Luke 16:1 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Luke 16:1

Comments

(Synoptics: Luke 16:1-13)This is a parable which seems to cause us a great deal of confusion and difficulty, and the main reason why it does, is because we tend to overlook the fact that is an evangelistic parable. The tendency is for us to take this parable and to try to draw from it exclusively moral teaching, and that gets us into great confusion because we see the apparent spectacle of the rich man, who is described here as the lord of the steward, approving and condoning unjust financial dealings. We go back to Matthew Henry or Calvin before him and we find the older divines perfectly content to expound this in terms of an evangelistic parable, and as soon as we do that our difficulties melt away. Now these words were spoken to the disciples particularly, but in such a way that the Pharisees who were there heard quite plainly. In verse 14 we read that the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things and they derided him. The parable was intended for them as well as for the disciples. So many of the obviously evangelistic parables are spoken to the disciples. We must remember that the Lord Jesus Christ is teaching his disciples how to win souls, and often he speaks to them by way of example. The Lord Jesus Christ knew perfectly well that all the others also were listening. The scribes and the Pharisees clearly knew what these things meant. They were listening to it as unbelievers and it cut them to the heart.‘There was a certain rich man, which had a steward.’ That is a kind of estate manager. This rich man is a very wealthy landlord, and he has an estate manager who is charged with having wasted the landlord's goods. In other words, he has enriched himself and has made a complete mess of running the estate. In all probability he collected the rents quite diligently, but having got the money in, he just made himself comfortable. The landlord seems to have been was an absent landlord, a landlord who lived somewhere else, probably at a distance, and the estate manager could live in a splendid house, and he could strut around the estate as though he owned the place. One gets the impression it rather went to his head, and with the landlord absent he was able to indulge himself and behave as though he owned it all. He allowed various tenanted farms, perhaps, to run downhill, and to go without developments and improvements. He took in the rents, which were very considerable, and should have provided ample funds to improve the entire estate, pay him, and return a substantial profit to the landlord. But the landlord, it would appear, got very little, or certainly got far less than he should have received. The revenue was squandered, the work was not done, and the man just looked after himself.

Application

The lesson of the parable is that we need to be as shrewd when it comes to matters of the soul and to eternity, as the unjust steward was in matters of time and of this world. It is a parable and not an allegory. That means that not every element of the parable finds its equivalent in the spiritual application. In general terms there is a parallel between the situation in the parable and the application to us, but not in every detail. The similarities in our case are the following. There is one who is over us, to whom we are accountable. As human beings, all of us are stewards of the lives given to us. We have all been found wanting and are therefore judged to be unfaithful stewards. We too are due to have our stewardships terminated – the unjust steward by losing his job, and we by ending our lives in this world. We all have an opportunity of using what is available to us to make provision for the time which will follow, after we have been thrown out of our stewardship. How we handle the unrighteous mammon is key to this future provision, but the way the unjust steward handled his situation – which was entirely dishonest – is certainly not a pattern for us. He solved his problem by further swindling his master. What we are to do has no direct equivalent to that. We are to put to death covetousness by using earthly wealth to help others in this world. That will not buy us salvation – which must be introduced into the parable by the preacher, and is entirely by grace – but it will allow us to handle the unrighteous mammon (earthly wealth) in a spiritually safe way which does us no harm, and will gain friends for us in heaven. This is certainly not intended to teach that friends made by right use of earthly riches have any power to secure us a place in heaven. Only Christ can purchase us a place in heaven by his sacrificial death, and his perfect life of obedience. But these friends are spoken of on the assumption that those we choose to help will, for the most part, be believers, who will precede us to heaven, and who will remember our acts of charity to them while they were on earth, and who will express their gratitude to us in heaven. The Pharisees saw this as a parable against them and against their covetousness, and they were right. The way to overcome covetousness is in the first place to repent and come to Christ for salvation. He will then transform our attitude to earthly wealth, and enable us to spend it, not on ourselves, but on the needy around us. The parable is a lesson against covetousness, but much more, it is a lesson about the importance of preparing for the future needs of the soul, by considering our predicament as sinners, and coming to Christ as the only Saviour. He will then so work in our hearts that covetousness receives a death blow. The believer now lives with the eternal future state in view.

Questions

The stumbling block in interpreting the parable is the inability of the interpreter to overlook the fact that the Lord uses an unrighteous act as a picture of a righteous act. Once we are freed from concern about this, it all fits together quite easily. The commendation of the master is not an approval of the morality of the steward’s act, for this aspect of his act is overlooked for the sake of the parallel.

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Introduction

Luke 16:1 Commentary and Bible Study