Luke 16:1-9

And first the parable: Luke 16:1-9.

In this portraiture, as in some others, Jesus does not scruple to use the example of the wicked for the purpose of stimulating His disciples. And in fact, in the midst of conduct morally blamable, the wicked often display remarkable qualities of activity, prudence, and perseverance, which may serve to humble and encourage believers. The parable of the unjust steward is the master-piece of this sort of teaching.

The rich man of Luke 16:1 is a great lord living in the capital, far from his lands, the administration of which he has committed to a factor. The latter is not a mere slave, as in Luke 12:42; he is a freeman, and even occupying a somewhat high social position (Luke 16:3). He enjoys very large powers. He gathers in and sells the produce at his pleasure. Living himself on the revenue of the domain, it is his duty to transmit to his master the surplus of the income. Olshausen alleges that this master, in the view of Jesus, represents the prince of this world, the devil, and that only thus can the eulogium be explained which he passes (Luke 16:8) on the conduct of his knavish servant. This explanation is incompatible with the deprivation of the steward pronounced by the master, Luke 16:2, and which, in the view of our Lord, can only denote death. It is not Satan who disposes of human life. Satan is not even the master of riches; does not God say, Haggai 2:8: “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine”? Comp. Psalms 24:1. Finally, it is not to Satan, certainly, that we shall have to give account of our administration of earthly goods! Our Lord clearly gives out Himself as the person represented by the master, Luke 16:8-9: The master commended...; and I also say unto you. Again, could we admit that in Luke 16:12 the expression: faithful in that which is another man's (your master's), should signify: “faithful to that which the devil has committed to you of his goods”? Meyer has modified this explanation of Olshausen: the master, according to him, is wealth personified, mammon. But how are we to attribute the personal part which the master in the parable plays to this abstract being, wealth? The master can only represent God Himself, Him who maketh poor and maketh rich, who bringeth low and lifteth up. In relation to his neighbour, every man may be regarded as the proprietor of his goods; but in relation to God, no one is more than a tenant. This great and simple thought, by destroying the right of property relatively to God, gives it its true basis in the relation between man and man. Every man should respect the property of his neighbour, just because it is not the latter's property, but that of God, who has entrusted it to him. In the report made to the master about the delinquencies of his steward, we are to see the image of that perfect knowledge which God has of all human unfaithfulness. To waste the goods of God, means, after having taken out of our revenue what is demanded for our maintenance, instead of consecrating the remainder to the service of God and of His cause, squandering it on our pleasure, or hoarding it up for ourselves. Here we have the judgment of Jesus on that manner of acting which appears to us so natural: it is to forget that we are but stewards, and to act as proprietors.

The saying of the master to the steward (Luke 16:2) does not include a call to clear himself; it is a sentence of deprivation. His guilt seems thoroughly established. The account which he is summoned to render is the inventory of the property confided to him, to be transmitted to his successor. What corresponds to this deprivation is evidently the event by which God takes away from us the free disposal of the goods which He had entrusted to us here below, that is, death. The sentence of deprivation pronounced beforehand denotes the awakening of the human conscience when it is penetrated by this voice of God: “Thou must die; thou shalt give account.” Φωνήσας is stronger than καλέσας : “speaking with the tone of a master.” In the phrase τί τοῦτο, τί may be taken as an exclamation: “ How happens it that I hear this!” or interrogatively, with τοῦτο in apposition: “ What do I hear of thee, to wit this? ” The accusation which we should expect to follow is understood.

The present δύνῃ, in some Alex., is that of the immediate future.

The words: he said within himself, have some relation to those of Luke 15:17: when he came to himself. It is an act of recollection after a life passed in insensibility. The situation of the man is critical. Of the two courses which present themselves to his mind, the first, digging, and the second, begging, are equally intolerable to him, the one physically, the other morally. All at once, after long reflection, he exclaims, as if striking his forehead: I have it! ῎Εγνων, I have come to see (Luke 16:4). He starts from the sentence as from a fact which is irrevocable: when I am put out. But has he not those goods, which he is soon to hand over to another, in his hands for some time yet? May he not hasten to use them in such a way that he shall get advantage from them when he shall have them no more, by making sure, for example, of a refuge for the time when he shall be houseless? When man thinks seriously of his approaching death, it is impossible for him not to be alarmed at that deprivation which awaits him, and at the state of nakedness which will follow. Happy if in that hour he can take a firm resolution. For some time yet he has in his hands the goods of his divine Master, which death is about to wrest from him. Will it not be wisdom on his part so to use them during the brief moments when he has them yet at his disposal, that they shall bear interest for him when they shall be his no more?

