Jesus used the parable of the dishonest manager to teach his disciples a lesson about God’s spiritual economy. Jesus began his parable with the statement, “There was a rich man who had a manager” (Luke 16:1). The rich man in this parable represented God who owns and has at his disposal all of the things that he has created, including us. Jesus said that the rich man had a manager. The Greek word that is translated manager, oikonomos (oy-kon-omˊ-os) refers to an overseer and by extension a fiscal agent (treasurer). Oikonomos is sometimes used figuratively to refer to “a preacher (of the gospel)” (G3623). The Apostle Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthians, “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards (oikonomos) of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:1-2). In the parable of the dishonest manager, the manager was accused of being unfaithful to his master. “This wickedness or unrighteousness is seen more particularly in the neglect of the true God and His laws and in an adherence to the world or to idolatry” (G93). This seems to suggest that the dishonest manager was misrepresenting or perhaps, misinterpreting the Mosaic Law to make it fit with the customs of his day.

Jesus told his disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions” (Luke 16:1). In the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus also talked about the prodigal son squandering or wasting his property in reckless living (Luke 15:13). The wasting of possessions from God’s perspective likely has something to do with the promotion of immoral behavior. We see in the parable of the dishonest manager that the people were accumulating large debts, to the extent that they were probably unable to pay them back. Jesus said of the rich man and his manager:

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 measuresof 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 measuresof wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ (Luke 16:2-7).

The dishonest manager’s decision to cancel portions of the debt that was owed to his master was intended to earn him favor with his master’s debtors. Rather than getting angry, the rich man actually commended the dishonest manager for his shrewd behavior. Jesus told his disciples:

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. (Luke 16-8-9)

Jesus’ reference to the eternal dwellings makes it clear that he intended the rich man’s debtors to represent sinners that had been saved. Jesus identified sin as a debt that is owned to God in the Lord’s prayer, where he instructed his disciples to pray, “forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). Paul elaborated on this in his letter to the Colossians. Paul said, ‘And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God has made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14).

The dishonest manager’s shrewdness had to do with his understanding of the impact associated with cancelling a person’s debt. Jesus questioned one of the Pharisees who invited him to eat at his house about this. Jesus said, “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” (Luke 7:41-43). The Pharisee struggled to answer Jesus’ question because he didn’t want to admit that our love for others is often dependent on what they do that benefits us. The Pharisee answered, “’The one, I suppose for whom he cancelled the larger debt.’ And he said to him, ‘You have judged rightly’” (Luke 7:43). Jesus went on to illustrate his point by calling attention to a woman who was a known sinner that had anointed his feet with an expensive perfume. Jesus asked the Pharisee, “’Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little’” (Luke 7:44-47).

Jesus concluded his parable of the dishonest manager by pointing out that God’s economy and the world’s economy are based on different types of currencies. Jesus said:

“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.”

Jesus compared love and devotion to hating and despising someone in order to show his disciples the difference between serving God who is able to forgive a person’s sin and serving money which resulted in the dishonest manager cancelling his master’s monetary debt. In God’s economy, forgiveness of sin results in the gain of something more precious, what Jesus described as true riches, a person’s love and devotion. Whereas, in the world’s economy, the forgiveness of debt results in a monetary loss and can lead to negative consequences.

It says in Luke 16:14, “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him.” The Pharisees mocked Jesus because their hearts were hardened toward God and were what Jesus referred to as hypocrites (Matthew 23:13). The Greek word hupokrites (hoop-ok-ree-taceˊ) means “an actor under an assumed character (stage-player), i.e. (figurative) a dissembler (‘hypocrite’)” (G5273). Jesus said to the Pharisees who ridiculed him, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15). Justification is “spoken especially of the justification bestowed by God on men through Christ, in which he is said to regard and treat them as righteous, i.e. to absolve from the consequences of sin and admit to the enjoyment of the divine favor (Romans 3:26, 30; 4:5; 8:30, 33; Galatians 3:8)” (G1344). When Jesus said that the Pharisees justified themselves, he meant that they were presenting themselves to others as if they had no sin. The Pharisees did not consider themselves to be sinners like everyone else.

After Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, he made the statement, “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery” (Luke 16:18). Adultery was one of the ten things that God forbade the Israelites to do after they were delivered from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 20:1-17). Jesus likely made reference to this commandment because it was familiar to everyone and was probably being practiced on a regular basis at the time of his ministry in Israel. Matthew tells us, on one occasion, the Pharisees came up to Jesus and asked him, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” (Matthew 19:3). When Jesus argued that a man and woman became one flesh when they were married, “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:5-6). The Pharisees responded, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” (Matthew 19:7). Jesus then explained to the Pharisees, “Because of the hardness of your heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery” (Matthew 19:8-9).

The Pharisees understood that adultery was a sin that, unless forgiven by God, would cause a person to be excluded from God’s kingdom in heaven. Because they were telling people that it was alright for them to divorce for any cause, as long as they gave their spouse a certificate of divorce, the Pharisees were causing the Israelites to commit sins. God’s people were accumulating moral debt toward God that they had no way of repaying. After he told the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), Jesus turned to his disciples, and said, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven time in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him” (Luke 17:1-4). In God’s economy, repentance is the means that has been established for us to relieve ourselves of the moral debt that we are accumulating toward God on a daily basis. When a person repents, it means that he thinks differently about what he has done (G3340). God wants us to think about things from his perspective. The only way that we are able to think like God is by exercising our faith. After Jesus told his disciples that they must forgive their brothers, even if they sinned against them seven time in a day, “The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’” (Luke 8:5).