Parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1-8)

Welcome to Wednesday in the Word with Krisan Marotta. What the Bible means and how we know. For more talks and study materials, visit wednesdayintheword.com. Speaker 1: We are in Luke chapter 16 today. This is one of the more difficult parables, and of course, so of course I had to include it, you know, because I love difficult passages. When I was looking for study guides, I couldn't find a single study guide that was published that included this parable. There probably knows something I don't. I may regret this at the end of the lecture. But I'm going to try to answer the questions for you, at least get you started. I don't claim to have all the answers. As the you know, the more difficult the passage, the more widespread the disagreement. And this is one of the more difficult ones. So I will tell you my best guess at what I think this means. It's not the only one. Uh, and if you pick up you know any loot commentary, you'll you can probably find a different one. But we're going to dive in and at least talk about the issues. So, one of the ways I want to explain this to you is I tried writing my own parable to try to explain it. So, hear the parable of Tanya Harding. Once there was a figure skater named Tanya Harding. In 1991, she won the U.S. figure skating championships and placed second in the world championships. She was the second woman and the first American woman to complete a triple axle jumping competition, and more than anything else in the world, Tanya wanted to compete in the 1994 Olympics and hopefully win a gold medal. However, her teammate and her competitor, Nancy Kerrigan, was favored to win gold, and Tanya had to win the U.S. Championships to secure a spot on the team. So Tanya had a plan. Tanya and her ex-husband and her boyfriend hired a man to break Kerrigan's right leg. During a practice session for the figure skating championships, the man followed Kerrigan and struck her on the thigh a few inches above the knee with a collapsible police baton. Fortunately, her leg was only bruised and not broken, but the injury did force her to withdraw from the championships, and Harding won that event, securing herself a spot on the 1994 team. So she achieved her dream of competing in the Olympic figure skating competition. She finished eighth overall, while Kerrigan, by then fully recovered, went on to win the silver medal. Eventually, Tanya's involvement in the attack became public, and she avoided a possible jail sentence through a plea bargain, but not until after fulfilling her dream of competing in the Olympics. So those who want to enter the kingdom of heaven should be like Tanya Hardy. How do you like that parable, huh? So, like our parable today, the hero of my parable is a scoundrel and a cheat. And yet there's something I want you to learn from her. And the point of my comparison is not her ethics, but her realization that she couldn't make the team on her own merits, and she had to find another way to get there. So I could expand my statement to just as Tanya knew she couldn't qualify for the Olympics on her own merits and had to find another way. So those who want to enter the kingdom of heaven must realize they cannot qualify on their own merits and seek another way. So what I want you to realize through my parable is left to ourselves, we are completely and unable to earn our way into the kingdom of heaven, to be good enough to enter the kingdom of heaven, and we should be just as desperate to enter and to find a way to enter as Tanya was to compete in the Olympics. Only in our case, we enter by the grace of God and the blood of Jesus Christ, not injury to other believers. So that's where the analogy ends. So the parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16, I think, is similar in that it has a very unlikely hero, and what we're supposed to learn from him is not his ethics, but his understanding that he cannot get into the kingdom of heaven on his own. He cannot please his master on his own. Alright. So that in a nutshell is where we're going to go today, and now we're going to spend a lot of time in the detail of how we got there. So this parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16 has historically been an embarrassment to the church. Preachers and teachers avoid it like taxes. And I couldn't, it was it's actually hard to find commentators who want who will take this on unless they have to. But most people agree this is one of the more difficult ones. And at first reading, it seems like Jesus is commending the steward for being a liar and a cheat. And so we're going to have to answer what's up with that. Why, why would he do that? And I've already given you a big clue in my parable of Tanya Harding, which is a true story, by the way. Some of you are probably old enough to remember it, right? All right, so the first thing we're gonna have to do is put this parable in context, and immediately we're mired in controversy, because there are two options and two different schools of thought, and what is in the context of what is most influential? And the qu the question revolves around does the