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10He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. 11If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? 12And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own? 13No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the [om., the] one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
To the disciples.—Not to be understood of the apostolic circle, although this is by no means to be excluded, but of the followers and hearers of the Saviour, in a wider sense of the word. See Luk_14:26-27; Luk_14:33; Joh_6:66, and other passages, and comp. also Luk_17:1 with Luk_17:5. We have, therefore, to conceive the Saviour as surrounded by publicans, whom He had just been comforting, and by Pharisees, whom He had just put to shame. The former He wishes to remind of their high duty now, as His disciples, to make good as much as possible the guilt which they had formerly incurred by extortion and dishonesty; the others He wishes to bring back from their love to earthly good, by drawing their attention to the truth that they are only stewards, for whom a day of reckoning will come. Both, therefore, He desires to lead to that prudent foresight, the image of which He depicts in the narrative of the Unjust Steward.
A certain rich man.—Neither the Romans (Schleiermacher), nor the Roman Emperor (Grossmann), and as little the devil (Olshausen), and, on the other hand, not Mammon (Meyer)—the ìáììùíᾶò ôῆò ἀäéê . is, on the other hand, equivalent to the ὑðÜñ÷ïíôá of the rich man, Luk_16:1—but God, who here is represented as the paramount owner of all which has been given to man only as a fief, and for use. By the ïἰêïíüìïò we have to understand not exclusively the ìáèçôáß of the Saviour, but every man to whom the paramount owner has entrusted part of His goods.
A steward.—The wealth of the lord in the parable is visible from the circumstance that he needs an ïἰêïíüìïò .—The property which this steward managed consists, however, not in ready money, but in allotments of land, which he has farmed out for such a price as he has thought fit, without every particular in the farm-contracts having been necessarily known to his lord. For we have here to represent to ourselves no modern steward, who every time gives a complete account, and has to decide nothing by his own full powers: on the other hand, it appears that his lord, who bestowed on him his full confidence, had not previously required any reckoning of him at all, until he, persuaded of the man’s dishonesty, had resolved to displace him. If the ïἰêïíüìïò was clothed with so extensive powers, it is then also unnecessary to assume that he falsified the farm-contracts; in earlier times it was probably not at all necessary to lay these before the lord of the manor. But how had he squandered the ὑðÜñ÷ïíôá ? He had made the farmers pay more than he had stated and paid in to his lord as the rent: he demanded of them an excessive, and paid to him only the fair, amount, so that the difference between what he received and what he rendered constituted a clear gain to himself. He had, however, not enriched himself; for, with his deposition from his post, he sees himself brought at once to the beggar’s staff—he had lived sumptuously and wantonly on that which he had from time to time gained in this way, until his lord, we know not how, came on the track of his villainous transactions. His lord now summons him to the rendering of the definite account, to which he, as well known to him, is obliged ( ôὸí ëüãïí ), and speaks at once of displacement. In the giving of this account, therefore, the papers, the farm-contracts, must for the first time be produced, and the displacement must naturally follow if the comparison of the rent with the sum accounted for reveals the cheat; it will, on the other hand, not be necessary, if from a thoroughly consistent account it appears that the suspicion conceived has been an ungrounded one. This must be kept distinctly in mind: the displacement is not yet irrevocably uttered, but only threatened; it does not precede the account, however this may turn out, but will only follow if the steward cannot justify himself. This appears, first, from the nature of the case, since his lord, by such a condemnation, without hearing him, and on a loose report, would have dealt quite as unjustly as the steward, which undoubtedly Jesus did not mean to represent; and, secondly, from the expression of the steward himself, who sought a secure maintenance only in case ( ὅôáí ) he should lose his post, and who, it is true, foresees a displacement as being as good as certain, but yet ventures one more attempt to smooth over his accounts a little.
