Luke 16 -- Say what?
Luke 15 has three stories that are very familiar topics to preachers. The lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son. Everyone “knows” those stories, but then you come to Luke 16 and it is “say what?” When I come to a chapter like this I have to wonder if I really understood what I was reading because if I did why is this chapter so mind boggling? In chapter 15 we are rejoicing over finding something that was lost. This chapter is about a manager who is about to lose his job because the owner has not been getting a good return on his investment. Secondly, I very much dislike the tendency of expositors to refer to “additional teachings'' because they didn’t know how they fit in. To me that is like rebuilding an engine, you took it apart, then rebuilt it, and now you are left with a few extra parts and you are trying to tell me these are “extra”. They aren’t extra, you just don’t understand how they fit in! Finally, I love chapters and verses of the Bible that I do not understand because I have something to pray over and I know when the Lord opens up the verse to me it will be a new revelation that I didn’t have before. That is what I hope to see here in chapter 16.
16 Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’
The context is the manager is being audited with the threat that he very likely will lose his job. The analogy here is the manager of a business like Best Buy is being audited, but the greater context is that Jesus is the owner of this business, He is building His church, and this person is one of His servants. For comparison we should consider the verse where He says He gives one servant 5 talents, another 2 and another 1 and tells them to trade while He goes into a far country and then when He returns they each need to give account of what they have done with that talent. If you are the manager of a BestBuy nothing in that store belongs to you, everything belongs to the owner, and it is your job to sell it to the people in that city. Likewise, if you are a Christian nothing belongs to you, every experience and gift you have has been given to you from the Lord and if you don’t share that gift it is a waste. When I was first saved I met with a church that had the practice of giving testimonies during every meeting. The message might go for an hour but then they would reserve another 30 minutes for all the members to share testimonies. Generally there was a time limit, definitely don’t speak for more than five minutes, but usually the time limit would be shorter. It can be terrifying to stand up in front of hundreds of people and share your poor little pathetic experience. So for months I was struggling, the Spirit was bothering me to share some experience, but in my mind it was too trivial. The meeting would end and I would go home defeated. Then I read this verse and it really terrified me. I felt the Lord was speaking to me, I have given you many experiences and what have you done with them? I am hearing that these experiences are wasted on you!
3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’ 5 “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 “‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied. “The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’ 7 “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’ “‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied. “He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’
There is a verse in Proverbs that says a word spoken in season is like apples of gold in settings of silver. To have that perfect testimony that exactly hits the point, it is like a beautiful treasure. I knew I had many experiences I wanted to share, but you want that perfect time. But once I thought I could get fired my thought was time to have a “going out of business sale”. Better to get something rather than nothing. I started to share my testimonies, didn’t worry if they were perfect, everything was being marked down.
8 “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.
This word “dishonest” is also translated as “unjust” and “unrighteous”. A hard word to swallow, but true. Everyone wants to have a “perfect” testimony. Sorry, if your testimony is “perfect” then you are being dishonest. The truth is that you are unrighteous and unjust and are in the process of being transformed. You aren’t there yet. Why is it that we think we can be street smart when we are in the street, but the minute you step into the church you can’t do that?
For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.
Most Chistians sit dumbly in the meeting hall. Why? They are afraid to share a testimony that reveals they are dishonest, unrighteous or unjust. Yet, look at all these prevailing ministries of people who once were in gangs or on drugs. They begin by sharing the testimony of how they were unrighteous.
9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
Everyone loves to quote the verse that “money is the root of all evil”. Of course, there is no such verse in the Bible. The real verse says that “the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil”. It isn’t money that is the root, it is the love of money, and it isn’t the root of all evil, but rather all sorts of evil. The Lord just threw in a side teaching here, you can use money in this age to help you get welcomed into eternity. Money is temporary, it is a vapor, it will disappear, but as long as it is here you can use it to get something eternal. There is no way to save money eternally, or to put money away so that your children and grandchildren and great grandchildren will all be rich. But the one thing you can do with money that will last for eternity is to “gain friends for yourself that will welcome you into eternity”. The same is true of that talent the Lord gave you to use in this age. There are many Christians who have helped me on my path and I intend to welcome each and every one of them into the eternal habitations. My cousin was extremely diligent to raise money to help a hospital for the disabled (his daughter was paralyzed in an accident) and also to raise money for the local lacrosse team. At his funeral it was standing room only in a church that must have held at least a thousand people.