Luke 16:1-9 (ESV)
The Parable of the Dishonest Manager
He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.
This story in Luke 16 is about a middle-manger who was about to be let go for stealing his master's goods. Before it happens, however, he takes advantage of his position and re-writes several of his masters contracts. In the ancient world when you did something good for someone they were obligated to do something good in return. So, by re-writing the contracts and giving his master's debtors a deal, he may have, once again, swindled his boss, but he assured himself of future good treatment by those he gave this great “deal” (albeit he would be still lose this job). His master is impressed with his shrewdness. To better explain the meaning here that Jesus is wanting us to know, here is at what the World Biblical Commentary has to say about this section:
"But what of the master's reaction to this? This last set of actions had not made him any more criminal than he was already, and the reaction to his former squandering was to be dismissal. Nothing more could be done from that angle. What about recovery? If the steward had sought to lay claim to more of his master's goods for himself at this point, the master, now alerted and present, would have made all legal moves necessary for their recovery. The stroke of brilliance was the tranfer to a series of third parties. Here the wealth is out of the master's reach, but on the basis of the reciprocity ethic, it was effectively within the reach of the steward. The master can do nothing more than he had already done. However grudgingly, the master can only acknowledge the cleverness of the now dismissed steward. The whole of the action has taken place in connection with the less than savory nature of what so often goes on in the world of business and high finance. The ethics are at a pretty low level. But what should attract our attention is that the steward has shrewdly appraised the situation in which he found himself, and acted to save himself. The challenge is for us to have the shrewdness to recognize and seize the opportunity that exists in the midst of threat. In the immediate context, the threat and opportunity are those created by the ministry of Jesus. But beyond that the story challenges all Christians to be as successful as the worldly wise in cutting their cloth according to their situation: to act committedly in the light of what we know (in knowing God in Christ) of the larger shape of reality, and its moral texture, and its orientation to the future judgment."
Jesus is not rewarding the actions of the steward, but rather stating that believers tend to fall flat in this world with the knowledge they have in Christ. We don't use the information we have about God and who he is to our advantage to secure future treatment. We could spend days and weeks gleaning more meaning from this passage, but suffice it to say for this small devotional that God wants us to be shrewd in this world and to maneuver every benefit we can for the glory of God!!
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