In the book of Matthew, chapter 25, we're given an example of how God views us and or lives.
He gives some of his money to 3 men, each receiving an amount in accordance to his ability. One receives 5, one receives 2, and one poor unblessed and untalented guy receives only 1. God then leaves, saying He'll be back at some unspecified time in the future.
The servant who receives 5 talents, presumably because he's got the most ability of the 3 men, invests it and makes 5 more.
The servant who receives 2 talents invests it and makes 2 more.
The servant who has only 1 talent is afraid and buries the talent, making nothing and losing nothing.
When the master, metaphorically God, returns from his trip he asks for his money back. The most talented servant gives God his 5 talents and says "and I have invested it and made 5 more, which I also give to you."
The servant who received 2 talents returns them plus the 2 he made.
The servant who received only the 1 small talent returns his and says, "I was afraid and so I buried it to make sure it wasn't lost. Here it is."
God gets mad at the servant with only the 1 talent. He takes the talent and gives it to the servant previously entrusted with 5 talents.
OK, so what to make of this? God blessed the guy with 5 talents more than anyone else. Right off the bat this guy had an advantage. He used what God gave him and made double his money. God liked that.
God blessed the 2nd guy a lot less, but he liked what that guy did with what he had, although He didn't reward the guy for it at all.
God hadn't blessed the 3rd guy much, didn't trust him with much, and then punished him.
So basically I look at it like this: the guy God loved the most piled onto a good stock and made a lot of money. The middle guy invested in mutual funds and did well, too. The guy God loved least kept his money in cash, probably a money market account, and made nothing. But he also lost nothing. He risked nothing.
My question is this: what if the guy God loved the most had invested in AOL? What if the year was 1999 and it seemed like a really great investment at the time? And then, after putting all of God's money into AOL, Steve Case made his infamous speech declaring his view that the purpose of AOL's corporate profit was to spread evangelical Socialism throughout the world. Evangelical socialism being the religion which Mr. Case had adopted following Hillary Clinton's crusade against the capitalist white male, Bill Gates, who had refused to convert when told to do so directly by Mrs. Clinton.
And then Mr. Case brought in evangelical Marxists Gerald Levin and Ted Turner (Ted Turner being promptly screwed over and thrown to the lions.) Together Mr. Case and Mr. Levin then drove the previously successful company down and down into the toilet, where it has remained to the present day.
This unforseeable disaster would then have turned God's servant-invested 5 talents into 1 talent (actually even less than 1.)
What would God's reaction have been to this situation?
Everything is the same except that the servant with 5 talents took a chance and it went sour, as so often happens. What then? Would he still be God's favorite? Would God punish him, too, taking his remaining talent and giving it to the guy who had 2 talents? Would God have said, "Man, I wish you had just buried it like the 3rd guy did?"
Was God rewarding the results of their efforts or was He rewarding their willingness to let it all hang out, taking a risk and making the most of the opportunities around them even if that meant possibly losing the money entrusted to them? Was it the willingness to take a risk or the results that God loved? Or was it both, the willingness to take a risk coupled with success?
This parable was for a long time the basis for Protestant Christianity, the primary belief system of the Founding Fathers of the United States, who took the view that God requires us all to work hard and will sometimes bless our efforts if we are faithful, and sometimes not even though we gave it all we had. It was a very logical and unemotional religion very unlike the charismatic and emotion-centered protestantism increasingly popular today.
But my question remains unanswered for me. Was God rewarding their efforts or only their results? Or was it even more complex than that?
