Luke 16 · Passage · Faithfulness
Faithful in Very Little
In Luke 16 Jesus draws a rule about trust from a parable about a dishonest manager.
Luke places this teaching on money between the parable of the lost son and the story of the rich man and Lazarus.
Whoever is faithful with very little will also be faithful with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.
- The passage
- Luke 16:1 to 13
- Book
- Luke
- Hold in memory
- Luke 16:10
Summary
A rich man's manager, about to lose his post for wasting his master's goods, cuts the debts of his master's debtors so that they will welcome him later. The master praises his shrewdness. Jesus then teaches His disciples how a person's handling of money shows whether greater riches can be entrusted to him.
- Verse 8 holds both the praise of shrewdness and the verdict on the man.
- Worldly wealth is called the belongings of another, held in trust for its owner.
- Jesus spoke to His disciples, and the Pharisees, whom Luke calls lovers of money, heard Him and scoffed.
The Shrewd Manager
Luke 16:1 to 9 tells of a manager who used his last days in office to secure his future.
Luke 16:10 is the verse in which Jesus states faithfulness as a rule anyone can test. It matters to every reader, because everyone handles small sums, small tasks and small trusts every day. The question it answers is what small things reveal about a person, and what God does with what they reveal.
Below stand the parable of the manager, a table of the three steps of verses 10 to 12 and the saying about two masters. Then come the teachers who read the passage, the readings of why the master praised a dishonest man and a saying from Luke 12.
The manager is told, "Turn in an account of your management, for you cannot be manager any longer" (Luke 16:2). He says to himself, "I am too weak to dig and too ashamed to beg" (Luke 16:3).
He calls in his master's debtors one by one. One owes a hundred measures of olive oil and writes fifty, and another owes a hundred measures of wheat and writes eighty (Luke 16:5 to 7).
The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the sons of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the sons of light.The verse holds both the master's praise and the reason he gave for it.
From Little to Much
Verses 10 to 12 state one rule three ways.
Each verse sets a smaller trust beside a greater one and ties the greater to faithfulness in the smaller.
| Verse | The smaller trust | The greater trust | The words of the Berean text |
|---|---|---|---|
| Luke 16:10 | very little | much | Whoever is faithful with very little will also be faithful with much |
| Luke 16:11 | worldly wealth | true riches | So if you have not been faithful with worldly wealth, who will entrust you with true riches? |
| Luke 16:12 | the belongings of another | belongings of your own | And if you have not been faithful with the belongings of another, who will give you belongings of your own? |
The second half of verse 10 runs the rule the other way, "whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much". The rule fits the man of verses 1 to 8, who had wasted his master's goods.
Two Masters
Verse 13 ends the teaching on money.
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 both God and money.”The saying turns the parable's household of one master into a choice between two.
A steward's faithfulness belongs to the one who owns what he manages, and the manager of the parable had worked for himself.
How the Passage Has Been Read
Ambrose in the fourth century, Matthew Henry in the eighteenth and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown in the nineteenth read verses 11 and 12.
died 397 · Ambrose of Milan
“Riches are foreign to us, because they are something beyond nature, they are not born with us, and they do not pass away with us. But Christ is ours, because He is the life of man. Lastly, He came unto His own.”
Ambrose of Milan · Catena Aurea by Aquinas · on Luke 16:12Patristic
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
“But spiritual and eternal riches are our own (they enter into the soul that becomes possessed of them) and inseparably; they are a good part that will never be taken away from us. If we make Christ our own, and the promises our own, and heaven our own, we have that which we may truly call our own.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Luke 16:11Puritan
1802 to 1910 · Jamieson, Fausset & Brown
“Hereafter, what the faithful have will be their own property, being no longer on probation, but in secure, undisturbed, rightful, everlasting possession and enjoyment of all that is graciously bestowed on us. Thus money is neither to be idolized nor despised: we must sit loose to it and use it for God's glory.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible · on Luke 16:12Reformed
Why the Master Praised Him
Readers explain how a dishonest manager can be praised, and who the friends of verse 9 are.
The master praised his foresight aloneJohn Wesley; Adam Clarke
John Wesley wrote that the master praised the manager "because he had used timely precaution". In his reading the dishonesty is "detestable", and only the foresight is to be copied in the affairs of another life. Adam Clarke wrote that the master "no more approved of his conduct in this, than he did in his wasting his substance before".
Who the friends of verse 9 areAlbert Barnes
Albert Barnes recorded three readings of the friends of verse 9, the poor, the holy angels and God. He judged that the word friends follows the language of the parable, to teach "that we are to make a proper use of riches".
The objection to any one of the three is that the verse names no one, and it speaks of friends who welcome the faithful into eternal dwellings.
The Faithful Manager
A saying in Luke 12 sets a manager in charge until his master returns.
In the next verse Jesus says, "Blessed is that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns" (Luke 12:43).
And the Lord answered, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their portion at the proper time?The question of the faithful manager is the question Luke 16:10 answers.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on Luke 16:8.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, on Luke 16:8.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869), on Luke 16:9.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Luke 16:11.
- Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea on Luke 16, with Ambrose on verse 12, in the Oxford translation edited by J. H. Newman.
- Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, on Luke 16:12.
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