Luke 16:9 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Luke 16:9

Comments

Here is Christ’s positive lesson which we are to draw from this parable. Like the unjust steward, we are to make friends by using the mammon of unrighteousness. The use of the term links back to the unrighteous use which the unjust steward made of his master’s goods. This is his name for the riches of this world. They are called the mammon of unrighteousness, because they are so often put to an unrighteous use. So often men store up riches on earth as if they are going to be able to keep them forever. Whatever they acquire, whether it is money, or property, or goods, is all for them, and not to be shared with anyone else. Sometimes it is obtained by completely dishonest means. Dishonesty is rife on earth.What the unjust steward did was wrong. He is not to be imitated, but nevertheless, his actions suggest something which has its equivalent in the believer’s life. The unjust steward was due to lose his job, because he had been unfaithful. His lord knew all about his conduct and was sure to fire him. He therefore came up with this cunning scheme to ingratiate himself to people after he was put out of employment. We too will all fail, in the sense that our lives will come to an end. As the steward was put out of his job, so we will have life in this world taken away from us. He thought carefully about how to provide for himself after that happened. Do we think carefully about the afterlife, and about the salvation of our souls? This parable is not telling us the way to obtain salvation – that must be added by the preacher. It is telling us how we should regard earthly riches if we are not going to be harmed by them, and how we should use them for good. The Pharisees saw this as a parable about covetousness (verse 14), and they hated him for it, because they were covetous.

Application

It is impossible to have a right attitude to earthly riches unless we have faith in God. Only when we see that this life is transient, and that we must leave all behind when we die and take nothing with us, do we start to view earthly riches correctly. As those who love the Lord Jesus, we desire to be with him, and all our hope is fixed on the life to come. Earthly riches do after all have a heavenly use, but not because they can be transferred into a heavenly bank account. No, they must remain here. And yet we may benefit other believers with them while we are in this world, and although our money will not go to heaven, those believers will go there, and they will remember our kindness to them while we were on earth. They have no power to bring us to heaven themselves, but they will welcome us to heaven when we arrive there by grace. They will express gratitude to us for what we did to them when they were in the world with us. All these things are very revealing about the nature of relationships in heaven.

Questions

This verse has been described as divine sarcasm, and treated as the opposite of what we should do. The thinking behind that view of the verse is that Christ would never tell human beings to try to secure their place in heaven by making friends. No friend in heaven can bring us to heaven, or ensure that we are provided for there. Only Christ can redeem us from sin, and pay with his blood to have our sins forgiven. The way of salvation is only ever to repent of sin, and trust in Christ’s atoning death on Calvary. But the verse is not telling us how to obtain salvation. The words, ‘Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations’ are a truncated expression, which is teaching us about a use of earthly riches that is consistent with the life of.

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Introduction

Luke 16:9 Commentary and Bible Study