Parables #32 Shrewd Manager
Parable # 32 Unjust Steward / Shrewd Manager Luke 16:1-13Wa He Shrewd or Dishonest?The Parable can be found in Luke 16:1–13.
Some translations have the heading of “The Parable of the Dishonest Manager” while others have it as “The Parable of the Shrewd Manager” but whatever you call it, Jesus had a purpose in this parable as He did in every parable. Jesus used natural things that we are familiar with to teach a biblical principle in ways that made it easier to understand and so this is the Parable of the Shrewd or Dishonest Manager with a verse by verse expositional commentary with meaning.
Parable of the Shrewd Manager
Jesus told this story to his disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a manager handling his affairs. One day a report came that the manager was wasting his employer’s money. 2 So the employer called him in and said, ‘What’s this I hear about you? Get your report in order, because you are going to be fired.’
3 “The manager thought to himself, ‘Now what? My boss has fired me. I don’t have the strength to dig ditches, and I’m too proud to beg. 4 Ah, I know how to ensure that I’ll have plenty of friends who will give me a home when I am fired.’
5 “So he invited each person who owed money to his employer to come and discuss the situation. He asked the first one, ‘How much do you owe him?’ 6 The man replied, ‘I owe him ahundred measures of olive oil.’ So the manager told him, ‘Take the bill and quickly change it to fifty measures’
7 “‘And how much do you owe my employer?’ he asked the next man. ‘I owe him a hundred measures of wheat,’ was the reply. ‘Here,’ the manager said, ‘take the bill and change it to eighty measures.[]’
8 “The rich man had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd. And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light.9 Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.[c]
10 “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. 11 And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? 12 And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own?13 “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
The text can be broken down into two parts: The parable verses 1–8 and the application verses 9–13. Luke 16:1 identifies that Jesus is speaking to His disciples, but there is a suggestion that His audience is mixed—disciples and Pharisees.
It is important to know to whom Jesus is addressing this parable. The parable is for the benefit of the disciples, but there is also a not-so-subtle critical assessment of the Pharisees,as was evident in Luke 15.Luke 16:14 states that 14 The Pharisees, who dearly loved their money, heard all this and scoffed at him.[Jesus].This could suggest that this parable is connected to the previous three in Luke 15 and that the audience was a mixed crowd of disciples and Pharisees.Verse 14 is Luke’s commentary on the motivation of the Pharisees, and in verse 15 we see our Lord condemn their motives. And what was the Pharisees’ motivation? They were those who were “lovers of money” and They “justified themselves before men” and They exalted that which was an “abomination before God.”With that as a backdrop, let’s take a look at the parable. It’s a fairly simple, but somewhat unorthodox, parable from Jesus. The story is simple, but the setting is unusual. In most of Jesus’ parables, the central character is either representative of God, Christ, or some other positive character.
In this parable the characters are all wicked—the steward and the man whose possessions he manages are both unsavory characters.
This should alert us to the fact that Jesus is not exhorting us to emulate the behavior of the characters at all, but He is trying to expound on a larger principle.The parable begins with a rich man calling his steward before him to inform him that he will be relieving him of his duties for mismanaging his master’s resources.
A steward is a person who manages the resources of another. The steward had authority over all of the master’s resources and could handlethe business in his name. This position requires the utmost level of trust in the steward. Now, it may not be apparent at this point in the parable (but is made more evident later on), that the master is probably not aware of the steward’s dishonesty. The steward is being released for apparent mismanagement, not fraud. This explains why he is able to conduct a few more transactions before he is released and why he is not immediately tossed out on the street or executed.This man must have been asked to leave for a very good reason. The charge was “a report came that the manager was wasting his employer’s money. ” but nothing was ever said that indicated that he was actually guilty of the charge but since the man didn’t argue for his case, we can assume that he was guilty as charged.Luke 16:3–43 “The manager thought to himself, ‘Now what? My boss has fired me. I don’t have the strength to dig ditches, and I’m too proud to beg. 4 Ah, I now have to ensure that I’ll have plenty of friends who will give me a home when I am fired.’This man apparently had never worked at physical labor since he wasn’t strong enough to dig and his pride prevented him from begging so he thinks of a way to have people “receive [him] into their houses” meaning that he wouldn’t have to be homeless if his idea worked.
The unjust steward, realized that he was soon to be, without a job, he then made some shrewd deals behind his master’s back by reducing the debt owed by several of the master’s debtors in exchange for shelter when he is eventually asked to leave .He did so by cheating his master (he was more than likely cheating his customers). He made friends of his master’s debtors who would then be obligated to care for him once he lost his job.