Luk_16:3. What shall I do?—Striking is the monologue in which the Saviour depicts to us the perplexity of the steward, especially striking, if we conceive these words as spoken in broken sentences—“What shall I do? for my lord takes away my stewardship from me:—I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.— Åὕñçêá —I know—I have discovered ( ἔãíùí ) what I will do.” And what now does one expect of a man who is proposed for imitation with very particular reference to his prudence? he will seek a means either, if possible, to avert even yet the dreaded blow and to keep his place, or, in case he should not succeed in this, to provide for himself a comfortable old age.
Luk_16:4. They may receive me into their houses.—Not precisely into their families (Schultz), but yet ïἶêïò , regarded as the seat of the family-life into which he, out of thankfulness, hoped to be received. The whole monologue shows us the steward as a man of mature reflection. “For explanation these reflections are not intended, but for portrayal of the crisis.”
Luk_16:5. So he called.—Not (Brauns, a. o.) in the presence, but, of course, in the absence, of his exasperated lord; for the steward must certainly, if he were to give the required account, have time for it, and his lord has, therefore, gone away again. Neither can the speaking ἑáõôῷ , Luk_16:3, be easily explained otherwise than as taking place in solitude, and the phrase, Luk_16:5, êáèßóáò ôá÷Ýùò ãñÜøïí , is plainly the language of a man who wishes to dispose of something quickly before his lord observes it. The opinion also that the steward makes up the fifty measures of oil and the twenty measures of wheat from his own means, is incompatible with his own assertion, Luk_16:3, that he must beg if he did not find a remedy. If the Saviour had here intended to depict a repentant Zaccheus, who with his dishonestly acquired treasures will even yet do some good (D. Schultz), he would without doubt have put in some way into the steward’s mouth an acknowledgment of his guilt.
How much owest thou?—We must conceive the matter thus: that he has all the farmers come at the same time to him, but that he talks with every one of them apart. His dealing with two of them is communicated, as an example, from which one can easily conclude how he dealt with the others also. He does not, as is commonly believed, have the farmers write a new bond with a smaller amount; this would have cost too long a detention, but simply set a smaller number instead of the former, either by the altering of a single letter in the old agreement, which the Hebrew numerals easily admit, or by the mere filling up of a new agreement already prepared. The numbers fifty and eighty, which he causes to be set down instead of the previous hundred, express the just amount which he had already given account of to his lord, and he gains by this alteration the advantage that the leases agree with the sums previously stated to his lord, who had never yet had a sight of the authentic papers. But the farmers, who, as they suppose, had been required to pay an exorbitant sum to the lord, can by this moderating of the price only feel themselves personally obliged to the steward, from whose hands this deduction is made to them, and who has perhaps represented this unexpected favor as a consequence of his intercession and of his influence with the lord of the manor.—One hundred baths.—The Hebrew áַּú is equivalent to the old ìåôñçôÞò , the tenth part of a Homer; therefore for liquids, the same as the Ephah for dry substances.—A hundred Kor, the Hebrew ëֹּå , according to Josephus, A. I. 15. 9, 2 =10 ìÝäéìíïé , about =15/16 of the Berlin bushel [11 1/9 English bush.]. See Winer, ad loc.
Luk_16:7. Write fourscore.—By the just-mentioned measure the steward has actually done all which in so critical a case could have been expected from a prudent man: for in the first place he makes good his former dishonesty, although only out of selfishness; in the second place, he makes it possible to give a correct account, so far as the leases are laid before the lord and compared with his ledger, and finally, in case the dreaded dismissal follows, nevertheless, he, by his kindness shown to the farmers, purchases for himself a comfortable maintenance for his old age. That he, after he had protected himself in this way, really remained in his office (Baumgarten-Crusius), the Saviour, it is true, does not say, but He is as far from saying also that he was actually removed (common view). This point, on the other hand, remains entirely conjectural, since it does not lie in the purpose of the Saviour to bring the narrative in and of itself to an end, but only to commend a very judicious course of reflection and mode of dealing, in a critical moment, for imitation in a certain respect.
