Efrem Smith helps take on Glenn Beck and friends. ~ link
I want to know why all of our seminary-trained biblical scholars with their finely-tuned crap detectors aren't challenging Jerry Falwell's goofy eisegesis of the "parable of the talents." Folks, this is what we trained for -- to engage the forms of heresy and lunacy that threaten the safety of the flock!
The parable (Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:11-27) doesn't really have anything to do with money or developing capital. It is an analog about faithfulness -- individual and corporate -- and judgment aimed at those who squander that which has been entrusted to them.
N.T. Wright suggests that the parable is picking at the Jewish religious establishment rather than individuals. It is about their corporate failure to prepare for the arrival of the Messiah and his kingdom. Because of the way that they had oppressed the people under their care they were thus under divine judgment. However you read it, the parable cannot be faithfully read as a rant against corporate or communal responsibility. That just doesn't work!
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