Luke16chapter 16

Luke 16:1-2

Jesus tells his disciples of a certain rich man which had a steward, an estate manager trusted with his master's whole business, and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods, the charge left unspecified, whether fraud or mere carelessness. The lord's summons is blunt, give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward, dismissal already decided and only the final audit remaining. The bench notes the parable is addressed to the disciples, not to the Pharisees this time, a lesson in the right use of what a man does not ultimately own.

Luke 16:3-4

The steward said within himself, What shall I do, weighing his two remaining options with a bluntness the bench reads as genuinely candid, I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed, unfit for hard labor and too proud for open poverty. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses states his plan before he acts on it, securing future welcome through present favors done to others at his master's expense. The parable's interest from here is not in commending his dishonesty but in the shrewdness with which he prepares for a coming reckoning he cannot avoid.

Luke 16:5-7

He calls every one of his lord's debtors unto him and asks the first, How much owest thou unto my lord, an hundred measures of oil, roughly nine hundred gallons and the yield of a substantial olive grove, and tells him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. The second owes an hundred measures of wheat, some twelve hundred bushels, and is told to write fourscore, each reduction generous enough to buy real gratitude without being so large as to be instantly suspicious. The bench notes the debts are written down in the debtor's own hand, the steward implicating each man as a willing party to the fraud and so binding their future favor to his own silence.

Luke 16:8

The lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely, and the bench is careful to state exactly what is praised, the man's foresight and energy in securing his future rather than the dishonesty by which he secured it. For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light closes the verse with an uncomfortable comparison, worldly men working harder and planning further ahead for temporal ends than believers commonly do for eternal ones. Jesus draws a lesson from a rogue's cleverness exactly as he elsewhere draws one from an unjust judge, the point lying in the shrewdness, not the character.

Luke 16:9

Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations, is the parable's own application, mammon named unrighteousness not because money is evil in itself but because of the corrupt system it so often serves. The bench reads friends made through generous use of money as the poor and needy themselves, whose welcome one meets again at the resurrection, echoing the feast counsel of chapter 14 where the guests who cannot repay are the ones worth inviting. When ye fail names death plainly, the point at which money's usefulness ends and only what it purchased in eternal terms remains.

Luke 16:10-12

He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much, and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much, a general rule about character stated before its application to money. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches sets money itself as the lesser trust and something greater as the true riches it tests a man's fitness for. And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own presses the same point once more, present possessions held only in trust and future reward dependent on how that trust is kept.

Luke 16:13

No servant can serve two masters: No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other, a household picture of divided loyalty impossible to sustain in practice however it might be attempted in theory. Ye cannot serve God and mammon names the two rival claims directly, mammon here standing for the whole system of trust in wealth rather than money as a bare tool. The bench notes the saying closes the steward parable by setting its whole lesson under a single either-or that leaves no room for a divided heart.

Luke 16:14-15

The Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things and derided him, the word for derided carrying the sense of turning up the nose, open scorn rather than quiet disagreement, since a teaching against serving mammon lands hardest on men who loved money while claiming religious standing. Ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your hearts, Jesus answers, naming the gap between a reputation carefully managed and a heart plainly seen. That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God turns the Pharisees' own social standing, built partly on visible almsgiving and visible piety, into the very thing under judgment.

Luke 16:16

The law and the prophets were until John, since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it, a hinge statement locating John the Baptist at the boundary between the old order of promise and the new order of its arrival. The bench notes presseth carries the sense of forceful, eager entry, crowds pushing in rather than a passive audience, matching the strait-gate striving of chapter 13. What the verse does not settle, and what interpreters divide over, is exactly how the law's authority stands after that hinge, a question the next verse takes up at once.

Luke 16:17

easier for heaven and earth to pass: It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail, Jesus adds immediately, guarding the previous verse's kingdom-arrived language against any reading that the law's authority had simply ended. A tittle is the smallest stroke distinguishing one Hebrew letter from another, the least visible mark the text carries, named here as still standing firm. The bench reads verses 16 and 17 together as holding both truths the hearer must not separate, a new era arriving in Christ and the Law's own abiding truthfulness, without this note settling every school's account of how the two truths relate.

Luke 16:18

Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery, and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery, a hard saying Luke places right after the statement of the law's abiding force, illustrating it with the one subject the rabbis of the day disputed most freely. The bench notes this verse's relation to Matthew's parallel, which records an exception for fornication, and to Paul's later teaching in 1 Corinthians 7, is read differently across the church: some hold Luke states the general rule while Matthew records the recognized exception, others read the sayings as addressed to different circumstances, and the historic traditions built on this text range from strict prohibition of remarriage to allowance in narrower or wider cases. This note names the positions and their holders without settling which is correct, since the disagreement runs deep and long in the church's own history.

Luke 16:19-21

A certain rich man was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day, purple dye being among the costliest goods of the ancient world and fine linen the mark of settled wealth, a life of daily feasting rather than occasional celebration. A certain beggar named Lazarus was laid at his gate, full of sores, the only person given a proper name in any parable Jesus tells, a detail the bench reads as deliberate, since the rich man in the story never learns it while the reader is told it at once. Desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table, and even the dogs licking his sores instead of any hand tending them, completes a picture of misery set directly against the gate of plenty.

Luke 16:22-23

carried by the angels: The beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom, the reclining place of honor at the patriarch's own side in the picture Jewish hearers of the day would have recognized, the poor man's funeral given by heaven itself since no earthly one is recorded. The rich man also died, and was buried, his burial the only rite mentioned for a man whose whole life was outward show, and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. The bench notes the reversal is total and immediate, the two men's positions in death exactly inverting their positions in life, with nothing said here to soften either side of it.

Luke 16:24

Father Abraham, have mercy: He cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame, the rich man's first words in the story addressed not to God but to Abraham, and his request treating Lazarus still as a servant fit only to be sent on an errand. The bench notes the smallness of the request, a single fingertip of water, matched against the largeness of the torment claimed, and reads it as showing a man whose habits of command have survived his change of circumstances entirely unchanged. Even now he does not ask forgiveness or repent of anything, only relief.

Luke 16:25-26

Abraham answers, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented, naming the reversal as the working out of choices already made rather than an arbitrary swap. Beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence, states a fixed separation with no crossing offered in either direction. The bench reads the gulf as the parable's own answer to any hope of a later change of state after death, whatever comfort or warning a reader draws from that.

Luke 16:27-28

Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house, for I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment, the rich man's second request moving from his own relief to his brothers' warning. The bench reads the request as the first sign of anything like concern for another in the whole account, though even here the plan still treats Lazarus as an errand-runner rather than an equal. The five brothers, unnamed and unseen, stand for every hearer of the parable still able to change course while the rich man no longer can.

Luke 16:29

They have Moses and the prophets: Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them, pointing the rich man back to the Scriptures his brothers already possess rather than to any new sign. The bench notes the answer assumes the ordinary means of grace, the reading and hearing of the written word, are sufficient warning for anyone willing to receive them, a claim the rich man immediately disputes in the next verse. The five brothers' problem, on this answer, was never a lack of evidence but an unwillingness to act on the evidence they already had.

Luke 16:30-31

Nay, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent, the rich man's last word in the parable, still arguing rather than accepting the answer he was given. If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead closes the story on a claim the Gospels themselves will test twice over, once in the raising of Lazarus of Bethany and once in the resurrection of Jesus, both met by unbelief from many who witnessed them. The bench reads the closing line as Luke's own quiet commentary standing ready before either event, hardness of heart proving able to resist even the plainest miracle when the plainer testimony of Scripture has already been refused.