How will you use your talents?

I realized it’s been weeks since the kids and I did any real homeschool Bible lessons, and I desperately want to get more done for a project I’ve got brewing in my head….  So, I drafted the kids to come act out the Parable of the Talents, which they thought was great fun, and then we brainstormed some projects together.

Can I just say, there are times when having tweens is just the most fun I’ve ever hard.

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What do we learn from the Parable of the Talents?

The parable of the talents always felts like a weird one to me as a kid.  I always wondered why the first servant got more to start with and then the third servant lost everything.

Now as a grown up I get it so much better.

We all have different talents.  A lesson I’m trying hard to teach my kids, especially Princess who is obsessed with everything being “fair**”.

** Fair being defined as some arbitrary definition she has designed that no one else has figured out but her.

Some people are given amazing and vast talents.  In acting world someone who can sing, dance, and act is called a triple threat.  When I read this parable, that’s what I think of.  Someone who has several talents that complement each other.  Think of John D. Rockefeller, George Washington, or Leonardo DaVinci.  They have talents in several areas.  That’s the servant who is given 10 talents.

Then there are the people who have a couple of great talents.  Think of Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, or Julius Caesar.  They have great talents in one or two areas, and they use their talents to the fullest of their abilities.

The final servant is only given one talent.  In the story, they don’t use their talent.  What would our world be like if VanGogh had chosen not to use his one talent for art?

Now the examples I gave are obviously extreme.  Not everyone’s talents are going to change the world.  Which is a good thing, but you can change one person’s life with your one talent.

The great tragedy of the Parable of the Talents isn’t the servant losing their one talent.

It’s that they never used it in the first place.

He was too worried about what would happen if he used it wrong, that he didn’t try to use the talent.

I don’t want to be that servant.  I want at the end of my life to hear Jesus say, “Well done good and faithful servant, you have done much with little, now enter into your reward.”

 

Parable of the Talents craft

I think everyone does this craft for the Parable of the Talents, but I still like it, and my kids had a blast with it.

There are two different ways to go about this.  You can make this with model magic*, which would be perfect, but I’ve been sitting on a cold porcelain clay recipe I’ve wanted to try for ages.

• 2 Tablespoons baking soda* (I do buy it in that large of a container)
• 1 Tablespoon cornstarch*
• 1.5 Tablespoons water

Mix the ingredients together, and microwave it for 15 seconds.  Then stir it again, keep repeating this over and over again, until it’s the consistency of dough.  For my microwave it took about 1 minute or so.  Then let the dough sit (this is the step I missed) until it cools down.  If you don’t the dough is way too sticky, and we learned from that mistake.

Then bake at 175 degrees Farenheit for 30-45 minutes.  When your new creation is cool, it’s all ready to paint.

The kids had lots of fun making their coins, and have big plans for what they’ll do with their coins for playing beyond this project.  Because I didn’t quite time it right we didn’t get to finish off the project how I wanted to.

I wanted the kids to follow up the project with naming each of their coins for a talent they have.  So, I’ll be following up with this one later on.

More on the Parable of the Talents

• Parable of the Talents book and skit script
• Parable of the Talents visuals
• What is your talent?
• Another fun parable of the talents idea