parable end at verse eight, or does verse nine and following, is that part of the parable, or is that a new thought? And I have to tell you, uh, for many years that was the position I took, that verse nine and following was part of the parable. However, and and that is I've changed my mind on that. I think when he says, and I say to you, that that's introducing a new thought, and that the next little section and what follows is more properly a separate, a separate um line of thought and not part of the parable. However, sincere Bible-believing Christians disagree with me and they have a good points on their side. So I don't want to minimize that and say, oh, you can't believe that. If you believe that, there are good reasons to. What has become more compelling to me is seeing the connection between Luke 16 and Luke 15. And this I will admit is some of the newer thought that's been proposed probably, when I say recently newer, I'm talking like the 1950s. But, you know, in biblical scholarship, that's new. So what people have begun to realize is that the parable of the unjust steward, you know, it immediately follows the prodigal son, and in most English Bibles, there's a chapter division between the end of the prodigal son and this chapter. So historically, people have kind of missed the similarities or failed to look for them. And in more recent years, scholars have been taking a second look at that and saying, well, is the proximity to the parable of the prodigal son relevant? And does that shed light on this parable of the unjudged steward? And I have to admit, I find that now more compelling than verse 9. And they're uh in what follows is seeming to be a new thought. So both parables, let me point out the similarities. Both parables have a noble master who demonstrates extraordinary grace to a wayward underling. So in the prodigal son, you have the father and his two rebellious sons. We're going to see here we have the master and his rebellious or dishonest steward. Both parables feature a wayward underling who wastes his master's resources or cuts his profits in our case. And in both parables, the wayward underling reaches a moment of truth regarding his situation. And that's the turning point in the parable. And then finally, as we're going to see both of them, in both of them, the wayward underling throws himself on the mercy of the master, of the noble master. And I think that point is is key, that point of similarity. So what I want to do, oh, wait, I have a hand up for you before I forget. And um I'll send these around this way. Last week I gave some maps. If you weren't here last week, they're on the back table, if you want to pick them up. And this is a little bit of a tangent, but I want to make you aware of this as another Bible study tool in your arsenal. What I've given you is a rhetorical outline of both the unjust steward and the prodigal son. And uh it's a different way of outlining, and most of you probably know if you've studied Psalms or Hebrew poetry or prophecy, that Hebrew thought tends to use a rhyming of ideas that we call parallelisms, Hebrew parallelisms, and they're widely used in the Old Testament. And what we're finding is that they're also widely used in narratives or stories, and that you have these rhyming of ideas. And so what I've given you is the outline of these two parables in that kind of rhyming of ideas. And there are different kinds. So you might have what they call a straight line where you have A, B, B, C, C, B, D, so on. You can have what they call inverted or a or a chiasm where it's A, B, C, C, B, A, so it goes down and then comes back out. Or you can have what they call a step, which is ABC, A, B, C, A, B, C, where you're repeating the same idea. So every time you come to A, it's the same idea. Now, I don't want you to get confused by this, but it is something to help you understand the parables. And if you look for these kinds of basic rhymings, it can sometimes clue you into the meaning. And these three kind of basic patterns can be combined into one narrative. So, like if you look at the um the lost sheep and the lost coin, you can see there's an A, B, C parallel in the context, the setup, and then it goes into this one, two, three, four, three, two, one in the inner uh in the parable. So they can be combined. But the main point I want you to get out of this is typically in this kind of a rhetorical outline, the center point is the climax or the turning point, or kind of uh the main point. And that's for us in the Western audience, we're used to reading through a story and getting to the climax at the end and looking for that to be the point of the turning point or the big, you know, um climax before the dating mom. But in in Jewish thought or in Hebrew thought, it often comes in the center. And that's so if you're studying a difficult parable, look at try to see, you know, are there these par repeating patterns of ideas and what's in the center? Because that can often clue you in. So in our so our parable today, the center point is where he turns, he assesses his situation and says, I know what I have to do, which I think is one of the things that helps point us in this direction of understanding um the point of the parable. Okay, so that's I mean, you can go hog wild with this kind of trying to rhyme the ideas, and um it's easy to do badly, but so you know, it takes some practice and some study, but I wanted to make you aware that it's out there, and there are a lot of books that go through the gospels and the narrative sections of scripture and try to do this. And sometimes it's really helpful. So, another tool for your Bible study toolbox. Okay, so now what I want to let me read through the parable just to get it all in our in our minds, and then I will go back kind of section by section. So this is Luke 16, 1 through 8. 