Q.—Luke 16:9. What does this mean? E.G.R.
A.—The Jew was losing his earthly place through rejecting God in Christ. Yet grace wrought not only to save the lost (as shown in chap. 15), but also to set aside wealth and honor in this world, and all is changed as to the use of present possessions, which are turned into a path of heavenly fruit for heaven. The Jew was steward for God but abused his trust. The Gentile was and is nothing. The disciple of Christ may follow the unjust one for present life in his prudence of looking out for the future. But our future is in heaven. The world is really bankrupt. True wealth is in the world to come. These are the real privileges to faith, our own things; whereas present things are Another's, which we are called to sacrifice freely in view of glory on high, instead of hoarding “the unrighteous mammon” as men like to do. We are entitled to treat money as “the mammon of unrighteousness,” looking to be received, when it fails, “into the everlasting habitations.”
“That they may receive you” is only a mode of speech for “that ye may be received;” as we may infer from similar phraseology in Luke 6:38-44, which really means “shall be given” into your bosom, instead of “shall men give.” For in fact men do not so give. It is an ignorant misuse of the phrase. Compare Luke 12:20; 14:25. We cannot have two masters; and are bound as Christians to imitate the God of grace. If not faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who shall entrust to us the true? and if we have not been faithful in what is Another's, who shall give us our own—what we are to share with Christ? We are called to follow in His steps, who though rich for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich.