{"id":117578,"date":"2026-10-01T19:06:39","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T23:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=117578"},"modified":"2026-10-01T19:06:39","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T23:06:39","slug":"what-is-the-matthew-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/what-jesus-teaches\/what-is-the-matthew-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is the Matthew Effect? What Jesus Actually Meant"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'>\n                <div class=\"twp-read-time\">\n                \t<i class=\"booster-icon twp-clock\"><\/i> <span>Read Time:<\/span>12 Minute, 42 Second                <\/div>\n\n            <\/div><p>You have probably seen it happen, even if you never had a name for it.<\/p>\n\n<p>The coworker who is already well known gets the credit for a team idea. The child who could read early gets more books, reads more, and pulls further ahead every year. The shop with a lot of reviews gets more customers, and so it gets even more reviews.<\/p>\n\n<p>There is a name for this. It is called <strong>the Matthew effect<\/strong>. And if you started life with less than the people around you, that name can sting. It sounds like a rule written into the world: the ones who have will get more, and the ones who don&#8217;t will fall behind.<\/p>\n\n<p>Here is the surprising part. The name comes from a sentence Jesus said. But when you read that sentence where Jesus actually said it, the thing being multiplied is not money, fame, or a head start. It is something much more within your reach.<\/p>\n\n<h2>What Is the Matthew Effect?<\/h2>\n\n<p>The Matthew effect is the idea that advantage builds on itself. People who start ahead tend to get further ahead, simply because they started ahead. People sometimes sum it up as &#8220;the rich get richer.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>The term was coined by the American sociologist Robert K. Merton in a 1968 paper in the journal <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/5634379\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Science<\/a>, called &#8220;The Matthew Effect in Science.&#8221; Merton was not writing about money at all. He was writing about <em>credit<\/em>. He noticed that when a famous scientist and an unknown scientist did similar work, the famous one usually got more of the praise. Fame drew more fame.<\/p>\n\n<p>He named it after one verse from the Gospel of Matthew, which he quoted in the paper:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.&#8221;<br>&#8211; Matthew 25:29 (KJV)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Since then, the idea has spread far beyond science. In 1986 the psychologist Keith Stanovich used it to describe reading: children who read well early tend to read more, which makes them read better still, while children who struggle early tend to fall further behind. In 2008, Malcolm Gladwell opened his book <em>Outliers<\/em> with a chapter called &#8220;The Matthew Effect,&#8221; about how young ice hockey players born early in the year got an early edge that kept growing.<\/p>\n\n<p>So the Matthew effect is real, and it is worth knowing about. But it is only half the story of that verse.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"884942602c\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/884942602c\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>The Paper That Proved Its Own Point<\/h2>\n\n<p>This is the part of the story that almost nobody tells.<\/p>\n\n<p>Merton&#8217;s 1968 paper leaned heavily on interviews with Nobel Prize winners. Those interviews were done by a younger researcher named Harriet Zuckerman. But the paper went out under one name only: Merton&#8217;s, the famous one.<\/p>\n\n<p>A few years later, Merton said so himself. He wrote that he had drawn on her interviews and materials so much that &#8220;the paper should have appeared under joint authorship&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Harriet_Zuckerman\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">source<\/a>). In other words, the paper about famous people getting the credit was itself an example of a famous person getting the credit.<\/p>\n\n<p>That is worth sitting with for a second. Merton was not a bad man. He saw it, and he owned it. But even a person who had just named the pattern fell right into it. That is how strong the pull is. If you have ever been the one whose work was quietly folded into someone else&#8217;s name, you are not imagining things.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Where the Matthew Effect Verse Comes From<\/h2>\n\n<p>Matthew 25:29 is the closing line of a story Jesus told, often called the parable of the talents. A &#8220;talent&#8221; was a very large weight of silver, not a small coin.<\/p>\n\n<p>A man going on a long journey gives his servants money to look after: &#8220;unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability&#8221; (Matthew 25:15).<\/p>\n\n<p>Notice what Jesus does <em>not<\/em> do. He does not pretend everyone starts the same. The starts are unequal from the very first line. Five, two, one.<\/p>\n\n<p>The first two servants put the money to work and double it. The third digs a hole and hides his. When the master comes home, the first two hear the exact same words, even though one made five talents and the other made two: &#8220;Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things&#8221; (Matthew 25:21, 23).<\/p>\n\n<p>The servant who made <em>less<\/em> got the <em>same<\/em> praise. That alone is the opposite of the Matthew effect as the world runs it. In the world, the bigger result gets the bigger reward. In this story, faithfulness gets the reward, and it does not matter how big the pile was.<\/p>\n\n<p>We have written before about the third servant, and how <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/personal-growth-and-life-skills\/playing-it-safe-with-money\/\">playing it safe out of fear can quietly hold a person in place<\/a>. But there is something else in this verse that is easy to miss.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Jesus Said It More Than Once, and Usually About Listening<\/h2>\n\n<p>Matthew 25:29 is not the only time Jesus said &#8220;to him that hath shall be given.