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 I hear about you? Turn in the accounts 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? And he said, A hundred measures of oil, and he said to him, Take your bill and sit down quickly and write fifty. Then he said to another, How much do you owe? And he said, A hundred measures of wheat, and he said to him, Take your bill and write eighty. The master commended the dishonored steward for his shrewdness, for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. All right, so the first question we want to ask is, is the master a good guy or a bad guy? Is he honorable or is he a partner in crime with the unjust steward? And everything in the parable I think indicates that the master is honorable and upright. Now, why do we think that? Well, first, in the parables of Jesus, that's typical. We typically find a pair of contrasting characters, one who's noble and one who's a scoundrel. And apart, with the possible exception of this parable, he does not tell a parable well where all the main characters are evil or dishonest. So for in the prodigal son, which immediately precedes this, we have the father who's upright, and the sons who are rebellious and disrespecting. And the rich man and Lazarus, you get the rich man who's a scoundrel, and Lazarus who is worthy. You've got the widow and the judge, which we're going to look at, where the widow is worthy, the judge is unworthy. You've got the Pharisee and the tax collector, where you have the arrogant Pharisee contrasted with the humble tax gatherer, you have the good Samaritan who's contrasted with the Levite and the priest. And you can find that in all his parables. So absent any clues in the story, we would expect to find a similar pairing here. We would expect that the kind of the default is that there should be one good guy and one bad guy. The steward is clearly labeled as dishonest in verse 8, so we would expect that the master is going to be the noble character. Now, it is possible that this is the lone exception to that rule and that both main characters are evil, but we would expect then to have some clue in the story, some clue to suggest to us that that was the case. And I don't think we do. In fact, I think we have the opposite. Because what we see in the first scene is that the master acts with compassion. He acts contrary to the expected behavior of a master in his position. So, like the father in the prodigal son, when he learns of his steward's treachery, he should fire him on the spot, flog him, beat him, jail him, uh, you know, sell him into slavery or something along that line. Instead, he shows grace by simply firing him quietly and out of the public eye. So let's look at verse one and two. 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 I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager. So when he confronts the servant, the audience would expect him not only to fire the servant on the spot, but to cart him off to jail, maybe have him beaten, sell his his family into slavery, and instead he's simply fired. And we have commentary in the Mishnah that makes it clear that he would be expected to pay for any loss of goods, so anything he embezzled or any money he wasted, he could be tried and jailed for that if he's unable to pay back his master, and instead he doesn't even get a tongue lashing. He's not even scolded. So the original audience would say, wow, the master ought he he acted with great restraint. He's not exercising his right to thoroughly disgrace the steward, he's not demanding repayment, he's not selling the steward and his family into slavery to redeem what was taken for him. He fires him quietly out of the public eye. So we have this master who's expects honesty and obedience in his steward. He judges the steward and then he shows great compassion by simply firing him. The phrase in verse 2, what's this I hear about you, is kind of a classic opener for confrontation. It doesn't reveal how much the master knows, so he's kind of like giving the steward a chance to confess or at least explain. And additionally, the syntax is suggests that this is an ongoing problem. So it could be translated, what is this I keep hearing about you? Suggesting that there have been rumors that this is long-standing complaints, that this is not just one event, but this a steady stream of complaints and ongoing behavior against the servant. When the servant remains silent, the master then continues, turn in your