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Hidden
Talents
I was having a bit of a laugh while reading some of the social media posts on a site pertaining to where I grew up in Scotland. Back in the day, there was an area of private housing that the locals referred to as “Spam Valley”. Though some gave other reasons, apparently many of the locals called it that, because some of the people who lived there, while struggling to pay mortgages beyond their means, could only afford to dine on cheap spam!
Spam was essentially the same thing as
Klik in Canada, and, is right up there with hot dogs, wieners, and internet
spam for nutritional value. The Monty Python crew did a skit and even wrote a
song about spam back in 1970!
What’s wrong with eating spam? More to the
point, what’s wrong with making sacrifices in order to get ahead in life?
According to the Bible, nothing! Pork and pork products had been put back on
the Biblical menu with the advent of Jesus and the dissolution of Old Testament
Israel. Speaking of Old Testament Israel as a body politic, under the heading,
The Law of God, in chapter 19 of the Westminster Confession of Faith, we read
the following as to what the Bible teaches about why many of the Old Testament
laws, including dietary, have been rescinded:
IV. To them also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other, now, further than the general equity thereof may require.
The Lord commanded Peter in a vision to
kill and eat from a sheet full of unclean animals which was lowered to him from
heaven. Peter was told, “What God has cleansed you must not call common” Acts
10:15b. This is one of the verses that Christians use to illustrate the expiration
of Old Testament Israel as a body politic. It is a sad thing, but by pointing
to what they think are contradictions in the Bible, (such as where a lot of Old
Testament dietary laws, and laws about not wearing two different types of
material, or sowing different types of seed together etc.), some think that
they have an excuse to safely ignore God and His Word. And why would Socialism,
whose whole system is based on government theft, want to have anything to do
with the Bible anyway?
I don’t know if envy, socialistic influence, or both were at the back of the somewhat disparaging title of “Spam Valley”. Probably it was just meant to be humorous. However, contrary to Socialism, there is nothing wrong with owning a private home, as in owning private property. How do we know? Because the Bible teaches so. RC Sproul Jnr. well sums up the Bible’s attitude to private property where he says,
Ownership of
property is sanctioned by God, from the garden paradise to Abraham’s flock to
the Promised Land to Saint Paul’s tents.[1]
Take Jesus’s Parable of the Talents in
Matthew 25. Jesus tells the story of a rich businessman who was going overseas.
He placed his business in the hands of his servants. (A “talent’ is a weight
measure, Rev. 16:21. Here it refers to cold hard cash, though, by way of
extension, it may also by general equity or general principle be applied to
gifts and talents).
Some employees were given more talents to play with than others, but all were expected to invest them with bankers and what have you, and thereby make lots of dosh before the businessman returned. We’re talking millions of dollars here! This they all did, except for the one who buried the cash somewhere.
The businessman later returned, and generously
rewarded each of his investors accordingly for their entrepreneurial diligence.
However, the businessman was not happy with the “Socialist”, the one who did not
believe in Capitalism, i.e., the one who had hidden his talent. To him he said,
You wicked
and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where
I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the
bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. So
take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten
talents. ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have
abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken
away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer
darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Matthew
25:26-30.
Of course, this is not to infer that every
Socialist will be cast by Jesus on Judgment Day into “the outer darkness”.
There are some misguided Christians who think that the Bible actually teaches
Socialism! My book, among other things, is my attempt to unteach that false
teaching.
Socialism only encourages us to hide our
God-given talents. Why invest your talents (as Jesus teaches us to) when a
Socialist government, instead or rewarding you, is going to plunder your initial
earnings with income tax and then your investments with a capital gains tax
and then punish you some more with other taxes if you earn beyond some
arbitrary amount set by government? This is unbiblical!
It is said glibly that Capitalism is a system
built on exploitation and greed. That may be how misguided Socialists view
Capitalism, however, as we have seen even by the brief allusion to Jesus’s
Parable of the Talents, clearly this is not God’s view. To be sure, this is not
to suggest that some Capitalists have not been exploitative and greedy.
We’re sure examples of such could be multiplied. However, the bottom line is
that all Socialist governments are exploitative and greedy, especially
when it comes to the rich and the financially successful.
While commenting on The Parable of the
Talents, says the Bible commentator William Hendriksen,
In passing, a safe
inference would seem to be that Jesus, who tells this parable, is not opposed
to responsible capitalism. Profit promotes employment and makes possible
helping those in need etc.[2]
I remember returning to Scotland from
Canada in the 70s for a few months to convalesce after a serious operation. I
noticed that there didn’t seem to be any pizza delivery (as was ubiquitous in
Toronto back then) taking place in my hometown. I should have got in there
early and made my million organising “Uber Eats” before everyone and their West
Highland Terrier dog got in on the act.
Also, I was too slow in opening up the car
muffler repair business idea that I wanted to capitalise on. Alas! Apparently,
a man who had spent some years in America, took the idea of specialising only
in car silencers back to Edinburgh years ago with him and is now still laughing
all the way to the bank! Well done him! My excuse is that, to begin with, I
didn’t have the initial capital to invest. Also, my plan was to live in Canada,
not Scotland.
Now that I am living in sunny Australia,
one of my entrepreneurial ideas is to capitalise on the novelty kopi luwak
coffee, where people are willing to part with big bucks for a coffee, the beans
of which, before being ground, have been defecated by a cat-like creature known
as the Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus)!
The Australian version of civet coffee
could be kangaroo coffee, koala coffee, or kookaburra coffee. All I need is a
coffee plantation and some iconic Australian critter that can eat and excrete
partially digested coffee cherries! But don’t hold your breath or send me any begging
letters just yet…
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