I don’t know if there is any truth to the story or not, but the story is told that when Britain faced a critical shortage of silver during the days of WWII Winston Churchill launched a search of possible sources of silver. They discovered some silver statutes of saints in some of the churches and cathedrals. As the story is told when Churchill was made aware of this he said, “Well then, it’s time to put the saints into circulation.”
Today we’re going to take a look at a parable about saints in circulation. In the book of Matthew there are five major recorded discussion of Jesus, this parable is part of the last teaching block that begins in 24:1. Jesus and his disciples had just come out of the temple. His disciples were admiring the beautiful buildings when Jesus warned of the temple’s coming destruction. Then they walked over to the Mount of Olives and Matthew says that the disciples came to him privately with their questions about the destruction of the temple and end of the age. That is the setting for these parables. This is private instruction to insiders. The judgment parables of Matthew 25 are not directed to the crowds, but to his disciples.