books. Now he's not asking the servant to balance the books and prove he's innocent, rather, he's firing him because the books, having the account books was like having the master's authority, and this is the equivalent of saying, clean out your desk, turn in your keys. This was his what the steward needed to do his job, and the master's asking for it back. Now, most likely the original audience would expect a steward to negotiate at this point, to to um beg for another chance, or to debate the facts, or proclaim his innocence, or at least make excuses. So he should, he's expected to say something like, Oh, master, there's been a misunderstanding, this isn't really my fault, I've done my best, you know, but I don't have a thousand eyes. I can't watch everyone, and it's those people that work under me. They're they're the thief. Or he might say, I've served you many years, my father and my grandfather before him served your family. Do you really want to throw away this relationship over, oh, a misunderstanding? You know, or he could say, Look, I've been unjustly accused, bring the liars in so that I can clear my name, you know. So but he says nothing, and that would be surprising to the audience because he's expected to say something, to at least beg or ask, make some excuses or plead with the master to keep his job so his silence is stunning, and it would be seen as an admission of guilt. It sends the message to the master. I know I'm guilty. The master knows I'm guilty, excuses in negotiating are not gonna help me. And it would also put Jesus' listeners on the alert because now the steward's not acting as expected. So what's gonna happen next? So the next scene is a monologue in which the steward realistically assesses his options. And most likely, you notice it starts, he said to himself, suggesting that he has now walked away from the master. He's on his own and he's speaking alone to himself. And he says, and the manager said to himself, What shall I do since my master is taking the management away from me? I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg. So after the master fires the steward, at this point, his actions are not binding on the master. The steward is no longer in the master's employee, he's been given notice to turn over the account books, so he has no authority over the master's estate, but no one knows it yet. And he's still got the books in his hand. So he's been firing, but his firing is a secret. And thanks to his and again, thanks to his master's generosity, he has not yet been publicly disgraced. So he has this short window of time before his firing becomes public to do something. And so he assesses his options. He says, I'm not strong enough to dig, which is a reference to farming. So he's saying I can't go out and get hired on as as hired help on the farms because I'm not strong enough to do the manual labor required in the fields. And he's ashamed to beg. So perhaps he has some shred of honor, but more likely he doesn't have the qualities necessary to make begging successful, which would have been something like being blind or lame or handicapped at some way. So he looks at his options and he says, I'm bankrupt. I'm out of options. Once it becomes known that I've been fired for corruption, no one will ever hire me again, and I have no way of making a living, no way of supporting myself, there's nothing to fall back on. I am not employable. That's a pretty bleak position. So he comes up with a plan in verse 4. I've decided what to do so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses. That phrase, receive me into their houses, means give me a job. It's an idiom for let me work on someone else's estate. So how can he achieve that goal? He's been fired for corruption. No one in the village is ever going to hire him again because he's a thief. He's corrupt. So what's he gonna do? What's his plan? He still has the account books and he still has this fact that his firing is secret. So he says, I know what I must do, and he's going to demonstrate his shrewdness to get himself out of this situation. So in s in verses five through seven, his plan unfolds. So let's look at those. So summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, How much do you owe my master? And he said, A hundred measures of oil. And he said to him, Take your bill and sit down quickly and write fifty. Then he said to another, How much do you owe? He said, A hundred measures of wheat. And he said to him, Take your bill and write eighty. So what's going on here? We're talking about oil and wheat, which suggests that the manager is a landowner and that his debtors are the tenant farmers who are who are working his land and agree to give him a fixed share of the crop after the harvest has come in. And this is pretty typical. Tenant farmers would manage the land, they would agree in advance with the landowner here's your share of the crop. That they would give as payment to the landowner and then they would keep the rest. Now that gives them incentive to be as productive as possible because if the harvest is bountiful, the amount due to the landowner is a smaller percentage of the yield. So the harder they worked, the better they managed their crops, the better off they were in the end because the manager's percentage was smaller. So it was a fixed amount they agreed to. And work and the worker were highly valued and respected in that culture. So they built these incentives in to be a good worker. Now, if there was a drought or the crop yield was low, or say the olive trees got a blight, or there was, you know, the yield was less than you'd expected, the landowner would be expected to make a reduction, but the renters would typically have to ask for it. And they would be expected to go through this kind of bartering and negotiation to settle on a new amount. So what is the steward doing here? He's not going hand in hand to the master's debtors and begging them. He's acting as if he's still in charge. He summons them to him, and they come because they don't know that he's no longer in charge. So not to go would be an insult to the master, and they don't want to jeopardize their agreement to farm the land. If it's not harvest time, which presumably it isn't, the summons can only mean that the master has some new piece of information that he wants to communicate. And since it's not public that the servant's been fired, they believe, oh, he's got a message from the landowner. I better come. So he offers them a better deal without making them beg or negotiate. So the contract or the bill is the amount they've agreed to pay to the master. It would be known to the master. It's likely, it is likely that they paid the steward a little something under the table to receive and to make sure they got a favorable deal, but I don't think that's what's in view here. There is a line of thought that suggests that the farmer publicly owed the master, say, a hundred shares, and that the steward had added another hundred shares on top for himself, and so what he's doing is reducing his cut and leaving the master shares intact. In effect, he's cutting his overpayment. But that opinion doesn't really hold water with the culture. It can be traced back to a scholar who first proposed it in 1902, and there are two problems with it. First is most likely the harvest isn't not in yet, and the contracts represent a promise to pay in the future. By that time, the firing's going to be known, and no one's going to give the steward anything. So if this is the steward's overpayment, by the time the harvest comes in, it will be publicly known that he's disgraced, and it won't matter what's on this piece of paper, they're not going to pay him any overpayment. Second, the contract would be known to the manager. The account books in question, the manus the master would have seen when it was all agreed to in the first place, and he would know exactly what is owed to him. We have passages from the Mishnah which spell out the duties of tenant farmers, of stewards, and masters, and they all suggest the master would have known what was in these books. So if the steward received anything above and beyond, you know, the agreed-on amount, it would never be written down. That would be like you know, handing the maider D cash to get you a table at a snooty restaurant. It's not just going to be recorded, it's on under the table or off the books. So there wouldn't be anything to adjust. Now, a good steward, a shrewd steward, would have many ways to receive a cut or a little something extra, but he would never write it down. It would never be on the bills. And finally, according to the Mishnah, if the steward did negotiate a deal for more than the agreed upon price, anything extra belonged to the master, not the steward. So if he does have this written down and this is the extra he's receiving, he wouldn't get in any way, it would belong to the master. And finally, the last problem with that is if he had been cheating the debtors by, say, 50 or 20%, they would hate him and they would not be inclined to trust or cooperate with him at this meeting. So I don't think that theory fits what we know. So here's what we do know the master is a landowner, the steward is his business manager, and he had authority to conduct the business of the estates. So the debtors are the farmers, they've agreed in advance, this is the fixed share of our produce that will be paid to the master after the harvest. No doubt the steward made a little something extra, but that would never be written down. It wouldn't be put on the books. The amounts are not due until the harvest is in, but they are owed from the date the agreement is signed, and the master would have a written record of what is owed so that when the harvest came in, there would be no disputes. We'd all know who owed what. Now, we've also seen the master is an honorable man. He cares about his business and his reputation enough that he would fire a wasteful and dishonest steward. And we've also seen that he's compassionate and that he treats the steward with restraint and compassion by not demanding restitution, making his disgrace public, and selling him into slavery. So what the steward's doing when he says, take your bill, sit down quickly, and write 50, the idea here is he's saying rather than safeguarding