一个新基督徒的读经心得

Luke Chapter 16 verses 1-13, “The Unrighteous Manager”, is a scripture being widely considered difficult to understand. Many opinions and interpretations are flooding the Internet as well as discussed in churches across the world.

The widely shared interpretation is:

The manager was accused of wasting rich man’s money. The rich man decided to fire the manager. The manager was worried about his livelihood, so came up with a smart idea to use the remaining manager’s power during the transition to reduce the debts of rich man’s debtors. He hoped that he could be taken in by those debtors in case he became homeless. Jesus used this “unrighteous manager” parable to teach his disciples that the gate of the kingdom of heaven is very narrow, there is urgency to believe in the Lord; and becoming a disciple does require to pay a price. Therefore, in order to gain access to the eternal dwellings, the disciples must utilize all their available wisdom to act decisively and wisely, just as the manager used his wisdom to find a way out for himself when he was on the verge of becoming homeless.

I’m somehow troubled by this interpretation. The story itself appears extremely secular and anti Christian principles in nature. I don’t think it would be used directly by Jesus as a positive parable. Apparently, the basis of such an interpretation is the secular definitions of the two key words “faithfulness” and “unrighteousness”: the manager is unfaithful to his boss, and indirectly seeks unrighteous gains. It is this juxtaposition of a secular story and spiritual metaphors that makes this scripture hard to comprehend.

Jesus uses Parables a lot when delivering speeches, encouraging his audiences to think with big pictures. That is actually an important manifestation of combined spiritual and literary value of the bible. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus quoted about 40 parables. In each of almost all those parables, there is a protagonist who represents either God, or Christ, or some other positive character, while this “unrighteous manager” parable appears to be the only exception. This fact makes me think we ought to read into this scripture more deeply.

From the following verse, Luke 16:14, “Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were ridiculing Him”, it is reasonable to conclude that the rich man in this context is similar to the Pharisees in terms of attitudes towards money and wealth, so plays a negative role here. Subsequently, should we infer that the role of the manager is positive based on how Jesus typically makes parables ?

On the other hand, if the manager’s unfaithfulness to the rich man were true, the rich man would all of a sudden become a victim. I have to ask a question, could such an argument possibly appear in Jesus’ speeches? Obviously not. “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is demanded of you; and as for all that you have prepared, who will own it now?’ Such is the one who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich in relation to God.” (Luke 12 :20–21). This is Jesus’ consistent attitude towards the rich men.

Most importantly, if we were to focus the parable on the “cleverness” and “unrighteousness” of the manager, it would be difficult to clear this scripture from the suspicion of acquiescing to extreme egoism. However, the truth about the perfect character of Jesus tells us that such suspicion should not and can not be linked to any scriptures in the Bible.

Someone may argue that a parable is just a metaphor, and there is no need to over interpret it. However, every sentence in the Bible represents a truth; every word in it has the value of revelation, and any interpretation should not deviate from the truth of the Holy Spirit. So we must do our best in trying to decipher every word, every sentence, even every punctuation, although we as human may never be able to fully comprehend the wisdom of God.

Looking at the words that Jesus spoke directly after telling the story, the widely circulated interpretations also have logically critical problems.

First, Jesus mentioned “faithful” or “unfaithful” many times. In most interpretations, it refers to the manager’s betrayal of the rich man. Here comes the question, can “Faithful”, an unique expression in Christianity, be used to describe the relationship between two people? Probably not. Someone may argue, doesn’t the Bible also advocate “loyalty to work”, while what the manager did is clearly dereliction of duty? In fact, God gave clear instructions on this in Colossians: “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord and not for people, knowing that it is from the Lord that you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.” (Col. 3:23-24). Proverbs 11:1 also says, “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, But a just weight is His delight.” The rich men are mentioned many times in the New Testament as the negative figures. Other than Zacchaeus who was inspired by the Holy Spirit, repented and was eventually blessed (Luke 19:8-10), all others are greedy for money. The Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10). From these verses, it is not hard to figure out to whom we should have the faith when defining “loyalty to work”.