This steward, who will soon be homeless, knows people who have houses: “Let us then make friends of them; and when I shall be turned to the street, more than one house shall be open to receive me.” The debtors, whom he calls to him with this view, are merchants who are in the habit of coming to get their supplies from him, getting credit probably till they have made their own sales, and making their payments afterwards. The Heb. βάτος, the bath, contains about 60 pints. The gift of 50 of those baths might mount up to the sum of some thousands of francs. The κόρος, corus (homer), contains 10 ephahs; and the value of 20 homers might rise to some hundreds of francs. The difference which the steward makes between the two gifts is remarkable; it contains a proof of discernment. He knows his men, as the saying is, and can calculate the degree of liberality which he must show to each to gain a like result, that is to say, the hospitality he expects to receive from them until it be repaid. Jesus here describes alms in the most piquant form. Does a rich man, for example, tear up the bill of one of his poor debtors? He only does what the steward does here. For if all we have is God's, supposing we lend anything, it is out of His property that we have taken it; and if we give it away, it is with His goods (that which is another's, Luke 16:12) that we are generous in so acting. Beneficence from this point of view appears as a sort of holy unfaithfulness. By means of it we prudently make for ourselves, like the steward, personal friends, while we use wealth which, strictly speaking, is that of our Master. But differently from the steward, we do so holily, because we know that we are not acting without the knowledge and contrary to the will of the divine Owner, but that, on the other hand, we are entering into His purposes of love, and that he rejoices to see us thus using the goods which he has committed to us with that intention. This unfaithfulness is faithfulness (Luke 16:12).

The commendation which the master gives the steward (Luke 16:8) is not absolute. It has a twofold limitation, first in the word τῆς ἀδικίας, “the unjust steward,” an epithet which he must certainly put in the master's mouth, and then in the explanatory phrase: “because he had done wisely. ” The meaning of the commendation, then, is to this effect: “Undoubtedly a clever man! It is only to be regretted that he has not shown as much probity as prudence.” Thus, even though beneficence chiefly profits him who exercises it, God rejoices to see this virtue. And while He has no favour for the miser who hoards His goods, or for the egoist who squanders them, He approves the man who disposes of them wisely in view of his eternal future. Weizsäcker holds that the eulogium given by the master should be rejected from the parable. Had he understood it better, he would not have proposed this suppression, which would be a mutilation.

It is with the second part of Luke 16:8 that the application begins. “ Wisely: Yes, adds Jesus, it is quite true. For there is more wisdom found among the children of this world in their mode of acting toward the children of the generation to which they belong, than among the children of light in their conduct toward those who belong to theirs.” Αἰών οὗτος, this age (world); the period of history anterior to the coming of the kingdom of God. Φῶς : the domain of the higher life into which Jesus introduces His disciples, and in which the brightness of divine wisdom reigns. Both spheres have their own population, and every inhabitant of the one or the other is surrounded by a certain number of contemporaries like himself, who form his γενεά or generation. Those belonging to the first sphere use every means for their own interest, to strengthen the bonds which unite them to their contemporaries of the same stamp. But those of the second neglect this natural measure of prudence. They forget to use God's goods to form bonds of love to the contemporaries who share their character, and who might one day give them a full recompense, when they themselves shall want everything and these shall have abundance. Luke 16:9 finishes the application. The words: and I also say unto you, correspond to these: and the Lord commended (Luke 16:8). As in chap. 15 Jesus had identified Himself with the Father who dwells in heaven, so in this saying He identifies Himself with the invisible owner of all things: and I. Jesus means: Instead of hoarding up or enjoying, a course which will profit you nothing when, on the other side of the tomb, you will find yourselves in your turn poor and destitute of everything, hasten to make for yourselves, with the goods of another (God's), personal friends (ἑαυτοῖς, to yourselves), who shall then be bound to you by gratitude, and share with you their well-being. By a course of beneficence, make haste to transform into a bond of love the base metal of which death will soon deprive you. What the steward did in his sphere in relation to people of his own quality, see that you do in yours toward those who belong like you to the world to come. The Alex. reading, ἐκλίπη (μαμωνᾶς), would signify: “that when money shall fail you (by the event of death).” The T. R.: ἐκλίπητε, when ye shall fail, refers to the cessation of life, embracing privation of everything of which it is made up.