the master's interest, he's forfeiting half the payments in order to win the farmer to his side. Because this is gonna please the farmer, it's also gonna make the farmer his partner in crime, and makes it very unlikely that the farmer's gonna turn against him because this guy has just gotten him a great deal. And it's in the farmer's own handwriting. So when the master sees it, he's gonna know it's public. The farmers have agreed to this. Anyone who looks at the book would know that the renters have been contracted and agreed in writing to the new terms. And the debtors could say, Oh, but sir, I I didn't know he was fired. I know you to be such a kind and generous and noble master. Of course, I assumed you'd authorize these generous reductions. Now, the other thing is the debts are enormous. The reductions are enormous. Fifty measures of oil would be worth about 500 denarii, and that was the wage a hired man would be paid for a year and a half of work. So he's given these farmers a windfall. The second debtor receives roughly the same reduction. The numbers are different, but if you look at it and how much a worker would have been paid, it's roughly the equivalent of a year and a half's worth of salary that the farmer would have to pay his workers. So the farmers are going to go home joyous, tell their family the good news, and it would that word would spread through the village like wildfire, how kind and generous this master is, how wonderful the story is, who negotiated such a great deal without even being asked might they might even throw a feast. So that builds, that builds all the tension up to well, now how is the master going to react to this? And verse 8 gives us his reaction. What will he do? Surely now that will push him over the line and he will explode in justifiable rage, and he will he will out he will be outraged, jail the servant, beat him, tell everybody, go to the farmer, say he we the man was fooling you, he'd been fired, he had no authority, and finally he'll get what he deserves. Not what happens. 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. Okay, so the master's got two options here. He's gonna see these account books, he's gonna see the handwriting, know the farmers have been contacted, know what's happened, and he can go to the village and explain that the sword's been fired, the reductions aren't authorized, everybody owes the original amount, and that's gonna certainly alienate him in the village. It's gonna turn his reputation probably into dust. He'll be as popular as the Grinch who stole Christmas. Or, if he really is truly a kind and generous and compassionate master beyond all belief, he can remain quiet, accept the losses that his scoundrel steward negotiated, and continue to enjoy his fine reputation in the village, a reputation now greatly enhanced by the steward's actions. So by remaining sa uh silent, he becomes the hero of the village and he creates this huge economic windfall for the village. So, what's the moral of the story? What have we seen, what's the dynamic that we see working here? And I think it's this the steward risked everything on the fact that his master was a generous man. If his his scheme will fail if the master is not generous, if the master cares more about getting every last dime of profits than being generous and compassionate, he is gonna react the first way and expose the steward. But if he truly is deeply compassionate and generous, then he's gonna say, hmm, he's gonna accept those actions. And I think that's what's he's being the steward is being commended not for his actions, but for accurately understanding the master is truly a generous man and throwing his whole lot in with that. So one of the remarkable features in verse 8 is that he's even though he's called dishonest, it's his actions, not his ethics, that are applauded. So one commentator summarized it this way There's all the difference in the world between I applaud the dishonest steward because he acted cleverly, and I applaud the disanded honest steward because he acted dishonestly. And what we have is the former. Yes, he acted dishonestly, but he was also acted cleverly in the sense that he accurately assessed his options, he accurately assessed his master's character, and he acted in accordance with them. So, yes, the master condemns the dishonest steward for being dishonest, but he praises his confidence in the master's generous nature. So he's smart enough to realize my only hope is to put my entire trust on the unqualified, unmerited, completely ridiculous generosity of my master. And that's, I think, the point we're supposed to learn from him. Yes, his acts, his morals are despicable, his actions are dishonest, but he's smart enough to know he's morally bankrupt. And he's humble enough to realize he's incapable of solving this problem on his own. He takes an honest look at himself in the middle of the parable, says, left to myself, I am sunk. I can't dig, I can't beg, I have no options, I have to do something, I'm desperate, how do I get out of this? And his only hope is to throw himself on the generous nature of his master. So he's shrewd in the sense that he accurately