&#8221; The same saying shows up four more times in the Gospels. One is in a similar money story in Luke 19:26. But in the other three, it is not about money at all.<\/p>\n\n<p>In Matthew 13, the disciples ask Jesus why He teaches in stories. He answers: &#8220;For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath&#8221; (Matthew 13:12). The very next line explains what He means: &#8220;because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand&#8221; (Matthew 13:13).<\/p>\n\n<p>In Mark, the saying comes right after this: &#8220;Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given&#8221; (Mark 4:24).<\/p>\n\n<p>And in Luke it reads: &#8220;Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he <strong>seemeth<\/strong> to have&#8221; (Luke 8:18).<\/p>\n\n<p>Look at that last word. <em>Seemeth.<\/em> What gets taken away is the thing a person only <em>seemed<\/em> to have. They heard the words, but never let them in.<\/p>\n\n<p>So in most of the places Jesus says it, the thing that &#8220;hath&#8221; and grows is not wealth. It is <strong>a heart that is really listening<\/strong>. The person who takes in a little truth, and does something with it, is given more. The person who lets it bounce off ends up with less than they thought they had.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Two Matthew Effects<\/h2>\n\n<p>Put it all together and you find two very different Matthew effects.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>The world&#8217;s Matthew effect<\/strong> multiplies advantage. Money, fame, a good start, the right birthday. You mostly cannot choose these. They are handed to you, or they are not.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Jesus&#8217; Matthew effect<\/strong> multiplies faithfulness and attention. What you do with what you have heard. What you do with the little you were given. And here is the good news hiding in it: <em>nobody is born with more of that than you.<\/em> A person with one talent can be as faithful as a person with five. A person who never went to school can listen as well as a professor.<\/p>\n\n<p>Look at what the master told the one-talent servant he should have done: &#8220;Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury&#8221; (Matthew 25:27). In plain words: you could have just put it in the bank. That was the smallest step there was. The bar for the person with the least was not high. It was simply &#8220;do something.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>And the Bible does not bless the world&#8217;s version, either. When Mary sings after learning she will carry Jesus, she praises God for doing the opposite of &#8220;the rich get richer.&#8221; In her song, God brings down the mighty, lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away empty (Luke 1:52-53). The world&#8217;s Matthew effect is real. It is not the last word.<\/p>\n\n<p>If you have been measuring yourself against someone who seems to have been handed more, you may find some peace in <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/what-jesus-teaches\/when-someone-else-gets-what-you-prayed-for\/\">what Jesus told Peter when Peter asked about someone else<\/a>. Your story is not graded on their pile.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>A good place to go deeper:<\/strong> if you want to read this parable, and the whole story around it, the way it was meant to be heard, we put together <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/bookofmatthew-free\/?utm_source=wordpress&amp;utm_medium=article-inline&amp;utm_content=hero\"><strong>The Book of Matthew &#8211; Immersive Storytelling Format<\/strong><\/a>. It is the full Gospel of Matthew as a PDF and a 28-chapter audiobook, so you can hear every one of Jesus&#8217; stories from start to finish, even on a walk or a bus ride. <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/bookofmatthew-free\/?utm_source=wordpress&amp;utm_medium=article-inline&amp;utm_content=hero\">Get the free guide<\/a>. Free.<\/p>\n\n<h2>What This Means for Your Monday<\/h2>\n\n<p>You might be the one-talent person in your family, your office, or your town. That is not the end of your story. In Jesus&#8217; version, the only question is what you do with the &#8220;few things&#8221; in your hands right now.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Actions to Take<\/h2>\n\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Name your one talent (2 minutes).<\/strong> Write down one small thing you have right now that you have been waiting to use &#8220;once I have more.&#8221; A skill, an hour, a little money, a friendship. Just one.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Do the bank-sized step (5 minutes).<\/strong> Find the smallest possible way to put that one thing to work today. Send the message. Start the first paragraph. Offer the hour. The servant was only asked to put it in the bank. Small counts.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Give someone their credit (10 minutes).<\/strong> Think of a person whose quiet work helped you, the way Harriet Zuckerman helped Merton. Tell them by name, or tell someone else what they did. You can break the world&#8217;s Matthew effect a little, today.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n<h2>Journaling Prompts<\/h2>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Where in your life do you feel like the &#8220;one talent&#8221; person? What story have you been telling yourself about what that means?<\/li>\n<li>What is one truth you have heard many times but never really let in? What would it look like to &#8220;take heed how you hear&#8221; it this week?<\/li>\n<li>If faithfulness, not size, is what gets the &#8220;well done,&#8221; what would you stop comparing, and what would you start doing?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<blockquote><p><strong>In Jesus&#8217; version, the reward was never for the biggest pile. It was for the faithful hand.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<h2>A Prayer<\/h2>\n\n<p><em>God, You know exactly what I was given, and what I wasn&#8217;t. I&#8217;m tired of measuring my little pile against everyone else&#8217;s. Help me stop waiting until I have more, and be faithful with the few things in my hands today. Open my ears so I really hear You, and don&#8217;t just seem to. And when I&#8217;m the one with more, make me quick to share the credit and slow to forget who helped me. Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<h2>Discussion Question<\/h2>\n\n<p>The Matthew effect is named after Jesus&#8217; words, but in the parable the servant who made less got the exact same praise as the one who made more. Do you think our workplaces and schools reward faithfulness, or mostly results? We&#8217;d love to hear what you think in the comments below.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"884942602c\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/884942602c\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>Share This<\/h2>\n\n<p><strong>Post 1:<\/strong> TIL the &#8220;Matthew effect&#8221; (the rich get richer) is named after a verse of Jesus. But in the story it comes from, the servant who made LESS got the exact same &#8220;well done&#8221; as the one who made more. https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/what-jesus-teaches\/what-is-the-matthew-effect\/<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Post 2:<\/strong> The 1968 paper that named the Matthew effect, about famous scientists getting all the credit, was itself published under only the famous author&#8217;s name. He admitted it later. Some patterns are that strong. Jesus&#8217; version of the verse is about something else entirely: https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/what-jesus-teaches\/what-is-the-matthew-effect\/<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Post 3:<\/strong> &#8220;Take heed therefore how ye hear.&#8221; Jesus says &#8220;to him that hath shall be given&#8221; five times in the Gospels, and three of those are about listening, not money. I&#8217;m the one-talent person in a lot of rooms. This helped: https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/what-jesus-teaches\/what-is-the-matthew-effect\/<\/p>\n\n<p>Want to dig into more of Jesus&#8217; sayings like this one? You can ask our free <a href=\"https:\/\/chatgpt.com\/g\/g-Cfs95Zwnx-what-jesus-teaches-bible-answers-from-jesus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">What Jesus Teaches AI assistant<\/a> (it opens in ChatGPT).<\/p>\n\n<h2>Questions and Answers (Q&amp;A)<\/h2>\n\n<h3>What is the Matthew effect?<\/h3>\n<p>The Matthew effect is the pattern in which people who already have an advantage tend to gain even more advantage over time, often summed up as &#8220;the rich get richer.&#8221; The term was coined by sociologist Robert K. Merton in a 1968 paper in the journal Science, where he used it to describe how well-known scientists receive more credit than lesser-known scientists for similar work. It has since been applied to reading, education, money, and sports.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Why is it called the Matthew effect?<\/h3>\n<p>The Matthew effect is named after Matthew 25:29 in the Bible, which reads in the King James Version: &#8220;For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.&#8221; Robert K. Merton quoted this verse when he named the effect in 1968. The verse is the closing line of Jesus&#8217; parable of the talents.<\/p>\n\n<h3>What did Jesus mean by &#8220;to him that hath shall be given&#8221;?<\/h3>\n<p>Jesus said &#8220;to him that hath shall be given&#8221; in Matthew 25:29, Matthew 13:12, Mark 4:25, Luke 8:18, and Luke 19:26. In Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8 the saying is about listening: Luke 8:18 begins &#8220;Take heed therefore how ye hear.&#8221; In the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, the servants who are rewarded are praised for being &#8220;faithful over a few things,&#8221; and the servant who made two talents receives the same praise as the one who made five. In context, what grows is faithful use of what a person has been given, not wealth or status.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Does the Bible support &#8220;the rich get richer&#8221;?<\/h3>\n<p>No. The Bible does not present &#8220;the rich get richer&#8221; as something good. In the parable of the talents, the servants are praised for faithfulness rather than for the size of their results. In Luke 1:52-53, Mary praises God for bringing down the mighty, lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry with good things, and sending the rich away empty, which is the reverse of the social Matthew effect.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Who really did the research behind the Matthew effect?<\/h3>\n<p>The 1968 paper &#8220;The Matthew Effect in Science&#8221; was published under Robert K. Merton&#8217;s name alone, but it drew heavily on interviews with Nobel Prize winners conducted by sociologist Harriet Zuckerman. Merton later wrote that the paper &#8220;should have appeared under joint authorship.&#8221; The episode is often cited as an example of the very credit imbalance the paper described.<\/p>        <div class=\"booster-block booster-reactions-block\">\n            <div class=\"twp-reactions-icons\">\n                \n                <div class=\"twp-reacts-wrap\">\n                    <a react-data=\"be-react-1\" post-id=\"117578\" class=\"be-face-icons un-reacted\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\">\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/booster-extension\/\/assets\/icon\/happy.svg\" alt=\"Happy\" title=\"\">\n                    <\/a>\n                    <div class=\"twp-reaction-title\">\n                        Happy                    <\/div>\n                    <div class=\"twp-count-percent\">\n                                                    <span style=\"display: none;\" class=\"twp-react-count\">0<\/span>\n        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A sociologist named it after Matthew 25:29. But in the Bible, what multiplies isn&#8217;t advantage. It&#8217;s what you do with a little.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,669],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-what-jesus-teaches","category-bible-answers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117578"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117582,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117578\/revisions\/117582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}