 18, 2011

The Founding Principles: The Parable of The talents - faithfulness

1 Corinthians 3:11 "For on one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ."



While sitting on the Mount of Olives Jesus told his disciples the parable of the talents about a master and his servants. The master was going away for a while so entrusted his property to his servants. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents and to another one talent. The servants that were given five talents and two talents immediately put the money to work and by the time the master returned they had doubled their money. However, the servant who was given one talent just dug a hole in the ground and hid the money. When the master returned was very pleased with the first two servants and gave them extra responsibilities in his Kingdom. However, the master was very angry that the third servant had done nothing with what he had been given and took the his one talent and gave it to the servant who had ten, saying “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

Africa has been unfaithful
From the story we see that if we are faithful with little, God will add to us; but if we are unfaithful with little God will take away from us. From the statistics that we saw earlier in this series we cannot feed ourselves from the abundant resources that God has given us. Do you not think that perhaps this is because we are not being faithful with the first things God has given us: our soil, rainfall, sunlight, heat units, seed and manpower?

Farming: the first job we are given to do
We see in Genesis 2:15 that the first job Adam was given to do was to work the garden and take care of it. Even after the fall in Genesis 3:23 Adam is told to work the ground. We believe that farming is a crucial enterprise that must be done faithfully before a nation can be developed. In the Parable of the Talents we saw that once the servants were faithful with the talents, they were put in charge of many things, including cities. God is a supreme master-builder and he doesn’t build a house from the windowsills or lintels upwards, but builds from strong foundations. Can we be honest and say that much of the poverty in Africa is because she is not faithfully attending to this first and basic job that she has been given?

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