The friends, according to Meyer and Ewald, are the angels, who, affected by the alms of the beneficent man, are attached to him, and assist him at the time of his passing into eternity. But according to the parable, the friends can only be men who have been succoured by him on the earth, poor here below, but possessing a share in the everlasting inheritance. What service can they render to the dying disciple? Here is perhaps the most difficult question in the explanation of the parable. Love testified and experienced establishes between beings a strict moral unity. This is clearly seen in the relation between Jesus and men. May not the disciple who reaches heaven without having gained here below the degree of development which is the condition of full communion with God, receive the increase of spiritual life, which is yet wanting to him, by means of those grateful spirits with whom he shared his temporal goods here below? (Comp. Romans 15:27 and 1 Corinthians 9:11.) Do we not already see on the earth the poor Christian, who is assisted by a humane, but in a religious point of view defective, rich man, by his prayers, by the overflowing of his gratitude, and the edification which he affords him, requiting his benefactor infinitely more and better than he receives from him? Almsgiving is thus found to be the most prudent investment; for the communication of love once established by its means, enables him who practises it to enjoy provisionally the benefits of a spiritual state far superior to that which he has himself reached. A similar thought is found in Luke 14:13-14. But if this explanation seems to leave something to desire, we must fall back on sayings such as these: “He that hath pity upon the poor, lendeth unto the Lord.” “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” It is Jesus, it is God Himself, who become our debtors by the assistance which we grant to those who are the objects of their love. And would such friends be useless in the hour of our dissolution? To receive is not to introduce. On the contrary, the first of these two terms assumes that admission is already adjudged. Faith, which alone opens heaven, is supposed in the hearers whom Jesus is addressing in the parable: they are disciples, Luke 16:1. Conversion, the fruit of faith, is equally implied, Luke 16:3-4. And since the disciple whom Jesus describes has chosen believers as the special objects of his liberality, he must to a certain degree be a believer himself.

The poetical expression eternal habitations (tents) is borrowed from patriarchal history. The tents of Abraham and Isaac under the oaks of Mamre are transferred in thought to the life to come, which is represented under the image of a glorified Canaan. What is the future of poetry but the past idealized? It is less natural to think, with Meyer, of the tents of Israel in the desert. We may here compare the πολλαὶ μοναί, the many mansions, in the Father's house, John 14:3.

There remains to be explained the phrase ὁ μαμωνᾶς τῆς ἀδικίας, the mammon of unrighteousness. The word μαμωνᾶς is not, as has often been said, the name of an oriental divinity, the god of money. It denotes, in Syriac and Phoenician, money itself (see Bleek on Matthew 6:24). The Aramaic name is מָמוֹן, and, with the article, מָמוֹנָא. The epithet unrighteous is taken by many commentators simply to mean, that the acquisition of fortune is most frequently tainted with sin; according to Bleek and others, that sin readily attaches to the administration of it. But these are only accidental circumstances; the context points to a more satisfactory explanation. The ear of Jesus must have been constantly offended with that sort of reckless language in which men indulge without scruple: my fortune, my lands, my house. He who felt to the quick man's dependence on God, saw that there was a usurpation in this idea of ownership, a forgetfulness of the true proprietor; on hearing such language, He seemed to see the farmer playing the landlord. It is this sin, of which the natural man is profoundly unconscious, which He lays bare in this whole parable, and which He specially designates by this expression, the unrighteous mammon. The two τῆς ἀδικίας, Luke 16:8-9, correspond exactly, and mutually explain one another. It is therefore false to see in this epithet, with De Wette, the Tübingen School, Renan, etc., a condemnation of property as such. Man's sin does not consist in being, as one invested with earthly property, the steward of God, but in forgetting that he is so (parable following).

There is no thought more fitted than that of this parable, on the one hand, to undermine the idea of merit belonging to almsgiving (what merit could be got out of that which is another's?), and on the other, to encourage us in the practice of that virtue which assures us of friends and protectors for the grave moment of our passing into the world to come. What on the part of the steward was only wise unfaithfulness, becomes wise faithfulness in the servant of Jesus who acts on acquaintance with principle. It dare not be said that Jesus had wit; but if one could be tempted to use the expression at all, it would be here.

Of the many explanations of this parable which have been proposed, we shall merely quote some of the most prominent. Schleiermacher takes the master to be the Roman knights who farmed the taxes of Judaea, and sublet them to needy publicans; the steward, to be the publicans whom Jesus exhorted to expend on their countrymen the goods of which they cleverly cheated those great foreigners. Henri Bauer sees in the master the Israelitish authorities, and in the unfaithful steward the Judeo-Christians, who, without troubling themselves about theocratic prejudices, should strive to communicate to the Gentiles the benefits of the covenant. According to Weizsäcker, in the original thought of the parable the steward represented a Roman magistrate, who, to the detriment of the Jews, had been guilty of maladministration, but who thereafter strives to make amends by showing them gentleness and liberality. No wonder that from this point of view the critic knows not what to make of the eulogium passed by the master on his steward! But according to him, the sense and the image were transformed, and the description became in the hands of Luke an encouragement to rich and unbelieving Jews to merit heaven by doing good to poor Christians. The arbitrary and forced character of those explanations is clear as the day, and they need no detailed refutation. We are happy that we can agree, at least for once, with Hilgenfeld, both in the general interpretation of the parable and in the explanation of the sayings which follow (Die Evangel, p. 199).