Making money? Or making friends with money?
Please read today's passage here: Luke 16:1-15
I think when you are finished reading today's passage, you will agree that this is one of the most difficult stories to interpret that Jesus ever told. Yet, like all his stories, they contain such extremely important truths that we dare not ignore or skip over them.
Of all of the four gospels, Luke's puts the greatest emphasis on teachings about the proper use of wealth—and I don't mean by "wealth" large amounts only. All disciples are stewards of God's resources put in our trust. What we do with what we are given is a test of our faithfulness to God.
The story before us is difficult to understand in large part because its original audience lived in the time and place being described in the story and understood many things about how commodity sales were carried out, that we today do not. The amounts described in v. 6-7 show that this steward's boss was a really big player in the commodities market of his day, and the transactions involved were enormously expensive. In such a setting we are talking about a steward (or business manager) who himself was earning by each transaction of his employer a sizable commission, which was folded invisibly into the quoted prices. This meant that, when he needed to complete the transactions quickly and in a way that would earn favor with his master's customers (they are called "debtors" here, because they already have the merchandise and what is being negotiated are the "amounts payable"), there was an invisible "cushion" of his own commissions that he could tap without defrauding his master of his legitimate base price for the merchandise.If you want to read more of the reasoning behind accepting this interpretation of the story, I recommend Darrell L.Bock's book Luke (IVP New Testament Series), pp. 262-67.
Now, armed with this background, let's look at how the story unfolds. The business manager of an extremely wealthy business owner who dealt in huge amounts of olive oil and wheat was accused by his master of mismanaging (the term is "squandering") the owner's resources. It is quite possible that "squandering" points to deliberate fraud. And if so, it would explain why in v. 8 the owner refers to him as a "dishonest manager"not because his parting deals were crooked, but because he had been terminated because of a charge of dishonesty. The wealthy owner was losing money because his manager was inept. And so, he called the manage in and announced he was terminating him, and asked for him to turn in his books, so that the owner could know what needed to be done by his replacement.
The manager was horrified at the prospect of losing what had been up to now a very well-paying position. The prospects were discouraging: digging ditches and begging were disreputable employment and yielded very little income. His solution (v. 4) was to find a way in his final acts as manager to win friends among his employer's customers, so that they might employ him after his discharge. So he went to those with outstanding bills and offered them substantial reductions. As I wrote above, he could do this without depriving his master of his expected cut, because there was an invisible layer of the manager's own commission. He was wise enough to see that a short-term forfeiture of his usual commission would yield for him a security and long-term well-being that was much more important than the short-term profit he was giving up.
The result was that, when the owner heard of his manager's "golden parachute" deals, he expressed admiration for his cleverness. Had these deals resulted in the owner's own legitimate capital and profit being reduced, it is hard to see why he would commend the manager. But if it was not to his own detriment, but showed the manager's good business sense and foresight, the owner's remarks make excellent sense. He might now have had second thoughts about his decision to dismiss the man!
Jesus' applications in v. 9-15 also make better sense if the situation was as I have described. The manager rightly saw that his present profits would be better served by helping others, and that this would eventually produce goodwill for himself when he needed it most. In his case it came after his dismissal from his post and probably took the form of support from those he had helped while in the employ of his former master. In the case of disciples, we should view our present resources as being best used to help others, for this will eventually produce God's commendation and, when we need it most at our deaths, we will be welcomed by God and the angels into paradise.
Of course, we are not to understand that good works such as what we do with our resources earn us entrance into Heaven. Jesus and the authors of the New Testament make it abundantly clear that forgiveness comes to us as God's free gift. We appropriate it by asking for it and acknowledging that it comes to us through Jesus' sacrifice for us. But we gain our Lord's approval and his pleasure, when as forgiven sinners and disciples we use our resources as this business manager did. He was wise, for he understood it was better to postpone short-term pleasures through spending his money on himself in order to ensure long-term pleasure through helping others and gaining his Master's approval.
Luke (and Jesus) adds a coda to this story: the short section in v. 13-15. And here we see an example of what I wrote about in an earlier blog posting: that the word pair "love" and "hate" in Hebraic language mean "give preference to" one thing over another. Serving both God and Mammon (= acquiring money not to help others and serve God) is impossible, because one always has to give preference to one over the other in everyday decisions. A disciple of Jesus must always choose God, and his or her use of possessions and resources must always be to serve God by helping others.
In v. 14-15 his critics derided him for these words. But he retorted: "Your opinions are influenced too much by popular current human thinking. What most people think is important, God considers valueless."