Second, can any human take the manager to the “eternal dwellings”? The answer is obviously no. Believers who love the Lord are willing to be used by the Lord while living in the world, but more willing to be with the Lord when leaving the world (Philippians 1:23); on the other hand, believers who love the world are willing to be with the Lord when leaving this world, but prefer to enjoy their life when living in the world. The Bible tells us that the latter, as represented by a rich man described in verse 19 of this chapter, will never gain access to the eternal dwellings. The only way to own the eternal dwellings is true faith in Jesus Christ.

Third, those who lived on debts were the poor in need, “The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower becomes the lender’s slave.” (Proverbs 22:7). Is it really smart for the manager to consider those poor debtors as his saviors? Obviously not. We Christians know who is the real Savior (Romans 10:9).

In fact, if we interpret words “faithful” and “unrighteousness” from a completely opposite angle, we will immediately find out that this is a beautiful and precise scripture with profound meaning, full of wisdom, echoing the previous chapters and after, and closely related to the theme of the Gospel. When “faith” is in God in heaven, and “unrighteousness” points to “wealth” in the world, as they are supposed to be, Jesus wisely tied a concise secular story with the highest realm of the spiritual kingdom.

The rich man was unrighteous by profiting from lending money. The manager was also unrighteous for managing unrighteous money on the rich man’s behalf. When the unrighteous rich man fired the manage for wasting his money, the manager quickly decided to take “unrighteous” actions against the rich man by reducing debts for the poor debtors in exchange for possible places to live in the future. By using “unrighteous” means to against unrighteousness, the end result surprisingly became righteous. The manager’s “righteousness” might not be intentional, but by end of the day, it helped those poor debtors, which was in line with God’s will, delighted himself in the Lord (Exodus 22:25 ; Proverbs 19:17), and most importantly was praised by Jesus in the scripture. What Jesus applauded was obviously not the cleverness of the manager’s original intention in the eyes of the “sons of this age”, but the end result from his “unrighteous” motives. In Luke 3:8, John the Baptist said to the crowd: “Therefore produce fruits that are consistent with repentance”, showing that God values results. Jesus did tolerate the manager’s “unrighteous” intention to a certain extent, because the manager was still among “sons of this age” struggling in the world. Jesus called on the disciples to learn from the actions of the manager, make righteous use of the “unrighteous money and wealth” (e.g. relieving debts for poor debtors). Since the righteous use of unrighteous money would show their faith in God and delight them in the lord, they would be granted access to the “eternal dwellings”.

I believe this shows the perfect character of Jesus and his consistent parable style, which is the case in the “Parable of the Prodigal Son” in the previous passage, and the same is true in the story of “The Rich Man and Lazarus” in the latter context. The language of Jesus is super logical. He concluded the topic with “You cannot serve God and wealth.” This is the soul of the Bible, and the talking point of this scripture.

The following are my section-by-section interpretations of this scripture,

Verses 1-7 A rich man’s manager was accused of wasting behaviors, so the rich man decided to fire him. At that time, most of the rich men engaged in usury. The manager was worried about his livelihood, so came up with a clever idea, calling the rich man’s debtors one by one, and reducing their debts. Those who owed one hundred jars of oil now owe only fifty jars; those who owed one hundred kors of wheat now owe only eighty kors, and so on. He hoped that those debtors would take care of him after he becomes homeless because they had benefited from him.

What was the manager accused for? All of interpretations appear to agree, “wasting the rich man’s money”. However, the original text for “waste” in the Greek Bible was more specific and connotative. That word fwas “διασκορπίζων”. It’s principal translation is “dispersal”, or “to distribute widely”. That is to say, the manager was fired by the rich man for a very specific “wasteful” behavior: “widely distributing the rich man’s money”. The scriptures did not explain the objects of distribution, but according to what Jesus said afterwards, “Again I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness”, can we reasonably infer that the manager was making good use of the rich man’s unrighteous wealth, and distributed it to the needy poor people? This is consistent with his reaction to the rich man’s decision of firing him.

