Luke 16:1-8
Let’s continue to remember to pray for Jim and Marty – Debbie and Julie also!
I wonder at why I truncated today’s reading at verse 8. It would have made more sense to read verses 1-13. But I’ll leave my comments to the first eight verses.
“Notice what you notice.” I had the same thought in today’s reading as the notes in my Study Bible. One person owed 100 and the steward said to pay 50; another owed 100 and the steward said to pay 80. My thought was that this happens today when people get in over their head with credit card debt. Debtors can negotiate directly with credit card companies or through agencies and have their debts reduced if they set up payment plans and begin to pay off their debts right away. Much credit card debt is accumulated interest (at 20+%!), so the credit card companies are not really losing anything except that accumulated interest. For them it makes sense to collect at least the original indebtedness and lose the interest instead of losing the entire debt. My Study Bible notes hinted at the same thing, that the original debts may have been overcharged and that the steward was simply asking the debtors to pay the correct amounts.
Verse 8a says The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. So I wonder if the master changed his mind and kept the steward on, especially given my Study Bible notes and my thoughts above? But that doesn’t really matter – it’s easy to forget that Jesus is telling His disciples a parable to make a particular point; He is not talking about a real-life situation. But His conclusion in this parable in verse 8b is intriguing: For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. When Jesus talks about “this world”, He is typically speaking of it in contrast to His Kingdom. He seldom has anything good to say about “this world”, so I would think that His phrase, “the sons of this world” suggests evildoers – robbers, cheats, thieves. So effectively He is saying that His disciples (and His future followers?) are not very “world-wise”, especially compared to the worldly connivers. I am really uncertain as to what He means here. Blessed ignorance…
Slava Bohu!