Luk_16:8. And the lord commended the unjust steward.—It is, of course, understood that this lord was not the Lord Jesus (Erasmus), but the rich lord in the parable, who had soon learned in what way the ïἰêïíïìïò had helped himself out of the trouble. We have here to place ourselves entirely on the stand-point of worldly wisdom, and conceive the matter thus: that his lord does not commend the motive or the act of the steward in itself, but commends the cleverness of his Way of dealing, with which he had, while there was yet time, diverted from himself the threatening storm.—The unjust steward.—That this designation does not need absolutely to be brought into connection with his last-mentioned conduct, but may be referred as well to his earlier and now abandoned dishonesty, appears from similar usage. Mat_26:6; comp. Luk_7:37.
For the children of this world.—There is as little room to doubt that the Saviour designs to have represented the ïἰêïíüìïò as a child of the world, as that He means him for imitation merely and solely in respect of his prudence. The grounds of the here-mentioned phenomenon are plain enough to be seen, “because the means which prudence manages are worldly, and are, therefore, foreign to the aims of the children of light, and because prudence belongs to the understanding and the experience of the world, while the children of light live in the Spirit.” De Wette.— Åἰò ôὴí ãåí . ἑáõô .—that is, when they come into contact with such as, like themselves, are children of the present world. The children of the world are, therefore, happily designated as ãåíåÜ a family of similar characters. In their mutual intercourse these are wont to go to work with as well-considered plans as the Unjust Steward, and in this respect commonly far surpass the children of light when these have intercourse with one another or with others. Children of light the disciples of the Saviour are named, being those that are enlightened with the light of truth, and are accustomed to walk therein. See Joh_12:35; 1Th_5:5; Eph_5:8. As to the rest, the expression ãåíåὰ ἑáõôῶí is not to be referred to both-named classes of men (each in its own sphere), but exclusively to the õἱïὶ ôïῦ áἰῶíïò ôïýôïõ , in contrast with whom the Saviour, Luk_16:9, addresses His disciples.
Luk_16:9. And I say unto you.—It is well known into what perplexity this precept has brought early and later expositors,—a perplexity which went so far that some have ventured the bold critical conjecture of causing the Saviour, by the insertion of a single little word, ïὐ , to say exactly the opposite. What, however, He means by the phrase: Make to yourselves friends, is, if we only recollect the conduct of the steward, intelligible enough. The steward had made the farmers subordinated to him, his friends; even so, the Saviour means, should one make those who need help his friends, by bestowing on them benefits with and out of the same money which is so often acquired in an unrighteous manner and applied to shameful purposes. It is entirely arbitrary and against the spirit of the parable to understand here (Ambrosius, Ewald, Meyer) angels, who receive the pious man into heaven. The Saviour, on the other hand, represents the matter thus: that those to whom benefits have been shown, precede their benefactors to heaven, welcome them there, and thus exalt their joy. That the form of this promise is borrowed from the expression of the steward, Luk_16:4, is, of course, obvious. By the everlasting tabernacles, we may understand either heaven, or also (Meyer), according to the analogy, 1Es_2:11, the future Messianic kingdom, in which, however, we meet with the difficulty that then all the ößëïé whom one has gained with the mammon of unrighteousness are represented eo ipso as citizens of the Messianic kingdom. [Doubtless our Lord does not mean that any but such friends as do belong to His kingdom are to receive us into the eternal abodes.—C. C. S.] It is safest to understand, in general, a blessed locality where one can abide, in opposition to an earthly locality which one soon leaves.
