³ “For it is just as when a man, about to travel abroad, summoned slaves of his and committed to them his belongings.

Matthew 25:14, 15.

 4. (a) According to the context of this parable, what is it that is “just as when” a wealthy man traveled abroad and committed valuables to his slaves? (b) Whom does this “man” picture, and why?

⁴ What is it, though, that is “just as when” a wealthy man commits his belongings to his slaves before his departure abroad? Why, it is the circumstances connected with the Kingdom about which Jesus Christ has been speaking. This is apparent from his preceding parable, that of the “ten virgins,” which he introduced with these words: “Then the kingdom of the heavens will become like ten virgins that took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.” (Matthew 25:1) It is also apparent from the parable that Jesus gives after his parable concerning the “talents.” (Matthew 25:31-34) In the parable now under consideration the wealthy man traveling abroad is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

The parable opens with the man being “about to travel abroad” and summoning his slaves and committing to them his belongings. The resurrected Jesus did not start to “travel abroad” to a “distant land” until the day that he ascended into the sky and disappeared. So, before that event, he must have summoned the “slaves of his,” his then faithful disciples, and must have committed to them his belongings. That is why, too, the parable must have begun between the time of his resurrection from the dead and his ascension to his heavenly Father’s presence.

 9. (a) In the “talents” parable, how is the purpose of the man’s traveling abroad indicated? (b) In the corresponding parable of the minas, what was the purpose of the man’s going to a distant land, and how did Jesus confirm this at the Lord’s Supper?

⁹ The land “abroad” to which the “man” of the parable was to travel was heaven itself, where the heavenly Father of the Lord Jesus Christ resides. Luke 19:12 properly speaks of it as a “distant land.” In the parable of the “talents,” Jesus does not tell us the purpose for which the “man” traveled abroad. He indicates, nonetheless, that it was to obtain a special “joy” and really increase his “belongings” to “many things” more. So, when the man realized the purpose of his traveling abroad, he entered into his “joy” as Lord of those “slaves” whom he left behind. The parallel or corresponding parable of the minas indicates that the purpose of the traveling abroad was to “secure kingly power for himself and to return.” The possession of the kingdom was therefore his “joy.” In indication of this being the purpose of his going away to heaven, Jesus said to his faithful apostles after he had showed them how to celebrate annually the Lord’s Supper: “I make a covenant with you, just as my Father has made a covenant with me, for a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel.”​—Luke 22:29, 30.

10. In the parable, whom did the “slaves of his” picture, and how was their acceptance of this designation shown?

¹⁰ In the parable, the “slaves of his” were those baptized disciples of Jesus Christ who were in line for a throne in the “kingdom of the heavens.” Even the apostles did not blush to confess themselves to be the “slaves” of the Lord Jesus. For example, the second letter of Peter is opened up with the words: “Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1:1) In introducing the last book of the Bible, Revelation, the apostle John says that Jesus Christ “sent forth his angel and presented it in signs through him to his slave John.” (Revelation 1:1) The disciple Jude begins his letter by saying: “Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ, but a brother of James.” (Jude 1) The disciple James starts his letter with the words: “James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes that are scattered about.” (James 1:1) The apostle Paul opens his letter to the Philippians: “Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus, to all the holy ones in union with Christ Jesus who are in Philippi.”​—Philippians 1:1.

THE COMMITTING OF “HIS BELONGINGS”

11. The “belongings” that Jesus as the “man” of the parable left behind with his “slaves” were not of what kind?

¹¹ The disciples who were in line for the heavenly kingdom were the “slaves” whom the departing Jesus Christ summoned before he left the earth and to whom he committed “his belongings.” (Matthew 25:14) What were these belongings? He did not leave any material belongings behind for his disciples, such as houses, lands, clothing, moneys in the bank. He left his aged mother Mary and his half brothers and half sisters behind when he died on the torture stake at Calvary, and to these any physical properties were left to avail themselves of according to the Law of Moses. And during his activity in preaching and teaching God’s kingdom for about three years and a half he was not storing up for himself “treasures upon the earth,” but was seeking first the kingdom of his heavenly Father. (Matthew 6:19, 20, 33; 12:46, 47; 24:3-47; Acts 1:14) What, then, did he leave behind that he could commit to his “slaves”?

12, 13. (a) What was it, then, that Jesus Christ left behind as his “belongings”? (b) How is this view of it borne out by what Jesus said to his apostles near Jacob’s well in Samaria?

¹² It was a foundation for further Christian work, a cultivated field in which further preaching of the good news of God’s Messianic kingdom and making of Christian disciples could be carried on with results. It was a way prepared for his disciple “slaves.” Already in the year 30 C.E., when he was on his way through the land of Samaria and after he had preached to a Samaritan woman at “Jacob’s fountain” near Sychar, Jesus said to his apostles:

¹³ “Look! I say to you: Lift up your eyes and view the fields, that they are white for harvesting. Already the reaper is receiving wages and gathering fruit for everlasting life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together. In this respect, indeed, the saying is true, One is the sower and another the reaper. I dispatched you to reap what you have spent no labor on. Others have labored, and you have entered into the benefit of their labor.”​—John 4:35-38.

14. (a) How did the public careers of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ compare? (b) Among whom and in what way did Jesus leave a cultivated field capable of further productivity?

¹⁴ For about six months John the Baptist had served as a forerunner of Jesus and had proclaimed: “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.” And after John’s imprisonment in the year 30 C.E., Jesus had taken up the same message. For the following three years Jesus persisted in preaching that message and teaching the people wherever the opportunity offered itself. The free public activity of John the Baptist was therefore quite short, only about a year, but Jesus’ public and private activity was three times as long. Both men could be said to have done a sowing work, Jesus taking up where John left off. Jesus began to reap disciples, but not all those possible to be reaped from his field of activity. (Matthew 4:12-23; 3:1-7) Moreover, Jesus had, by means of his public career that included his violent death and resurrection from the dead, fulfilled the Bible prophecies concerning the promised Messiah, and this was all public knowledge. This had an effect upon the Jewish people living in the territory in which Jesus Christ became the most controversial public figure of the times. This resulted in a cultivated field for the producing of Christian disciples.

15. (a) So what valuable thing with potentiality did Jesus Christ leave with his disciples? (b) With how many at the start did he leave those “belongings”?

¹⁵ Jesus thus put into the field of people in which he worked a potentiality, a latent power and capacity to bring forth disciples, a prepared condition of the field that was ready to react favorably or respond to the future work of Jesus’ disciples. This prepared field of potentialities (Christian possibilities) for the cultivating and reaping of Christian disciples was what constituted the “belongings” of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. This was what he committed to his disciple slaves. After his resurrection from the dead he had appeared to “upward of five hundred brothers at one time,” but thereafter on the Festival Day of Pentecost there were only about one hundred and twenty disciples gathered in the upper room in Jerusalem who were the first to receive the holy spirit when poured down from heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:6; Matthew 28:16-18; Acts 1:13-15) Hence, there were at least more than a hundred Christian “slaves” to whom he committed his “belongings” before he traveled abroad by ascending to his heavenly Father.