The Bible is full of talented people. God, the Creator and originator of talent, used people with ability and skill to rally nations to righteousness, to write down His thoughts, and to compose music that illustrated His plan.

Daniel 1:3-4 show that young men like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were known—even to Gentile nobility in Babylon—for their skill in wisdom, their “cunning in knowledge” and their “understanding” of science. They had “ability in them to stand in the king’s palace.” They also had a proclivity for learning foreign languages.

Young David was known for being “cunning” on the harp—and he used that ability to ward off an evil spirit that was troubling King Saul (1 Samuel 16:15-23).

1 Chronicles 15:22 talks about people full-time in the temple service who excelled at musical instruments, as well as those skilful in song—people employed in God’s temple service to teach that skill.

Psalm 45:1 talks about a “ready writer”—or a skilled, diligent writer. Amos, for example, was an incredibly skilled writer and poet (read The Lion Has Roared). He used that developed talent to express God’s message in the most creative, most poignant way possible.

1 Peter 4:11 shows that human ability comes from God, and it is to be used to “minister,” or to serve God’s work. It also shows that with any such ability, all the glory should go back to the God who gave it.

Though God is most concerned with building holy, righteous spiritual character in us, He is also interested in the skills we develop on the physical level. Not only can God use skilled people for His will to be done on Earth, He is particularly interested in how those physical skills directly relate to our ultimate spiritual development.

So it should come as no surprise that the Bible endorses the development of human skill.

Parents especially need an understanding of this subject in order to properly guide their children to develop these gifts. Let’s see what God expects of us in nurturing, cultivating and encouraging our children in their physical gifts.

What If Not Developed?

Proverbs 22:29 reads: “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean [or ordinary, average] men.”

This is a promise. Men like Daniel and David stood before kings not just because they had talent, but also because they were diligent in developing those talents.

In Matthew 25:14-30, we read a parable of a master who left “his goods” with his servants. To each of the three servants he gave a different number of talents: to one he gave five, to another two, and another one.

Though these talents were not “talent” in the sense of ability—rather monetary units of the day—they typify anything God might entrust to us.

As the parable goes, the one with five talents used those talents to gain five more. The one with two gained two more. The servant with only one didn’t use it and buried it. So the master took the talent away from him and gave it to the one with 10 talents.

Human talent really is nothing of itself. If not developed, as the Proverbs say, diligently, then it would be better if the person didn’t have it. That’s what Christ related through the parable of the talents.

Teaches Hard Work

Herbert W. Armstrong wrote an article about talent in the January 1982 Plain Truth after being inspired by a concert featuring world-famous soprano Montserrat Caballé. Through the performing arts series at Ambassador Auditorium, he had the opportunity to meet some of the most talented musicians in the world. He asked, in the title of the article, “Is specialized talent God-given?” Within the article, he answered: “Not necessarily, except by ordinary heredity.”

He explained: “All human talent was created by God in the fact that He created man, and endowed man with a capacity to reproduce. Some, by natural heredity, have certain aptitudes, some have others.”

Heredity has a lot to do with it. Mr. Armstrong said environment did too: “by which I mean whatever external influences are exerted.”

But notice this statement: “Yet the biggest factors in determining success or failure in life are motivation, determination, drive, perseverance.”

Mr. Armstrong lauded Ms. Caballé that night for her talent. Then he said: “Yet, as I remember Elbert Hubbard saying some 68 years ago, ‘genius is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent perspiration.’”

It really comes down to what we do with the talent we’ve been given. We can’t just sit back and admire the talent God gave us through heredity as if it were magic. God wants to see what we’ll do with what we have.

It’s important that we make the distinction between talent and developed talent. When we speak of talent in this article, we’re speaking—not of the original 1 percent, the coin, or the ability—but of the diligent effort, the perspiration, applied to develop that talent.

Talking about these great performers, Mr. Armstrong asked, “Were they specially talented above other people? Undoubtedly, yet everyone began while quite young—and stuck to it with determination day after day, year after year. They didn’t quit. They worked at it. They continued improving. They were not content with mediocrity. They became real ‘pros’!”

Their level of excellence was not something they could have achieved by just dabbling in their field until they were satisfied they knew enough about it and then moving on to something else.

