📖 Biblical Definition
Capital is accumulated stored value — money, tools, land, livestock, skill — that produces future return when wisely deployed. Scripture is unembarrassed about it: Abraham was rich in cattle, silver, and gold (Gen 13:2); Job had vast capital before and after his trial; Christ's parables of the talents and minas honor the servant who deployed the master's capital well. The question is never whether to have capital but how to steward it.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
Wealth or stock employed for productive purposes; the principal sum that yields return.
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CAPITAL, n. The principal or main stock of a person or company employed in productive work; that part of one's wealth invested with a view to the production of further wealth.
Christ's parable of the talents (Mt 25:14-30) treats master-given capital as something the servant is morally bound to deploy for return. Burying it — the conservative-sounding option — is condemned as wickedness.
📖 Key Scripture
Matthew 25:21 — "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things."
Matthew 25:26 — "Thou wicked and slothful servant... thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury."
Genesis 13:2 — "And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold."
Luke 19:13 — "Occupy till I come."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Two opposite errors: capital is Mammon (so renounce all of it) or capital is virtue (so accumulate without restraint). Scripture teaches stewardship: deploy what you have for the Master's return.
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The talents parable rebukes the servant who buried capital out of fear. Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers. Inactive capital is judged; deployed capital is rewarded. Christ's economic ethic in this parable is anything but anti-investment.
Yet 1 Timothy 6:9-10 warns the love of money. The line is the heart, not the size. The household with wisely deployed capital, given generously, recognized as the Master's, faithfully reported — that is the Matthew 25 pattern.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Greek talanton (talent) and mina are the parable's capital-units.
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Greek talanton — talent, a large sum of money (~6,000 denarii); behind ‘talents’ in Mt 25.
Note: Christ's parable does not say everyone gets equal capital; it says everyone is judged by deployment of what was given.
Usage
"Inactive capital is judged; deployed capital is rewarded."
"Occupy till I come — the Master's standing order."
"The line is the heart, not the size."