Of the mammon of unrighteousness, ἐê ôïῦ ìáìì . ôῆò ἀäéê .—’ Åê , the means by which one procures himself friends. Comp. Act_1:18. The application of the Mammon must have the consequence indicated by Jesus. Respecting the Mammon, see Lange on Mat_6:24.— Ìáì . ôῆò ἀäéê .—Not because it is commonly acquired in an unlawful manner (Euthym. Zigab.), or because it is itself perishable and delusive (Kuinoel, Wieseler), or because the disciples of the Saviour were in an unrighteous degree very parsimonious therewith (Paulus); but in the same sense in which before an ïἰêïí . ôῆò ἀäéêßáò . Luk_16:8, was spoken of. The ἀäéêßá is the inherent character of the Mammon, which is here represented as a personal being, and called unrighteous because money, as with the Steward, commonly becomes the occasion and the means of an unrighteous course of conduct; “the ethical character of its use is represented as cleaving to itself.” Meyer.
When it fails.— Ὅôáí ἐêëåßðῃ , so we believe that we must read with Tischendorf, on the authority of A., B., X. The Recepta ἐêëßðçôå has probably arisen from the fact that by the mention of the Everlasting Tabernacles it seemed almost a matter of course to take the verb in the plural and to understand it of departure from this earthly place of abode. Therefore, also, the translation: cum defeceritis, with the accompanying thought of dying. With the reading defended by us, the sense becomes much simpler, as the Saviour now speaks of the Mammon ôῆò ἀäéêßáò : cum Mammon defecerit, when the Mammon is exhausted. So did it fare with the Steward; so might it fare sooner or later with every one who places his confidence in his goods. We have, therefore, not to understand exactly the moment when Mammon leaves us in the lurch in death (Wieseler), but the day when it comes to an end, as with the Steward, Luk_16:4.
They may receive you, äÝîùíôáé .—Not to be taken impersonally (Starke), or to be referred exclusively to God and Jesus (Schultz, Olshausen), and quite as little (Grotius) to be understood as if the ößëïé recipientes were here the means of effecting the reception into the óêçíáὶ áἰþíéïé (efficiant, ut recipiamini), which would necessarily lead either to the doctrine of the meritoriousness of good works or of the intercession of the saints; but it is to be understood of a reception on the part of the friends acquired with our money, as joyful as that upon which the Unjust Steward in the parable had supposed himself entitled to reckon. These friends are conceived as already present in the everlasting óêçíáß , and as there coming to meet their benefactors, as it were, at the entrance, with the purpose of admitting them into their future abode ( åἰò ). ÓêçíÜò , “sic appellantur propter securitatem, amœnitatem et contubernii tanquam hospitii communicati commoditatem. Non additur: s u a, ut, Luk_16:4, domus suas, quia tabernacula sunt Dei.” Bengel. Comp. Joh_14:2.
The expressions thus explained must, in conclusion, be briefly vindicated from two perverted interpretations. The first is the Pelagian, as if the Saviour had meant to say that one might by beneficence, from whatever motives, buy himself a place in heaven, and that, therefore, those on whom benefits had been bestowed opened to their benefactors the everlasting tabernacles. For with the unrighteous mammon one may indeed make himself friends, yet these friends only receive their benefactors; they can assure them no place in the everlasting abodes, and to give even this reception they have no right in themselves, but only according to God’s will, if their benefactors have entered the way of faith and conversion, and this faith has borne fruits of love. [If Christ Himself could give no place of honor in His kingdom, except according to His Father’s will, much less may the saints assign any place whatever therein, except as God may will. Nevertheless, the truly beneficent use of wealth is a powerful means of grace, and so of salvation; and this our Saviour doubtless means to teach.—C. C. S.] We find thus no other moral here than Mat_25:34-40. And as respects the other interpretation, the Ebionitic coloring which has been found in this parable, the Tübingen school has, it is true, imagined itself to find in the ìáììùíᾶò ôῆò ἀäéêßáò a new proof for its darling theme, that the Gospel of Luke vindicates an Ebionitic contempt of riches and favoring of poverty (see Schwegler, l. c. ii. p. 59); but it strikes the eye at once that the Saviour so designates not the use and possession of earthly good in itself, as the source of unrighteousness, but only its prevalent misuse. If an Ebionitic spirit had here prevailed, we doubt very much whether Luke would have put in the Saviour’s mouth an admonition also to faithful administration of earthly treasures, and the assurance that this stands in connection with the eternal destiny of men. Had the Saviour really thought that earthly good, in and of itself, is something to be reprobated, He would at all events have withheld the admonition, Luk_16:9. Among the weapons which an impartial criticism has to avail itself of for the controverting of the Ebionitic interpretation of Luk_16:19-31, Luk_16:1-9 certainly do not occupy the least important place.
