Luke 16:4 Commentary and Bible Study

The steward now knows he is going to be put out of his job, but for the time being he has been left in place. Taking advantage of this, he decides, given his predicament, he is going to do something remarkably shrewd and astute. He still has authority to act on his master’s behalf, and he thinks up a way of using that to his advantage. Since he is going to be fired anyway, it doesn’t matter that he further swindles his master in order to secure his place once has lost his job. What does it matter if the master sees him as a servant who has betrayed his master’s interests? That does not concern him, for his master is already certain to dismiss him when he sees the books. Who then are those that will still look kindly on him after he is put out of his stewardship? They are his master’s debtors. Obviously what they care about is their debts. They will be very pleased if they have those debts reduced. The steward therefore decides to call them and offer them a deal which they cannot refuse. He will substantially reduce their debts, if they agree to settle immediately, that is, before he is dismissed from his position. The deception will only work while he still working for his master, and so he has to act quickly. Maybe he told them what he was doing; maybe not. If not, they would probably have seen this as a way of getting them to settle longstanding debts, which they would otherwise have been reluctant to pay. But he certainly wanted them to understand that their debts had been reduced on account of his good will towards them. The steward counted on them remembering the benefit he had given them after he was put out of his stewardship, and he would then require them to repay him in some way. As he puts it, that ‘they may receive me into their houses’ – after all, he is about to lose the place he has in his master’s house. Once the deal was struck to repay the debt at reduced cost, the master could not do anything about it. He had found out too late. He could not go and demand the cancelled portion of the amount owed, because his steward had signed off the debt while still in his employ. It was a truly cunning scheme, and it would have worked.