Well, then, what were his disciples to do in the meantime, while waiting for his return with “kingly power”? Jesus did not leave them without instructions specifically as to what they were to do. Jesus’ parable illustrated that he would do this. We read with respect to the departing nobleman: “Calling ten slaves of his he gave them ten minas and told them, ‘Do business till I come.’”​—Luke 19:13.

18. (a) What value do various Bible translations and Aid to Bible Understanding attach to the ten silver minas? (b) What were the slaves to do with the silver minas?

¹⁸ An American Translation attaches a money value to the ancient mina and translates this verse: “And he called in ten of his slaves and gave them each twenty dollars and told them to trade with it while he was gone.” Moffatt’s Bible translation attaches a British valuation to the mina and reads: “He first called his ten servants, giving them each a five-pound note, and telling them, ‘Trade with this till I come back.’” The New English Bible of the year 1970 values the mina at just a “pound.” The New American Bible is indefinite and says that the man of noble birth gave his servants “sums of ten units.” The 1971 publication entitled “Aid to Bible Understanding” reckons the silver mina of the first century C.E. at $14.094. This was a lot of money in Jesus’ day, it being equivalent to 100 drachmas, although it was worth only one sixtieth of a silver talent amounting to $845.64. Whatever the value of the silver mina would be today, the ten slaves of the man of noble birth were to do business with the silver minas by trading operations and thereby gain wealth for the prospective king.

19. Whom did the “ten slaves” picture, and what did the “ten minas” picture?

¹⁹ The ten slaves of Jesus’ parable pictured the disciples of the Lord Jesus. After his resurrection from the dead, what did he leave in trust with his disciples before he ascended into heaven ten days before the festival day of Pentecost of 33 C.E.? At his death on the stake at Calvary, Jesus had been stripped of absolutely every material thing on earth of any value. At his resurrection from the dead on the third day, even the burial bandages and headcloth were left behind in the tomb. (John 20:6, 7) What, then, did Jesus possess to entrust to his disciples before ascending to the heavenly “distant land”? It was something that, like the ten silver minas, had a value that could serve as a base or asset for making a valuable increase for the prospective King, the Messiah. As it was not something material, it was something intangible and yet it was there, it existed. What? The field of interest that Jesus had cultivated respecting God’s Messianic kingdom by his public ministry of about three and a half years in Israel.

20. (a) So what valuable quality had been imparted to the field of activity that Jesus’ disciples could turn to profit as if doing business with ten minas? (b) How did one slave and Jesus himself indicate such a useful valuableness imparted to a field of activity?

²⁰ Yes, those ten symbolic “minas” of silver represented the effects that Jesus’ intensive teaching and preaching had produced in the Jewish or Israelite world so that Jehovah’s chosen people were inclined toward accepting Jesus as the promised Messiah. Thus there was the prepared field for Jesus’ disciples where they could operate, to build up and encourage along to maturity in Jews the readiness to believe or to be persuaded that Jesus was Jehovah’s Anointed One because of what Jesus taught and did in fulfillment of Bible prophecy. It was a field that Jesus’ disciples could make very productive by occupying themselves with what Jesus told them to do. In the parable one of the ten slaves likened it to a field or farmland when this slave said to the returned king: “You reap what you did not sow.” (Luke 19:21)

22. The “slaves” in being ten in number picture whom, in the complete fulfillment of the parable?

²² The “ten slaves of his” in Jesus’ parable did not find their complete fulfillment in the apostles and disciples of the first century of our Common Era. Appropriately, the number of “slaves” was set at “ten,” inasmuch as ten is used in Bible illustrations to stand for allness or completeness, particularly with respect to earthly things. Thus, the “ten slaves” of the parable would nicely picture all the spirit-begotten, anointed slaves of Jesus Christ who are prospective heirs with him in the heavenly kingdom and who have been produced all down through these past nineteen centuries until Christ’s coming into kingly power at the close of the Gentile Times in the year 1914 C.E. and till now. This must be the case, because the apostles and other disciples of the first century C.E. have not survived in the flesh down till Christ’s invisible return with Kingdom power in this twentieth century.

23. (a) The parable’s culminating features find their counterparts with Christ’s disciples of what period? (b) In view of the impending slaughter of the King’s enemies, what is it in our interest to do as regards the parable?

²³ Consequently, the final culminating features of Jesus’ parable of the “ten slaves” with ten minas must find their counterparts with the baptized, spirit-begotten, anointed disciples of Jesus Christ alive on earth during this twentieth century. Investigation reveals that there is a remnant of around ten thousand yet on earth, who are ‘doing business’ with the ten symbolic minas for increasing the wealth of earth’s new King. These ten thousand are indeed but a small remaining number when we compare them with the full number of 144,000 disciples who are to be united with Jesus Christ in reigning with him for a thousand years to God’s glory and the everlasting blessing of all mankind. How all these figurative ten slaves have done business or traded with the “ten minas” of the prospective King provides an interesting story. In view of the impending slaughter of all the enemies of earth’s rightful Messianic King, it will be to our interest to follow the story through to the finish and see what proper part we can play in the modern fulfillment of Jesus’ parable.