Sacrifice or “Balance”?

Some excuse the lack of really developing a talent in the name of balance—that God expects them, somehow, to only develop their talent to a certain level in order to “not go to extremes.” This not only goes against the principle of doing what our hand finds to do “with [our] might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10), it also reveals a flaw in thinking.

Mr. Armstrong related, “I knew a boy who had the talent of a child prodigy on the piano at age 6 or 7. But he tired of that, turned to blowing a trumpet, tired of that, reached maturity unable to do much of anything in any area” (ibid.).

If your child only has one exceptional talent (somewhat like that servant in Matthew 25), developing it—even at the expense of certain other incidental things in life—will make him more balanced in the long run. (1 Chronicles 9:33 shows that the singers in the temple service were exempted from other duties so they could devote themselves to that skill.) By developing that talent, he will be learning the greater skill of discipline, a trait that will help him become accomplished a little later in life at whatever he sets his hand to do—because he will have learned how to work hard for something, being heavily motivated and never giving up.

“No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier” (2 Timothy 2:4). You could relate this scripture to an Olympic athlete training for a monumental competition. He has to train to an extraordinary level—forgoing things that most young people would get to do. Surely there are some things these athletes do that are out of balance, but the principle of discipline they are exercising can be used in any area of life.

Think of the motivation and restraint required: A young person developing his or her skills has to go to that practice room or that gym and stay in there until achieving what he or she set out to do—no matter the temptation to go off and do what every other kid is doing.

This is not to say that general education and daily chores should be excused in the name of your child exercising his talents. But do avoid putting him in multiple extracurricular activities for the sake of keeping him balanced. Not only may he never master any one of them, but, crowded by the activities, he also may never discover where his aptitudes are in the first place!

If he learns that, when things get too hard, then the talent development—the “sacrifice”—is “out of balance,” then he may never be able to push past the obstacles life in general will present him with. This is a mindset that leads nowhere!

This was the case with the child prodigy Mr. Armstrong knew, who never stuck with what he was learning—he “reached maturity unable to do much of anything in any area.” Was that balance? What good was that talent undeveloped? Like Christ said, it would have been better had he not had any at all, because—by not doing anything with it—it affected the way he lived his life in the long run.

Relates to Character Development

That’s just the point. What we do with talent is very revealing about our character. As the master said to those two servants who doubled their talents: “thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things” (Matthew 25:21).

God gives us the ability to perfect physical skills in order to develop self-discipline. By testing us on this physical plane, He can see how disciplined we are—if we are “faithful over a few things.”

As Mr. Armstrong wrote in The Plain Truth About Healing, “God gave man talents, mind-power (physical) and abilities that He intended us to use and develop under His guidance, and always for His glory and toward our development in the holy, righteous character of God.” Talent-development was meant to aid in the development of spiritual character.

It does this by teaching us one simple lesson: to use whatever God gives us.

“And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible” (1 Corinthians 9:25).

The phrase “striveth for the mastery” comes from a Greek word meaning to enter a contest, contend in gymnastic games; to fight; to strive with strenuous zeal to obtain something.

Whether we do it for an incorruptible or corruptible crown, it teaches us to be “temperate” in all things. Temperate means to be self-controlled. The word was used of athletes who deprived themselves certain pleasures to prepare for a contest.

As Mr. Armstrong wrote, “The Christian life requires the same continuous, diligent, no-letup effort that a great pianist, violinist or singer must exert. There is the easy road that leads to failure, but the way to achievement, whether in a profession, or entrance into eternal life in the Kingdom of God, is the hard, difficult, never-give-up way of persistent, determined effort and self-prodding” (Plain Truth, op. cit.).

Every parent, every young person developing a talent, should read that quote again!

If we are not developing ourselves physically, are we learning to prioritize, abstain, resist, sacrifice, drive ourselves? If we are applying ourselves and our children to these physical talents, however, then we can eventually apply these principles spiritually, learning to sacrifice, prioritize, abstain, resist, drive ourselves toward the development of God’s holy, righteous character.

Develop your children’s talents. Work to provide them the resources they need to pursue their aptitudes. By nurturing those physical skills, what eternal lessons we can learn!