Here I wish to talk about another clue that might have been overlooked. The word “accusation” in the scripture was “διεβλήθη” in the Greek text, meaning “to throw over or cross” in the original translation. The extended interpretation does include “to bring charge” or “to accuse”, but with a note that has been widely ignored, “usually with hostile intent”. Put all those in context, did Jesus imply a positive image of the manager from the very beginning?

Verse 8 “And his master complimented the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light.” This verse may be related to a background at that time. According to the law, Jews were not allowed to profit from lending money out (Ex. 22:25; Lev. 25:36; Deut. 23:19). At that time, the usurer might write down one hundred kors of wheat in the account book, but in fact it was the principal of 80 kors plus 20 kors of interest. Such transactions were often not on the books and usually operated by managers. So when the manager grandly called the debtors in one by one to rewrite the bills, he was most likely to exempt them from the interest. This operation made it difficult for the rich men to pursue. If he took the manager to court, he will have to expose the illegal doings; if he kept silent, he would obviously have to take losses without any compensations. So the rich man had no choice but to compliment the “unrighteous” manager for his cleverness, and let others think he was behind those debt reductions, so to improve his reputation.

Note that the text did not imply the manager’s actions violated any laws. Although the passage did not explicitly say that the rich man was accumulating unrighteous money, it can be inferred from the rich man’s aftermath attitude and the manager’s debt reduction rate that the rich man was most likely a usurer. That means the rich man is most likely an unrighteous person. He would not have let the manager go so easily if the manager did not have solid evidences for the rich man’s unrighteousness.

The “unrighteousness” in the scriptures literally appears to have a linkage to the manager, but it should have be used to reveal the nature of money in the world. Jesus obviously approved of the manager. Since our Lord is the eternal God of justice, it is impossible for him to praise a real “unrighteous” person and set such a person as an example for his disciples. On the other hand, money was the product of the fall of human beings, and it has also been a snare by Satan; once people’s minds are tied by money, they will follow Satan involuntarily. Therefore, some scholars believe that the essence of all money is unrighteous. Although this generalization is debatable, lending money at interest is not pleasing to God (Exodus 22:25), so in the eyes of Jesus, the rich man’s money has always been unrighteous. In fact, there is a broad consensus among all interpretations on the unrighteousness of the money owned by the rich man here, but everyone seems to have focused all attentions on the “unrighteous behavior” of the manager and ignored the importance of the “unrighteous rich man” in this passage, although the “unrighteous rich man” was always a key element in all other scriptures with the rich man parables. This ought to be the fundamental reason for the deviation in the interpretation of this passage.

Word “shrewdly” is a proper translation for “φρόνιμος” as appeared in the original Greek Bible. But “prudently” would be more precise in this context, meaning the ability to comprehensively control one’s own future. What the rich man had praised was the manager’s ability to quickly adapt to situation change. From this angle, it is fairly easy to understand that “the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light.” The sons of this age are struggling in the sinful world. They must train themselves for the abilities of adapting to the ever changing situations; while the real “sons of light” act solely according to the eternal will of God the Father, and consequently can not and should not be as “shrewd” and “fickle” as the sons of this age in dealing with the world affairs. Since the manager, a son of this age, had unintentionally done righteous things with the unrighteous money, shouldn’t the “sons of light”, who take serving the Lord’s will as their own duty, do better?

