THIS parable, unlike those immediately preceding it, was addressed to disciples only (Luke 16:1-12). An important lesson is contained therein for those who follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
An unfaithful steward is held up to our view—one who was convicted of wasting his master’s goods. Receiving notice of discharge, his mind turned upon his future. “I cannot dig,” said he; “to beg I am ashamed.” He therefore resolved to ingratiate himself with his master’s debtors during his brief remaining term of office, with a view to receiving benefits at their hands at a later date. He accordingly called them together, and bade one who owed his master for a hundred measures of oil sit down and write fifty; another who owed for a hundred measures of wheat was told to write eighty. The Saviour’s comment upon this has frequently puzzled even devout readers of Scripture. “The lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely; for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.”
Let us consider this carefully. First, the one who thus corn mends is not the Lord Jesus, but the imaginary lord of the parable. Second, the steward was not commended for his honesty but for his wisdom. A clever rogue necessarily elicits from his observers admiration―of a kind. The point of the parable is that the man acted with his eye upon the future. He used hi: brief term of stewardship with a view to the years that lay beyond. In doing this he set an example even to true disciples. Hence the words that follow: “Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.”
To read these words of our Lord as if they had any reference to men seeking salvation would be disastrous. Salvation is by grace alone, and it is founded upon the Saviour’s atoning blood. This cannot be too earnestly or too frequently insisted upon. But those who are saved have serious responsibilities concerning which they must each one give account at the judgment-seat of Christ. Hence each “disciple” should take a leaf out of the book of the unjust steward, and use the brief period of life here with a view to blessing and reward in the life beyond. Perhaps there is nothing concerning which even true Christians fail more deeply than in the matter of money. Riches are called “the mammon of unrighteousness,” because they are the fruit of sin. Such conditions as now prevail, one rich and another poor, could have no place in an unfallen world. A grave responsibility therefore rests upon the Christian as to how he disposes of that which he holds, be it little or much. He is indeed a steward; to Another he must render an account. He who spends all upon himself, reserving only his three penny-piece for God, is living for the present only; he who uses his substance for God in the midst of a needy world is making friends by means of his possessions. There is no thought in Luke 16:9 of the objects of our benefactions welcoming us into the habitations above. Reference to the Greek shows that the Lord spoke in the third person― “that ye may be received.” The one who welcomes the self-denying disciple to rest and reward is none other than the living God Himself, who is prepared to abundantly honor in another world those who have surrendered night in this world for the sake of His name, and under the constraining influence of His mighty grace.