The New Testament with Commentary Luke 16

Parable of a stupid steward

1 Then He said further to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a manager, who was accused to him of wasting his goods. 2 So he called him in and said to him: ‘What is this I hear about you? Render an account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be manager.’ 3 Then the manager said within himself: ‘What shall I do? My master is taking the management away from me. I do not have strength to dig; I am ashamed to beg 4 —I know what I will do, so that whenever I am removed from the management they may receive me into their houses.’* 5 Summoning each one of his master's debtors, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 And he said, ‘A hundred baths of olive oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ 7 Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ And he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill and write eighty.’ 8 The master even ‘commended’ the dishonest manager, because he had acted shrewdly. The sons of this age are shrewder in their own generation than the sons of the Light.†

A bit of irony

9 “I even say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that whenever you fail, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings!‡ 10 He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much, and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 11 If therefore you have not been faithful with the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the genuine?§ 12 And if you have not been faithful in what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No servant can serve two masters; either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon!”*

The Law will not fail

14 Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were also listening to all these things, and they were ridiculing Him. 15 So He said to them: “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. That which is exalted among men is an abomination before God.† 16 The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the Kingdom of God is being proclaimed, and every one is trying to force his way into it.‡ 17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one tittle of the Law to fail.

18 “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.§

A rich man and beggar Lazarus*

19 “Now there was a certain rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day. 20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores, who had been placed at his gate, 21 just wanting to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table—why even the dogs would come and lick his sores!† 22 In due time the beggar died and was carried away to Abraham's bosom by the angels.

“The rich man also died and was buried.‡ 23 And in Hades he looked up and saw Abraham at a distance, and Lazarus very close to him. And being in torment, 24 he called out, saying, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; because I am tormented by this flame!’ 25 But Abraham said: ‘Child, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus had bad things; but now he§ is being comforted, and you tormented. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can anyone from there cross over to us.’* 27 Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, 28 because I have five brothers, so that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’† 29 Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 So he said to him, ‘Oh no, father Abraham—if someone from the dead should go to them, they will repent!’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone should rise from the dead.’ ”‡

* 16:4 Is this not stupid reasoning? Once he has lost his position, the others will have no reason to pay attention to him. † 16:8 According to the value system of the world it is ‘smart’ to take advantage of other people, but those who follow the Light must be different. Of course the master's ‘commendation’ was sarcastic, since the dishonest manager still lost his job. ‡ 16:9 The use of sarcasm is not rare in the Bible, and here the Lord is clearly being sarcastic: getting into the eternal dwellings does not depend on ‘buying’ friends down here; it depends on pleasing the Owner up there. And of course, the dishonest friends will not even be there! Notice the reaction of the Pharisees in verse 14—I take it that verses 1-13 were mainly directed at them. § 16:11 Monetary value is the ‘very little’, and spiritual value is the ‘much’, the ‘genuine’. * 16:13 Verse 13 declares a terribly important truth. To embrace the world's value system (humanism, relativism, materialism) is to reject God. Materialistic ‘Christians’ are really serving mammon (‘mammon’ includes more than just money). † 16:15 There will not be any abomination in heaven—‘abomination’ is a strong term; do pause and ponder! ‡ 16:16 No one gets into the Kingdom on his own terms. § 16:18 Now there you have a plain statement! * 16:18 The Text does not state that this is a parable, so most probably it is not. † 16:21 In fact the dogs were doing him a favor, since canine saliva is good for sores. ‡ 16:22 Note the contrast. Of course the beggar's body had been buried, but the person was taken to Paradise. Here we have an explicit statement of angelic activity, which, however, is absent from the rich man. § 16:25 The best line of transmission (30% of the Greek manuscripts here) has the emphatic pronoun ‘he’, rather than ‘here’. * 16:26 Several things in this account invite comment. Hades (Greek), or Sheol (Hebrew), is the ‘halfway house’ where departed spirits await the final judgment, but the results of that judgment are already known, since the saved are already separated from the lost. There is a chasm separating the two sides that cannot be crossed, but evidently one side can see and hear the other (the ‘dead’ are conscious and have feeling). People in prison who are waiting for their trial are already suffering. Strangely, the rich man still thinks he is more important than the beggar, since he wants the beggar to serve him—he still holds to the values that condemned him. † 16:28 I find it interesting that he was concerned for his brothers; we can't say, “Better late than never”, since it made no difference. ‡ 16:31 Abraham states a disquieting reality: people who reject God's written revelation are self-condemned. Note also that Abraham did not say it would be impossible to send Lazarus, only that it would do no good. But it is clear that the lost cannot return, or the rich man could have gone himself.