As respects, moreover, our interpretation of the parable itself, it offers, as we think, undeniable advantages;—it removes many otherwise obvious difficulties. In the first place, it sees in the Steward even greater prudence than those who assume that he sought nothing more than to secure betimes a good support; according to us, his piece hit the mark on two sides. Secondly, on this interpretation, the Saviour’s address is far more adapted for the two classes of His hearers; for the publicans now hear the making good of previous dishonesty commended as a work of true wisdom and prudence, while the avaricious Pharisees are shamed by the portraiture of a man who, although in no respect holy, yet stands far above them. In the third place, the objection is thus immediately set aside, which even the emperor Julian and others afterwards have, on the strength of this teaching, brought up against the character of our Lord, as if Christ had, at least to a certain extent, advocated the Jesuitical principle, that the end sanctifies the means. For although it is a thousand times repeated, that it is not the measure taken by the Steward in itself, but only his prudence in laying hold of a measure (in itself evil), which is proposed to the children of light for imitation, yet even in this there will something offensive remain as long as (common view) it is asserted that the Steward made good his former dishonesty by a new trick, and not (as we believe) by the compensation of the damage. How would it then be explicable, that even the Pharisees find in this no occasion for a new imputation? But if we assume, on the other hand, that the Steward out of self-interest abandoned his former crooked ways, we must, it is true, suppose that he acted only as a genuine child of the world (for of self-humiliation or confession of sin we read nothing); but then we can at all events comprehend that not only from his craftiness, but also from his mode of dealing itself, a weighty lesson was to be deduced for the publicans; for in how many respects could the Steward thus serve them as an example, by that which he had done from a purely worldly point of view! Finally, we learn on only this interpretation to understand the full force of the declarations, Luk_16:10-13.
Luk_16:10. He that is faithful in the least.—It is as if the Saviour foresaw the objection, that He put too high a value on the faithful application and administration of so worthless and superficial a good as earthly good. To cut off this objection, He adduces a general principle, which He in the following verse immediately applies. It is impossible at the same time to be really faithful in the greater things, and to be unfaithful in the lesser things. For true faithfulness has its ground not in the greatness of the matter in which it is displayed, but in the conscientious feeling of duty of him that exercises it. He therefore that lacks it in the lesser, will not show it even in weightier relations; he to whom it is really a pleasure to be faithful, such an one will account nothing, whether great or small, trifling or unworthy of his attention. Comp. Sirach 5:18. “All faithfulness in great things, without being accompanied with faithfulness in lesser things, is only a semblance; all micrology, which in straining at gnats can swallow camels; such is indeed no true heart-faithfulness. Consequently also the reverse: whoever will abide or become faithful in that which is great, let him be so principally and continually in the little circumstances which continually come up in the details that are everywhere occurrent; here is an indissoluble connection.” Stier.
Luk_16:11. If therefore ye.—What the faithfulness is which the Saviour in the application of the ἄäéêïò ìáììùíᾶò requires (see Luk_16:9), has appeared from the parable itself. It is exhibited when one, obedient to the precept of our Lord, makes friends with it, who receive us into the everlasting tabernacles. If His disciples were wanting in this faithfulness, if they were, in other words, like the Unjust Steward in his former dishonest course, but not in the prudence with which he, while there was yet time, made good again the evil he had committed, who should entrust to them the higher good, the true good? Ôὸ ἀëçèéíüí is here a general designation of the benefits of the Spirit of truth and light, which in the Messianic kingdom are attainable for every one; benefits whose administration was first of all entrusted to the apostles, but then also to every believer in his sphere. They are called here by antithesis the true, because they are not, like the Unrighteous Mammon, untrustworthy and deceitful, but fully deserve the name of genuine and true good, whereby the highest ideal is realized. Comp. Joh_1:9; Heb_9:24.