Verse 9 “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it is all gone they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” At the first glance, it sounds like that Jesus doesn’t disapprove the unrighteous behavior of making friends by using unrighteous wealth as long as friends can help out whenever needed. Many scriptural interpretations described this unrighteous behavior as “being smart”. But I think this is an incorrect understanding, because Jesus is our righteous Savior, who would not encourage disciples to exchange benefits and behaviors for the afterlife, even if it is a parable. Believers treat others with kindness, which is only to make up for the lack of love (Romans 13:8). It has no merit at all, and it should not be used as a bargaining chip in exchange. “Money” is a responsibility entrusted by God so that we can be “good stewards of the multifaceted grace of God.” (1 Peter 4:10). Therefore, “when money is all gone”, the more we have left, the more we owe; when it comes time to give an account to God, our value does not lie in how much grace we have, but in how much grace we have shared. This is the true value Jesus values throughout the New Testament.

So how should we interpret this verse? We often say “Go make some friends for yourselves”, which actually means “ Be kind to others”. The most difficult word here is actually “They”. As we analyzed earlier, “they” should not refer to “Friends”, because no one can lead another person into the “eternal dwellings”. What else could “they” be if not “friends”? Please note that there is a magic word in this sentence, “means”, specifically meaning “the ways of making righteous use of unrighteous money”. The entire verse makes sense immediately when “they” is substituted by “the means”: Jesus called on His disciples to believe in the Lord, follow God’s will, by making righteous use of the unrighteous money of the world, like the manage reduced the debts for the poor debtors. Such righteous behaviors will lead them to the “eternal dwellings” i.e., the “Kingdom of Heaven”.

Verse 10 “ The one who is faithful in a very little thing is also faithful in much; and the one who is unrighteous in a very little thing is also unrighteous in much.” The key words here are still “faithful” and “unrighteousness”. As discussed earlier, these two words should not have been used here to describe the relationship between the manager and the rich man, simply because the perfection of the Lord Jesus determines that He should not follow the secular definition. Word “Faithful” should only mean “faithful in God”, which is an unique mark of people living in the kingdom of God. “Faithful” people do not do anything according to themselves, but solely and completely following the Lord’s will. The relationship between people can only be loyal at most; wouldn’t it be worshiping idols if the relationship between two people were described as faithful? “Unrighteousness” in a broad sense is the opposite of being “faithful”.

It appears a trivial thing to make righteous use of unrighteous money by reducing the debts of the poor debtors, but if you can obey God’s will in such small things, you will also be faithful to God in big things. On the contrary, although it is a small matter to manage unrighteous money for the rich man, if you don’t stop, you will not be faithful in major matters either.

Verse 11 “Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true wealth to you?” This verse is actually very straightforward and makes sense if word “faithful” is interpreted as “being faithful to God” as what we have emphasized throughout this blog. Jesus tells a truth here. If you don’t follow the Lord’s will and are “faithful” to God when using unrighteous money of the world, then who can trust you to handle the real wealth (of the kingdom of heaven) ? The manager unintentionally reduced the debts of poor debtors. Such righteous use of “unrighteous money” factually shows his “faith” in the Lord. This should be the key reason why Jesus praised this manager and asked his disciples to follow suit. This passage echoes the previous scripture “The Parable of the Prodigal Son”. The story about the rich man being buried and the beggar entering Abraham’s arms in verses 19 to 22 also reveals the same truth.

Verse 12 “If you are unfaithful in what is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?” It reveals a principle similar to verse 11 from another aspect. Human logic usually says that if we are not good at managing our own, we are not fit to manage other people’s; but heavenly logic is really the opposite: if you are unfaithful when managing what is another’s, who will give you what should belong to you? The “unfaithful” here still refers to being “against the will of the Lord” when using other people’s things. By reading the scriptures before and after combined, we should be able to reach a reasonable understanding here: the wealth that we think belongs to us is actually not our own. God lends it to us (1 Chronicles 29:14) and lets us take care of it temporarily (1 Peter 4: 10). It is “what is another’s”. Only the kingdom that God “prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34) is ours, or “that which is your own”, which can truly belong to us forever. If we are not faithful to God when temporarily managing “what is another’s”, we are proving that we are not worthy of owning “that which is your own”, i.e., we are not worthy of entering the kingdom of heaven. Going back to the parable of the manager, during his tenure, the function of the manager was to help another to make unrighteous money. What he did was obviously against God’s will and was unfaithful, so he was not worthy of owning his own things, and even faced the risk of being homeless. But when he was fired, he unintentionally used the rich man’s unrighteous money to help the poor needy people. His actions as well as the end results shall please the Lord. If the disciples could use other people’s unrighteous wealth faithfully, just like the manage did unintentionally, God would surely give them something of their own – an eternal dwelling place. Therefore, if we wish to obtain what belongs to us permanently, being faithful to God is our only choice.

