No time like the present (Luke 16:1-13)
This seemingly bewildering parable addresses questions concerning eternity, money & possessions.
Although this parable is perplexing at times, it helps to remember that parables are truths wrapped in story form. There is normally a single truth or big idea that’s being communicated…
Just as in the secular parable about the boy crying “wolf”, the detail (where he was, what he was wearing….) is not essential, the big idea is. So to this is helpful in understanding parables…
So what is the big idea?
I think there are two in this story:
1) We are managers/stewards and not owners.
2) This life is a test that impacts eternity
We are stewards not owners
This changes everything! “Our money” is not our money after all, and so we are not free to use money as we choose but rather need to consider the wishes of God who owns all things including the money held in our trust for Him.
This life is a test that affects eternity
We are managers/stewards of God’s resources (time, money, skills….) and we should use those resources wisely while we still can, to effect eternity.
The manager in this parable knows that his days as manager are about to end, and so he does what he can while he still can to effect his future and Jesus calls this shrewd or wise.
He knows that he is about to loose his job, loose control of the wealth of the owner, but he still has this moment in the present while still manager that can affect his future.
This is what he is commended for, having a future perspective that changed his life now in the present, changed his actions now.
In the same way, one thing is certain for all of us, at an hour unknown we will be ‘dismissed’ from his present realm into eternity.
Just like the manager who had limited time before his dismissal, we too can only effect eternity in the present and so we are wise to use what God has entrusted to us now in such a way that impacts our eternity positively.
“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.”
This life is a test in that our faithfulness as stewards of God’s resources now will determine what God entrusts to us eternally.
The thing with this test is we don’t know when the trumpet will sound and all pens will have to be put down… In that moment nothing else will be able to be done, how we lived will then determine eternal reward (2 Corinthians 5:10).
Matthew Henry said; ‘live everyday as if it were your last day’. There’s no time like the present to live as a good, wise manager of God’s resources.
Two words that matter 