Luk_16:12. And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s.—A repetition of the same thought, only in another form. The Mammon is here called the ἀëëüôñéïí , since it is not the property of man, who can only be the ïἰêïíüìïò of earthly treasures, but belongs to the paramount owner, who can at any moment demand it back. Money, as such, has then only a relative worth, and the ἀëëüôñéïí is entirely equivalent to the ἐëÜ÷éóôïí , Luk_16:11. In opposition to this stand the spiritual benefits which the Saviour, with reference to His disciples, calls ôὸ ὑìÝôåñïí , because they, once attained through faith, are destined in time and eternity to constitute their inalienable property. “That which belongs to your true nature, which was your own originally (in the Creator’s purpose), and shall in the redemption again become yours.” Von Meyer. In this sense, the Mammon can never be called our property, because it with every generation changes owners, and often unexpectedly takes to itself wings.
Luk_16:13. No servant.—Comp. Mat_6:24 and Lange, ad loc. A proverbial expression like this the Saviour could properly use repeatedly; and here also there is a psychological connection plain between this utterance and what precedes. Whoever was not faithful in the least, and did not apply the ἀëëüôñéïí to the purpose stated in Luk_16:9, showed thereby that he was yet a wretched slave of Mammon, and by that very fact could not possibly be a servant of God, who will have us use money in His service, and thereby promote our reception into the everlasting tabernacles. It is precisely this service of Mammon which stands most in the way of its true use, that use which redounds to the glory of God. If perchance one of the Saviour’s hearers had inwardly thought that it was, for all this, possible to be in truth His disciple, even though one did not so literally follow His doctrine given in the foregoing parable, He here declares the union of that which is essentially incompatible to be impossible. It is obvious that the faithfulness praised in Luk_16:10-13, is at once the best manifestation of the prudence to which He, Luk_16:1-9, has admonished His hearers, and that therefore the whole instruction deserves the name of a well rounded whole.
2. The penetrating light which illumines the darkness of the whole parable, is to be found in the remark, Luk_16:8 : “The children of this world,” &c. It is visibly the Saviour’s intention that His disciples shall learn something of the children of the world, which for the most part is altogether too much lacking to them; and in fact this parable affords rich matter for antitheses which are very shaming for the children of light. The Steward, type of a genuine child of the world, does not for an instant conceal from himself the greatness of the danger threatening him. Without delay he thinks upon means and ways to assure to himself his future lot. The means that appear unsuitable he rejects, in order at once to consider better ones. He is inventive, and knows with great distinctness what he desires, namely, to gain his daily support in an easy and secure way. He does not stop with projects and plans, but all that he has resolved he carries out upon the spot, and chooses, in speaking and dealing, the form which promises the richest fruits for his own advantage. He so disposes himself that he in any case will be protected, whether he remain yet longer steward or not. What a distinction between the sluggishness, irresolution, want of tact, &c., shown by so many better-minded persons, who have infinitely higher interests to lay to heart! However, it scarcely needs an explanation that the Saviour here speaks of children of light, not in the ideal but in the empirical sense, and that the censure herein indirectly expressed, is applicable, as a rule, more to His incipient, than to His established, disciples.