We read in Luke 16:5–75 “So he invited each person who owed money to his employer to come and discuss the situation. He asked the first one, ‘How much do you owe him?’ 6 The man replied, ‘I owe him ahundred measures of olive oil.’ So the manager told him, ‘Take the bill and quickly change it to fifty measures’
7 “‘And how much do you owe my employer?’ he asked the next man. ‘I owe him a hundred measures of wheat,’ was the reply. ‘Here,’ the manager said, ‘take the bill and change it to eighty measures.[]’
These measures are no small amount because one measure of oil is equal to 5.5litres(in total 550 litres)and a hundred measures of wheat is between 1,000 and 1,200 bushels so this man is talking about a very large sum of money. There may have been negligence on the manager’s part in collecting these bills for his master and it may have been part of the reason that he was fired so he decides to cut the bills down which could have meant that those debtors had to now pay the master the outstanding balance.In His application of the story in the remaining verses, Jesus begins by saying,Luke 16:8–98 “The rich man had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd. And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light.9 Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.[c]
When the master becomes aware of what the wicked servant had done, It seems that the master liked what he saw so he commend him for his “shrewdness.”but there is nothing in these verses that would suggest that, the manager was dishonest in his dealings with the master’s debtors after he was fired,. In fact, he was able to get them to pay at least part or most of their bills ,so that’s certainly better than nothing. The second part ofverse 8Jesus is drawing a contrast between the “children of the world” (i.e., unbelievers) and the “children of the light” (believers).……And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light.Unbelievers are wiser in the things of this world than believers are about the things of the world to comeThen the master in the parable tells him in verse 9“Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.” What does this mean? There is essentially nothing righteous about money in factwe are warned in scripture:1Timothy 6:10“For the love of money it the root of all kinds of evil.” But Jesus may be telling us in the parable to use our money for the kingdom of God’s purpose while we still have money or while we are still alive on this earth. Such as when we support ministries that preach the gospel and bring it into other parts of the word, we are essentially going to be receiving people into our eternal dwellings because we were part of the laboring in the Great Commission(Matt 28:18-20; Acts 1:8). Can you imagine having people come up to you in the kingdom of heaven and say “You were part of the reason that I was saved since you supported those who shared the gospel with me…” while others will say that you directly told them about how they could be saved and that you’re the reason that they are there. Either way, you will be “making friends for yourself” and be received “into an eternal home” because you were obedient to the Lord’s command to “go into all the world and make disciples of all nation” (Matt 28:19). Jesus is telling us that we must use the money that God has blessed and entrusted us with to help others come to saving faith but the principal here is not to cheat our own “masters” or employers out of their profits. They are trusting us and paying us for our labor.. What does this have to do with believers being wise about the life to come? Let’s look at verse 9: “9 Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.[c].”
Jesus is encouraging His followers to be generous with their wealth in this life so that in the life to come their new friends will receive them “into eternal dwellings.” This is similar to Jesus’ teaching on wealth in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus exhorts His followers to lay up treasures in heaven Matthew 6:19–2119 “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.The term unrighteous (or worldly) wealth seems to strike readers the wrong way.But Jesus is not saying that believers should gain wealth unrighteously and then be generous with it. “Unrighteous” in reference to wealth can refer to:1.The means in acquiring wealth2. The way in which one desires to use the wealth or3. The corrupting influence wealth can have that often leads people to commit unrighteous acts. Given the way in which Jesus employs the term, the third explanation seems the most likely. Wealth is not inherently evil, but the love of money can lead to all sorts of sin 1 Timothy 6:1010 For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.
Jesus then goes on to expand in verses 10–12 the principle given in verse 9.10 “If you are faithful in little things, (i.e., “unrighteous” wealth), you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. 11 And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, (which isn’t even ours to begin with)who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? 12 And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own?
The “true riches” here is referring to stewardship and responsibility in God’s kingdom along with all the accompanying heavenly rewards.In these verses Jesus is talking about stewardship of our own resources because He says that if someone is faithful in a small amount, the Lord will entrust him or her with more and if we are dishonest in the small things then we’ll be untrustworthy and likely dishonest in the bigger things. If we’re not “faithful with that which belongs to someone else” or if we aren’t giving our employer the labor that he deserve, then we are being dishonest in smaller things, therefore God is never going to trust us in the bigger things. We cut ourselves off from greater blessings in the future if we are not faithful in the smaller things today.The climax of Jesus’ application is verse 13: 13 “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”(see alsoMatthew 6:24). Your heart or your loyalty cannot be divided in half. God cannot work with a half-hearted believer. He either has all of your heart or…. money has all of it and thus, it takes the place of God…as an idol. There is no way to serve two masters at the same time…and sadly, even for some Christians, it is money that they serve and not God.So, the principle that Jesus is trying to convey is one of a just steward rather than an unjust one. The unjust steward saw his master’s resources as a means for his own personal enjoyment and advancement. Conversely, Jesus wants His followers to be just, righteous stewards.
If God is our Master, then our wealth will be at His disposal. In other words, the faithful and just steward who’s Master is God will employ that wealth in building up the kingdom of God.
If we understand the principle that everything we own is a gift from God, then we realize that God is the owner of everything and that we are His stewards. As such, we are to use the Master’s resources to further the Master’s goals. In this specific case, we are to be generous with our wealth and use it for the benefit of others.Does Jesus really Commend Shrewd Money Managers
In Luke 16:1–9, Jesus told his disciples this odd parable where he used a dishonest manager as an example of shrewdness.What did Jesus mean?Imagine a discussion about this between the two disciples Simon and Matthew.
