Luke 16:3 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Luke 16:3

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That is the summons. But then we see the response of the estate manager, the steward in the parable. Now, of course, the situation was so bad that it was a foregone conclusion. He hasn't been fired yet. He hasn't been declared guilty yet, but he knew the game was up. He knew it was inevitable that he would have to go. The man knew he was guilty as guilty could be. There was no question of him concealing it. There was no question of him getting away with this. He doesn't attempt to defend himself. He doesn't think, ‘Well, I can put a fair gloss on this. Things aren't too bad. If I just rush round and make a few alterations and straighten out a few affairs, I shall be able to go before the landlord and tell him that I am sorry about this.’ He doesn't attempt to say that. He sits down and puts his head in his hands, and he says, ;What am I going to do, because this is the end?’ He knows he can't make any credible defence of himself. All is hopeless. His mismanagement has been too great. His embezzlement, or whatever he has done, has been far too great for that. He has got to think of some way out other than justifying himself before his employer, the landlord. What could he do? What could he say? His response is very interesting. He says, ‘I cannot dig.’ We can be generous to the steward, and assume that the reason he could not dig, was not because he considered it to be beneath him, but because he had pampered himself for so long and he had gone soft; he had done a manager’s job for so long that he was not strong enough to do physical labour. ‘To beg I am ashamed.’ He is not talking about begging from his master to show him leniency; he is thinking ahead to the situation after he has lost his job, which will certainly soon be the case. He is thinking about how he is going to survive after he has lost his job. This is a view into the man’s private thoughts, which he would not have been willing to share publicly, but it is an accurate description of his thinking. He is not going to beg, because that would be too great a humiliation, too great a come down from his elevated position of honour on his lord’s estate. He simply couldn’t face the shame. Could he go and beg from those who previously had been his master’s traders, people he had lauded it over, and who had looked up to him as a man of power and influence? No, that was out of the question.

Application

Some have tried to find an application of these words, and looked for an equivalent in the spiritual realm. They have compared the possibility of the steward digging, to a man working for his salvation, and earning the favour of God. The application is then that you need to get a hold of yourself, and start living a righteous life and becoming an altogether good person. But you can't. You had better be honest and say with the estate manager of old, ‘I cannot dig. I can't do that. I cannot live a perfect and a righteous life which will make up for all my past misdeeds, and deserve heaven. I can't conquer my temper. I can't conquer my pride. I can't conquer my inner deceitfulness. I can't conquer my selfishness, my materialism.’

And they have compared the possibility of the steward begging, to our coming humbly to God in repentance and faith, and asking for forgiveness. They have compared this to asking for free salvation and a free favour from God, and bowing the knee to him, and saying, ‘Oh Lord, save me from my sin. Forgive me all my past misdeeds take my useless worthless life change me, and bring me to thyself and I will be thine forever.’ But we need to remember that this is the steward reflecting on what he is going to do after he is put out of his job, and the equivalent to that for us is after death. There is nothing that we can do after we have been taken from this world and brought before the Lord in judgment. We cannot then work for our salvation, nor can we begin then to ask for mercy. It is therefore be better to see this as just part of the realisation of the steward that he is in an impossible situation, and needs to come up with a more creative solution.

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Luke 16:3 Commentary and Bible Study