3. It is a striking proof of the practical tendency of the Evangelical morality, that the Saviour has regarded the use and possession of earthly riches as a subject of sufficient weight to be particularly handled by Him in a triad of parables (Luk_12:15-21; Luk_16:1-9; Luk_16:19-31), not to reckon in a number of hints upon this, occurring here and there in His discourses. So much immediately appears from the comparison of the different passages: the Saviour does not disapprove the possession of wealth in itself, and is far from the one-sided spiritualism which denies the temporal, as such, almost any worth. But earnestly does He warn, and repeatedly does He draw attention to the truth, how greatly covetousness, no less than ambition and sensuality, renders difficult and hinders entrance into the kingdom of God. He does not repel the rich from Him, any more than He pronounces the poor blessed for the sake of their poverty, but only insists that earthly good, in comparison with something higher and better, should be viewed as the ἐëÜ÷éóôïí and ἀëëüôñéïí . Compare the beautiful homily of Basil, contra ditescentes. As to the rest, it is not capable of proof that in the apostolic writings, e.g. 1 Timothy 6., James 5., and elsewhere, we find a view of earthly riches different from that in the teachings of the Saviour Himself.
4. The purity of the faithfulness which the Saviour demands of His disciples is not in the least injured by the fact that He points them to the reward which is connected with the exercise of general philanthropy. The gospel is as far from favoring an impure craving for reward, as from the perhaps very philosophical, but certainly very unpsychological, hypothesis, that man must practise virtue purely for virtue’s sake. Only as a stimulus, not as a motive of action, does He propose that which love may hope as a gracious recompense in the future life, and thus the prospect which He here opens to the penitent publicans, is essentially no other than that which He, e.g., Mat_10:41-42, held up before His faithful apostles. Besides this, there exists also a natural connection between love and blessedness in the future world, which must by no means be overlooked. The thought of the eternal love of heavenly spirits, into whose fellowship we hope to enter, has also more attractions for the loving than for the selfish heart; and whoever really makes himself friends of the Unrighteous Mammon, shows thereby that he finds his highest joy, not in the attainment of selfish purposes, but in the happiness of others. Taking all this together, we should hardly be able to contradict Luther when he says on the following parable: “It is not works that win to us Heaven, but Christ bestows eternal blessedness out of grace, on those who believe and have proved their faith in works of love and right use of earthly good; since now all this is not the case with the rich man, faith was lacking to him, and the whole parable, Luk_16:19-31, is therefore directed against unbelief, in order to warn against it by its terrible consequences.” Here also the saying of the old father holds good: Amicœ sunt scripturarum lites, and the evangelical doctrines of grace and of reward contradict one another in no respect. It was, therefore, a miserable error, when they would in any way draw from this parable the conclusion, that one need only apply property gained in an unrighteous manner to beneficent and pious purposes, in order thereby to see one’s guilt removed, and that one, by a pious foundation at the approach of death, could buy his salvation. Upon this error, which crept very early into the Christian Church, there deserves to be compared August. Hom. 113, Opera v. pp. 396–398.
5. Upon nothing does the Saviour insist with more right, than unity and harmony in the inner life of His people. True prudence is inconceivable, if genuine faithfulness is lacking, but on the other hand genuine faithfulness is also inconceivable, if inward discord and division yet dwell in the soul. If the will of two masters is hostile to one another, obedience to one must necessarily lead to unfaithfulness towards the other. To Mammon also the admonition of the Apostle is especially applicable, 1Jn_5:21. When he who should serve rules, he who should command soon becomes a slave. There is scarcely a sin which so shrewdly and obstinately disputes with God the first place in the heart, as love to temporal good. Comp. the admirable discourse of Adolph Monod, L’ami de l’argent, found in the second part of his “Sermons.”
6. Whoever has comprehended in its whole depth the requirement of faithfulness in that which is least, which the Saviour places first with so much emphasis, has at the same time comprehended the hard and easy side of the Christian life, the simplicity and the infiniteness of the requirement of Christian perfection. The requirement of faithfulness in that which is least, is essentially no other than the requirement to be perfect with the Lord our God. Deu_18:13; Psa_51:6.
7. The right use of earthly treasures, as it is here commanded, leads of itself to the Christian communism, whose ideal we see realized most beautifully in the first Christian church, Act_4:32; Act_5:4. The distinction between this free manifestation of benevolence and the communistic fantasies of our century, is as great as that between selfishness and love.
