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Practical Christianity:  Tending the Field:  Stewardship of the Mind Part 3:  The Buried Talent

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Don

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Practical Christianity:  Tending the Field:  Stewardship of the Mind Part 3:  The Buried Talent

(Part 3 of 4)

⚓ Floatie:  Fear That Disguises Itself as Neutrality

Matthew 25:18  But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money.(ESV)

Not every failure in the field is corruption.  Some of it is passivity.

In the parable of the talents, two servants traded what they were given and multiplied it.  One buried his talent in the ground.

He didn’t squander it.  He didn’t distort it.  He didn’t publicly misuse it.

He hid it.

And he justified it with fear.  “I was afraid…” (Matthew 25:25)(ESV).

That’s where this message turns inward.

Because fear-driven disengagement is still stewardship failure.  You can’t outsource the responsibility for what you’ve been given — not your mind, not your knowledge, not your influence.

✒️ Forge:  What You’ve Been Entrusted With

The master distributed talents “to each according to his ability” (Matthew 25:15)(ESV).

Entrustment is proportional.

Not everyone receives the same measure of knowledge, education, platform, or influence.  But everyone receives something.

Ability itself is stewardship.

Some have formal training.  Some have deep biblical literacy.  Some have influence in small circles.  Some carry quiet but real authority in their homes.

None of that is accidental.

To bury what you’ve been given — out of fear of error, fear of criticism, fear of responsibility — isn’t humility.  It’s refusal.

The third servant blamed the master’s character.  He said, “I knew you to be a hard man…” (Matthew 25:24)(ESV).  He justified inactivity by projecting harshness.

Fear reshaped his perception.  And perception shaped his action.

⚒️ Anvil:  Outsourcing Discernment

There’s a modern version of burying the talent.  It sounds like this:  “They’re the experts.  I’ll just repeat what they say.”  “They’ve got degrees.  They’ve studied more than I have.”  “I don’t want to get this wrong, so I won’t engage.”

That posture feels safe.  It isn’t.

You’re commanded to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:37).  Your mind isn’t optional in discipleship.

“Test everything; hold fast what is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21)(ESV)

Testing requires engagement.

The Bereans were called noble because they examined the Scriptures daily to see if what they were told was true (Acts 17:11).  They didn’t reject Paul.  They didn’t blindly accept him.

They examined.

Discernment isn’t rebellion.  It isn’t arrogance.  It isn’t anti-expertise.  It’s obedience.

If you refuse to examine what you’re taught, you’re not being humble.  You’re burying what was entrusted to you.

🔥 Ember:  The Danger of Intellectual Fear

Fear comes in two directions.  Some fear being wrong, so they speak recklessly.  Others fear being wrong, so they never speak at all.

Both are distortions.

The third servant didn’t lose the talent through corruption.  He lost it through inactivity.  The master’s response was direct:

Matthew 25:26–30  (26)But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant!  You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed?  (27)Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.  (28)So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents.  (29)For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance.  But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.  (30)And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness.  In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’(ESV)

The language is strong.  Not because the servant committed public scandal.  Because he abandoned responsibility.

If you have knowledge — biblical or otherwise — and you never let it mature into tested conviction, you’re burying it.

If you have influence and you refuse to filter what you pass on, you’re burying it.

If you disengage from discernment because it feels overwhelming, you’re burying it.

Fear doesn’t excuse negligence.

🌿 Covenant Triumph:  Active Cultivation

The first two servants traded.  Trading implies risk.  Engagement.  Exposure.  Effort.  Knowledge becomes wisdom through use.

Hebrews 5:14  But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.(ESV)

Constant practice.  Not passive absorption.  Not silent agreement.
Practice.

The stewardship of the mind isn’t about hoarding information.  It’s about cultivating it until it bears fruit.

You can’t control every seed that lands in your field.  You can’t control every voice that speaks around you.

But you can control whether you bury what you’ve been entrusted with.

You are soil.  You are sower.  You are steward.