Verse 13 “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” Jesus clearly pointed out here the uniqueness of service . The original text of “servant” is “slave in the house”. It is obvious that one servant cannot serve two masters, because the interests of two masters cannot be aligned, and slaves have no free time of their own. Similarly, those who serve God must “present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice” (Romans 12:1), so serving cannot be part-time. We can only either belong to God completely or not at all.

Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and wealth”. Behind the “wealth” is Satan, who is good at catering to the flesh of people, using idols to control people and resist God. If a person serves wealth, it is impossible for him to serve God, because God’s and wealth’s requirements for people are always opposite, and people can only choose to obey one or the other. Some believers (such as the Pharisees) have the idea that actually deceives themselves, thinking that they can have a balance between God and wealth, being a rich man on earth in this life and a Lazarus (the beggar mentioned in verse 20) in heaven in the next life. This type of people will inevitably value wealth and despise eternity.

The manager in this parable was serving wealth until being fired by the rich man. What did he end up with? Unemployment and existential crisis. On the other hand, after he lost his job, he made a good deed that was in line with God’s will, and earned the praise from Jesus. What happened to him afterwards was not explained in the passage, it is everyone’s imagination. But we know he factually served God.

Summary:

The rich man was unrighteous by profiting from lending money. The manager was also unrighteous for managing unrighteous money on the rich man’s behalf. When the unrighteous rich man fired the manage for wasting his money, the manager quickly decided to take “unrighteous” actions against the rich man by reducing debts for the poor debtors in exchange for possible places to live in the future. By using “unrighteous” means to against unrighteousness, the end result surprisingly became righteous. The manager’s “righteousness” might not be intentional, but by end of the day, it helped those poor debtors, which was in line with God’s will, delighted himself in the Lord (Exodus 22:25 ; Proverbs 19:17), and most importantly was praised by Jesus in the scripture. What Jesus applauded was obviously not the cleverness of the manager’s original intention in the eyes of the “sons of this age”, but the end result from his “unrighteous” motives. In Luke 3:8, John the Baptist said to the crowd: “Therefore produce fruits that are consistent with repentance”, showing that God values results. Jesus did tolerate the manager’s “unrighteous” intention to a certain extent, because the manager was still among “sons of this age” struggling in the world. Jesus called on the disciples to learn from the actions of the manager, make righteous use of the “unrighteous money and wealth” (e.g. relieving debts for poor debtors). Since the righteous use of unrighteous money would show their faith in God and delight them in the lord, they would be granted access to the “eternal dwellings”.

Jesus used this parable of “unrighteous manager” to advise that being faithful to the Lord and believing in God is the only path to the eternal dwelling (John 3:36; Proverbs 14:12). He also taught the disciples how to manage “unrighteous” money “belonging to others” in the world for God.

This scripture provides a great guidance in our real life. Let’s think about an extreme case. If you are a Christian and the chief financial officer of a company, you have the power to control cash flow. One day you find out that a large lump sum of the company’s income was from unjust gains, such as counterfeiting or smuggling. How will you handle this wealth? Let’s think something small too. If one of your family members picked up a bag from a street with a wad of money and an ID, and took it home, what would be your reaction?