Starke:—Quesnel:—If we do not apply the gifts of God to His honor, to our neighbor’s good, and to our own necessity, this is the same as to destroy and dissipate them.—Brentius:—The heathen held it unjust to condemn any one when his cause was unheard; much less should that be done in Christendom.—J. Hall:—Let no one deal with entrusted goods as his own property.—The great day of reckoning and examination impends over every one, 2Co_5:10.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—Upon unfaith fulness there follows inevitable punishment, deposition, and condemnation.—Laziness and pride are the two evil sources of the so-common craftiness.—One is oft ashamed when he should not be ashamed and on the other hand, he is often not ashamed, when he ought to be ashamed before God.—There is a sad fact even in the Christian world,—the most of worldly people are wise enough to do evil, but how to do good they will not learn.—For ungodly men it is not enough that they sin for themselves, but they draw others also into their sinful net.—What one owes the lord belongs not to the servant.—Canstein:—It would not be easy for one child of the world to ask any evil of another, that the latter would not be ready to do.—One may praise even in a bad man what is good in him.—Brentius:—A broad fertile intelligence is a precious gift of God, and so far laudable.—Zeisius;—Be wise to that which is good, and simple concerning evil, Rom_16:19; 1Co_14:20.—The children of light have indeed the light in them, but they have also their natural darkness, which makes them slothful.—J. Hall:—Whoever does good soweth to the Spirit, Gal_6:8.—Canstein:—Whoever will do good, must do it especially to those who will come into the eternal tabernacles, and are therefore true members of Christ.—Let no one say: I can do with mine what I will, 1Co_4:7—God all or nothing.
Heubner:—The man who does wrong has always his accuser before God.—Without religion, riches are a very ruinous instrument.—Three things make death frightful to the earthly-minded: their evil conscience, the Divine judgment, and the loss of everything earthly.—Earnest consideration always finds a way.—Heavenly blessedness is the true, the eternal property.
The Pericope.—Heubner:—The Christian order of salvation: 1. Repentance for our stewardship (Luk_16:1-3); 2. belief in God’s judgment (Luk_16:3-4); 3. sanctification—holy use of all (Luk_16:5-9).—The earnest reminders which Christianity gives the rich man.—The threefold prudence: 1. Of the lord of the manor; 2. of the steward; 3. of the Christian.—The obscurities or apparent difficulties in the parable of the Unjust Steward.—Lisco:—Of the prudence of the citizens of the kingdom.—Arndt:—Wisdom unto the kingdom of God.—Zimmermann:—The children of the world, our teachers in this, that they: 1. Consider the future; 2. use the past; 3. control the present.—The Christian a servant of God, a lord over Mammon.—F. W. Krummacher:—A sermon in the Sabbath-Glocke, 1. pp. 140–151.—Ahlfeld:—1. What in the Unjust Steward have we to shun? 2. what to learn from him?—Couard:—What belongs to Christian prudence, in the care for our everlasting salvation?—Rautenberg:—How do we secure to ourselves a reception into the everlasting tabernacles?—Tholuck:—What is true of a faithful steward?—Wolf:—The Unjust Steward about to pass the border of his earthly fortune.—Our refuge when we fail.—Steinhofer:—The connection of prudence and faithfulness In a steward of God; there is a character: 1. Where there is neither prudence nor faithfulness; 2. where there is prudence without faithfulness; 3. where there is faithfulness without prudence; 4. where prudence and faithfulness are united.—Burk:—The great faithfulness of God, even with man’s great unfaithfulness.—Florey:—The prudence of the steward in the kingdom of God, Luk_16:8.
Footnotes:
Luk_16:1 .—On the authority of B., D., [Co ö This is sod. Sin.,] L., áὐôïῦ should be expunged.
Luk_16:7.—The êáß of the Recepta should be omitted, as by Tischendorf.
[Luk_16:8.—The article before êýñéïò having its continually recurring possessive sense.—C. C. S.]
Luk_16:9.—See Exegetical and Critical remarks.