Luke 16:1-18

Be still: As I sit quietly with you, God, please meet me through your Word. Give me ears to hear you and eyes to see the movement of your Holy Spirit in my life right now. Amen.

Read: Luke 16:1-18

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. (v13)

Encounter: This is a tricky passage for us to understand, and easy to misunderstand!

The parable is for the benefit of Jesus’ disciples, but also within the story there is a not-so-subtle critique of the Pharisees, and their attitude to wealth. The characters, both the manager and the rich man, are slightly unsavoury, and neither represent God or Christ himself, as the protagonist might do in other parables.

Jesus’ hearers would have understood that the manager is a steward whose prime responsibility should be to use his master's resources well, in order to fulfill the master’s goals. At the beginning of the parable the manager is, on the one hand, serving the rich man, but on the other hand, he is wasting the rich man’s wealth. By the end of the parable, the manager is entirely serving his own interests, more concerned about his future needs, than about wisely stewarding the rich man’s wealth. 

At first sight, it seems that Jesus is commending dishonesty. Absolutely not; he is illustrating the need for his followers to commit fully to God, just as the dishonest manager became fully devoted to his own interests. Unbelievers are often wiser in handling the things of this world, he says, than believers are in using their resources for the Kingdom of God.

When we fully understand that God is the owner of everything, we begin to appreciate that all that we have is a gift from him who promises to provide for us. Our attitude shifts from seeing our resources as ‘ours’ to do with as we wish, to recognising them as a means by which we can be conduits for God’s blessing to others. 

Apply: God wants the whole of me and my ‘stuff’, even my bank account — am I holding it back from him, and why might that be?

Devote: Father God — I want to hold my resources lightly, in gratitude that you alone are my provider. Help me to steward well all that you have entrusted to me.