And when the Master returns, He won’t ask what credentials you trusted.  He’ll ask what you did with what He gave you.

So don’t hide your mind in the ground.  Engage it.  Test.  Cultivate.  Trade.

Because inactivity is still a harvest — and it produces nothing worth preserving.

[⚓ Floatie] [✒️ Forge] [⚒️ Anvil] [🔥 Ember] [🌿 Covenant Triumph]
This post follows the Forge Baseline Rule—layered truth for the discerning remnant.

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3 responses to “Practical Christianity:  Tending the Field:  Stewardship of the Mind Part 3:  The Buried Talent”

  1. RW - Disciple of Yahshua Avatar
    RW – Disciple of Yahshua

    Sometimes it is of no use to question and test when others have made up their minds that they are correct. I’m sure the same could be said of me. Always it is better to “be at peace with all men” Romans 12:18. It is not my job to convince others what to believe. If it was, I would always fail. That is not my assignment, that is one of the Holy Spirit’s purposes. Mine is only to question what is being said to see if there is room for the Holy Spirit to work. I love your messages, I love the truth shared in them, however, when they contradict what I know to be true, I must question the teaching. I know you do this as well as you have put this in your own messages, including this one…“Test everything; hold fast what is good.” I also need to be reminded to question my own “rightness”.

    I recently questioned the dismissal of the Torah, because I believe that if you dismiss the Torah, you also dismiss Yahshua.

    Genesis 1:26 And Elohim said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth and over all the creeping creatures that creep on the ground.”

    John 1:1 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Elohim, and the Word was Elohim.

    Yahshua and the Torah are synonymous, yet the “teachers” of the day forgot that, they forgot who their dependence was on or should be in. Yahshua came to teach and show them again, knowing He would have to suffer the death and humiliation of the cross to bridge the gap and make a way for the people to return to dependence on Him as it was from the beginning. If there is something shared in the gospels that contradicts this, it isn’t a contradiction of the disciples who understood this, but a contradiction in our minds from the teachings that we’ve received or misunderstanding of what we’ve received. Elohim is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If something makes us question this, it is an alignment opportunity for us, not Elohim. The “new testament” was never a rewriting of the rules, but a renewal of the old testament “Torah” that was misunderstood.

    Keep up the good fight!

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Don Avatar
      Don

      I really appreciate this kind of pushback. I mean that.
      If no one is willing to question what I’m saying, then I’m not actually helping anyone grow—I’m just building agreement. And that’s not the goal. “Test everything; hold fast what is good.” That cuts both ways, and I expect it to be applied to what I write too.
      And I agree with you on something important—the Torah wasn’t wrong, and it was misunderstood. That’s a solid foundation to start from.
      Where I think the difference comes in is how that misunderstanding gets corrected.
      From what I see in Scripture, the issue wasn’t that people needed a better return to Torah. It’s that they couldn’t fully understand it until Christ.
      Luke 24:27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
      And a few verses later, it says He had to open their minds to understand the Scriptures. That tells me the gap wasn’t just teaching—it was the lens.
      So I’m with you that it wasn’t replaced in the sense of being thrown away. But I don’t think the answer is to go back and rebuild life under it either.
      It’s to read it the way Jesus taught it—through Himself.
      Not Torah alone, and not Torah dismissed.
      Torah understood through Christ.
      Because even the people who had it, studied it, and taught it… still didn’t fully see what it was saying until He revealed it.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
    2. Don Avatar
      Don

      I also want to say this separately—your questions are doing exactly what they should.
      They force me to slow down, dig deeper, and make sure I’m not just repeating something I’ve heard, but actually standing on what Scripture says. That’s good for me. That’s growth.
      Iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17). That only happens when there’s real contact, not silent agreement.
      So don’t pull back from asking hard questions or pushing where something doesn’t sit right. If what I’m saying is true, it should hold up under that weight. And if it doesn’t, I need to know that too.
      That kind of engagement is rare, and I respect it.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

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