Jesus chose Simon the Zealot, a man who likely desired to forcibly remove the Roman government, and He also chose Matthew, a tax collector working for that Roman government. Both Simon and Matthew, though natural enemies, were part of the Twelve. What a beautiful illustration of the peace Jesus brings! Today, God still brings healing and changes lives. Even those with a violent past or extremist tendency can be transformed as God uses them to spread the good news of Christ’s love for all people.The conversation between Peter and Matthew could have been something like thisThis is Peter asking Matthew:“Matthew, you know more about these things than I do. Why did the Master commend the dishonest manager’s shrewdness?”Simon’s question stung a bit and Matthew’s look said so.“Oh. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”As we know Simon and Matthew were unlikely friends. And it had been pretty rocky between them at first.Simon a zealot with a lethal hatred for the Romans.He had once sworn himself to the sacred cause of driving them out of Israel. But even more he had loathed Jews who were involved in something illegal in the Roman suppressionsuch as the looting of God’s people. Jews like Matthew. Matthew had collected taxes for Rome — and himself. He had simply thought of it as a shrewd and lucrative career move. And prior to Jesus calling him from his booth he had had no time for the foolish zealot idealism of people like Simon. A handful of angry Jews believed that maybe one day they would be able to take on Caesar’s legions but knew that could only happen in an ideal and perfect state where everyone lived in harmony . If they tried to do that now it would be a death wish, and an appointment with a Roman cross.
As disciples, the former zealot and former tax collector were friends. Only Jesus could have made that happen.
“What did you mean?” Matthew asked.
“I just meant . . . you used to be . . .“A shrewd dishonest manager?”“I’m not saying you were just like . . .”“Stop tripping over yourself, Simon. I was every bit as shrewdly dishonest and worse. I know it. It’s just painful to remember what I used to be.“Which master are you saying commended the manager?”“Well, that’s where I’m confused. It almost sounded like Jesus commended the self-protective actions of the manager. But I know that’s not right. How is this corrupt scoundrel supposed to be an example for ‘the sons of light’?”asked SimonMatthew smiled and replied…..“Generosity.”“Generosity?said SimonThe only thing he was generous with was his master’s money!”“Exactly. Simon, that’s our Master’s point. The manager used his master’s money to win favour with those who could provide him a place to live when he lost his job.”“And that’s a good thing?” asked Simon“No. But as a ‘son of this world’ he knew how this world works. So he used worldly shrewdness so he wouldn’t be homeless. Even his worldly master appreciated his shrewdness. Jesus is saying that the ‘sons of light’ need to be at least as shrewd about how the kingdom works.”Simon replied, “Which is completely different.”“Completely. But what we do is similar to what the dishonest manager did.”“You mean we’re generous with our Master’s money.”said Simon“That’s Right.”Said MatthewSimon thought for a moment then replied. “So, that’s what he meant by “sell your possessions, and give to the needy”and then we will have “a treasure in the heavens that does not fail” (Luke 12:33). Shrewd ‘sons of light’ give away “unrighteous wealth” and make friends of God, who is our eternal dwelling (Deuteronomy 33:27).“Exactly.Said MatthewThat’s the shrewdness our Master commends.”Our heavenly Master has made us all managers of “unrighteous wealth” (Luke 16:9). John Piper says this about money,The possession of money in this world is a test run for eternity.Can you pass the test of faithfulness with your money? Do you use it as a means of proving the worth of God and the joy you have in supporting his cause? Or does the way you use it prove that what you really enjoy is things, not God?These are questions we all must ask ourselves. Because Jesus wants us to be shrewd with our moneyLuke 16:8–98 “The rich man had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd. And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light.9 Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.[c]and kingdom shrewdness looks like this:Luke 12:32–34 32 “So don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom.33 “Sell your possessions and give to those in need. This will store up treasure for you in heaven! And the purses of heaven never get old or develop holes. Your treasure will be safe; no thief can steal it and no moth can destroy it. 34 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.
What was a Zealot?In the New Testament, one of the disciples of Jesus Christ was named Simon the Zealot Matthew 10:4Mark 3:18 Luke 6:15 Acts 1:13The Zealots were members of a first-century political movement among Judean Jews who sought to overthrow the occupying Roman government. The word zealot derives from the Greek zelotes, meaning “emulator or (zealous) follower.” According to the Jewish historian Josephus, three main Jewish groups existed at the time of Christ—the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. He also mentions a fourth group called the Zealots who were founded by Judas of Galilee and Zadok the Pharisee. Josephus notes that the Zealots “agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord” (Antiquities 18.1.6).Of importance in New Testament history, the Zealots led a rebellion when Rome introduced imperial cult worship. The Great Jewish Revolt began in A.D. 66. The Zealots successfully overtook Jerusalem, but their revolt was ultimately unsuccessful. In A.D. 70, the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the temple. A remnant of the Zealots then took refuge in Masada.Because of their often-violent tactics, the Zealots have been called some of the world’s first terrorists. Though the label is only partially true (not all Zealots were violent), the reputation of Zealots as forceful, aggressive agitators carries a significant lesson for us.