I think when you are finished reading today's passage, you will agree that this is one of the most difficult stories to interpret that Jesus ever told. Yet, like all his stories, they contain such extremely important truths that we dare not ignore or skip over them.
Of all of the four gospels, Luke's puts the greatest emphasis on teachings about the proper use of wealth—and I don't mean by "wealth" large amounts only. All disciples are stewards of God's resources put in our trust. What we do with what we are given is a test of our faithfulness to God.
The story before us is difficult to understand in large part because its original audience lived in the time and place being described in the story and understood many things about how commodity sales were carried out, that we today do not. The amounts described in v. 6-7 show that this steward's boss was a really big player in the commodities market of his day, and the transactions involved were enormously expensive. In such a setting we are talking about a steward (or business manager) who himself was earning by each transaction of his employer a sizable commission, which was folded invisibly into the quoted prices. This meant that, when he needed to complete the transactions quickly and in a way that would earn favor with his master's customers (they are called "debtors" here, because they already have the merchandise and what is being negotiated are the "amounts payable"), there was an invisible "cushion" of his own commissions that he could tap without defrauding his master of his legitimate base price for the merchandise.If you want to read more of the reasoning behind accepting this interpretation of the story, I recommend Darrell L.Bock's book Luke (IVP New Testament Series), pp. 262-67.
Now, armed with this background, let's look at how the story unfolds. The business manager of an extremely wealthy business owner who dealt in huge amounts of olive oil and wheat was accused by his master of mismanaging (the term is "squandering") the owner's resources. It is quite possible that "squandering" points to deliberate fraud. And if so, it would explain why in v. 8 the owner refers to him as a "dishonest manager"not because his parting deals were crooked, but because he had been terminated because of a charge of dishonesty. The wealthy owner was losing money because his manager was inept. And so, he called the manage in and announced he was terminating him, and asked for him to turn in his books, so that the owner could know what needed to be done by his replacement.
The manager was horrified at the prospect of losing what had been up to now a very well-paying position. The prospects were discouraging: digging ditches and begging were disreputable employment and yielded very little income. His solution (v. 4) was to find a way in his final acts as manager to win friends among his employer's customers, so that they might employ him after his discharge. So he went to those with outstanding bills and offered them substantial reductions. As I wrote above, he could do this without depriving his master of his expected cut, because there was an invisible layer of the manager's own commission. He was wise enough to see that a short-term forfeiture of his usual commission would yield for him a security and long-term well-being that was much more important than the short-term profit he was giving up.
The result was that, when the owner heard of his manager's "golden parachute" deals, he expressed admiration for his cleverness. Had these deals resulted in the owner's own legitimate capital and profit being reduced, it is hard to see why he would commend the manager. But if it was not to his own detriment, but showed the manager's good business sense and foresight, the owner's remarks make excellent sense. He might now have had second thoughts about his decision to dismiss the man!
Jesus' applications in v. 9-15 also make better sense if the situation was as I have described. The manager rightly saw that his present profits would be better served by helping others, and that this would eventually produce goodwill for himself when he needed it most. In his case it came after his dismissal from his post and probably took the form of support from those he had helped while in the employ of his former master. In the case of disciples, we should view our present resources as being best used to help others, for this will eventually produce God's commendation and, when we need it most at our deaths, we will be welcomed by God and the angels into paradise.
Of course, we are not to understand that good works such as what we do with our resources earn us entrance into Heaven. Jesus and the authors of the New Testament make it abundantly clear that forgiveness comes to us as God's free gift. We appropriate it by asking for it and acknowledging that it comes to us through Jesus' sacrifice for us. But we gain our Lord's approval and his pleasure, when as forgiven sinners and disciples we use our resources as this business manager did. He was wise, for he understood it was better to postpone short-term pleasures through spending his money on himself in order to ensure long-term pleasure through helping others and gaining his Master's approval.
Luke (and Jesus) adds a coda to this story: the short section in v. 13-15. And here we see an example of what I wrote about in an earlier blog posting: that the word pair "love" and "hate" in Hebraic language mean "give preference to" one thing over another. Serving both God and Mammon (= acquiring money not to help others and serve God) is impossible, because one always has to give preference to one over the other in everyday decisions. A disciple of Jesus must always choose God, and his or her use of possessions and resources must always be to serve God by helping others.
In v. 14-15 his critics derided him for these words. But he retorted: "Your opinions are influenced too much by popular current human thinking. What most people think is important, God considers valueless."
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