assesses his situation, he knows he's guilty, he knows he's out of options, and he recognizes the mercy of his master. So, I hope I've solved at least some of the problems for you. He's not commended for his ethics, he is a scoundrel, but he is commended for his understanding of his own sorry state and his master's generous character. So he opts to risk everything on the confidence that his master will in fact be merciful and generous, that that is the core of his character and that it that that's what he's counting on. If the steward is wrong, he's gonna lose everything. But his wisdom, if you will, his wisdom in quotes, is his accurate understanding of the situation. So he's aware that left to himself, his own resources, his his situation is hopeless. And he's also aware that there the one source of salvation is the generosity of his master. Excuses aren't gonna gain him anything. Justifying, begging, that's not gonna gain him anything. The only thing that will gain him is throwing himself on the mercy of his master. And I think that's what he's praised for. And that's what I was trying to get around in with my parable of Tanya Harding. She knew she couldn't get there on her own. She had to do something to get there. She chose a course, but the point was she was knew she couldn't get there on her own. That's my point of similarity. So I think what Jesus is pulling out is we ought to use our intelligence, our life experiences, accurately assess our situation, and realize, like the dishonest steward, we're guilty. We're sinful through and through. We want to identify with the master, but the point is we're more like the dishonest steward. We haven't kept our end of the bargain. We haven't lived up to the law. We're not the kind of people we should be. We're sinful through and through. We deserve nothing from God. We're not qualified to earn our way into the kingdom of heaven. We can't keep the law as if it was meant as it was meant to be kept. And if we're going to find salvation, we have to start looking for a savior, something outside of ourselves. And our only hope is to trust completely in the mercy and holy character of God. So I think part of what Jesus is saying is if the dishonest steward solved his problem by relying on the mercy of his master to solve his crisis, how much more can you count on God to help you when you ask for him for mercy? Now notice that the prodigal son makes a similar decision. In Luke 15, he throws himself on the mercy of his father, and we have in Luke 16 the steward throwing himself on the mercy of his master. The son betrayed his father's trust, the steward betrayed his master's trust. Neither son nor steward offered any excuses for their action. Both of them received this extraordinary grace and mercy. The prodigal is not punished for wasting his inheritance. The steward is not jailed for mishandling the accounts or reducing the master's profits. But in both stories, there's a missing scene that we would expect. So we talked about last week, the scene that was missing is we wanted to know how did the older son responded? Well, the scene that's missing here is does the steward get his job back or not? And that missing scene, I think, is invites us into the story and invites us to say, do you think the master's mercy is really to be counted on? Is it really to be trusted? Would he have given this steward his judge his uh job back? So the question then is having judged the authority figure in the story to be compassionate and generous and merciful beyond our wildest expectations, what about our Heavenly Father? What do we know about him? Can we really trust his mercy? Can we trust his character? We have the law, we have the prophets, the Exodus, the cross, the resurrection. The only question left is have we accurately assessed our situation and where our salvation lies and turned to the one who can truly save us. Oh good. I was trying to leave a little bit of extra time for questions because I figured you were gonna have a lot that I can't answer. But I'll give it my best shot. So hopefully it at least got you started in your thinking and let's pray and then you can have some time to ask questions. Lord, we just thank you that um you did sh open our eyes to see and give us the ears to hear. We confess this is a difficult passage. Um I confess I may not have all the answers, I may miss the boat entirely, but I pray that you would, in your grace and in your mercy, take away anything that was wrong, that was chaff, and blow it away and leave the seed of truth so that it can grow in our hearts and in our lives to help us know you better, to love you more, and become more of the people that you would have us be. And I pray that we would turn to you for our salvation, that we would stop trying to do it on our own or to earn our way into the kingdom of heaven, but gratefully and humbly accept the blood of your Son as payment on our behalf. In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word with Krisan Marotta. What the Bible means and how we know. For notes and study questions, visit wednesdayintheword.com. We hope you'll join us again, and may God richly bless you.