So he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord?
Facing removal for wasting what was entrusted to him, the steward begins a scheme to be welcomed into homes by calling each debtor to himself and asking the first what he owes as the opening move toward altering the accounts. The dealing is dishonest, taking from his master to favor the debtors and thereby bind them to receive him as a friend. What is held up for learning is not the fraud itself but foresight and prudent calculation in providing for the future. The question of what is owed reaches beyond the story, for all that anyone has and is belongs to God as rightful owner, so the debt cannot be fully measured. Every person must therefore give individual account for means, talents, and opportunities entrusted to him, and prove faithful by using what is lent here to God's glory and the good of others that it may become treasure in heaven.
The Steward's Dishonest Plan
After wasting his lord's goods he was called to give an account of his stewardship and faced removal, with labor, begging, or starving before him, and being unable to dig and ashamed to beg he resolved that when put out they might receive him into their houses. To secure that reception he determined to make friends who would take him in rather than dig or beg or starve.
He began carrying out the plan by calling every one of his lord's debtors to himself and asking the first how much he owed to his lord. That questioning was the opening step toward falsifying the bills, beginning the dishonest changes and reductions of their debts that would win him their favor. The call was fraud, for he robbed his master to benefit the debtors and made them sharers with him in dishonesty. By their accepting the advantage he placed them under obligation to receive him as a friend into their homes and welcome him there.
What is held up for learning is not his dishonesty or living for selfish interests, which are not commended. The example lies in foresight in making provision for the future and prudent calculation in administering an entrusted estate, applied to using entrusted money wisely for God's work rather than wasting it on display, speculation, or buildings that do not glorify God. The publicans recognized the dishonest practices in the story as resembling their own, and some learned spiritual truth from that likeness.
Whom The Parable Exposes
The goods in the steward's hands had been put there to be used for kind, generous ends, but he turned them to his own account to make himself rich and great. That trust stands for the gifts of God and the sacred truth given to Israel and to the scribes and Pharisees to be a blessing to others, which they mishandled for self-advancement while serving mammon instead of making mammon serve the interests of God's kingdom on earth.
With that stewardship about to be taken away, the only way left to provide for what lay ahead was to spend what God had lent in doing good to others, for giving out those gifts in this life is the path to lasting benefit in eternity. In this way the story turns the mind away from treating present, passing interests as supreme and presses for provision for eternity, bidding hearers to employ their means for God's work rather than for selfish ends, a demand that cuts directly against the wish to keep money for oneself.
Meddling with dishonest ways carries onward into deeper wrong, so that those in tempting callings may move from a first crooked step to still greater crimes, and riches gotten by robbery and unjust dealing yield no enduring gain. In impenitence, pride, and covetousness the Jewish nation was traveling a road to ruin, and all who stand in danger of being removed by God from their stewardship are in the same peril without perceiving it. A selfish clutching of riches and a selfish spending of them shows unfaithfulness to trust and unfits for higher trusts, since unfaithfulness in small things means unfaithfulness in great, and every life is on trial over whether worldly ambition, greed, and seizing every advantage for self alone shall mark it. The warning agrees fully with 1 Timothy 6 that men can be fooled into thinking gain is godliness and wealth proves God's favor, and it teaches that those charged with blessings and responsibilities must handle them faithfully because neglect ends in loss.
How Much Is Owed
The question of what is owed to the lord means everything possessed comes from God, who is the rightful owner of all things and of the whole universe, so the debt cannot be fully measured, told, or computed. No part of the being has not been redeemed and nothing in possession is not already His, making the indebtedness total and for everything. The debt includes life itself and every earthly good and privilege, with dependence on Him for all blessings and even for breath. He provides sunshine and rain that make crops grow while people sow and cooperate with Him.
The price of redemption cannot be computed, for He bore sins in His own body on the tree with pierced hands and spiked feet, suffered agony, gave Himself as ransom to deliver from going down to perish eternally, was delivered for offenses and raised for justification. He became poor that people might receive eternal riches, and died that they might have life. He gave His precious life as sacrifice so none perish but have everlasting life.
Tithes and offerings are the specified goods, with every specification given by God in every dispensation, to be returned as tokens of loyalty and submission to His sovereignty and as acknowledgement that the goods are entrusted. What is owed in this respect is not hard to find, comprising the tithe He has reserved and offerings from what He has provided, including support for missionary work at home and abroad. When the specified tithes and offerings are brought the giver is free to retain the remaining portion, and He promises to bless and increase the substance of those who consecrate them to Him unto abundance.
When God calls for what is His, it must not be selfishly grasped as one's own, kept back, or used for other purposes instead of the salvation of souls, a course by which thousands of souls are lost. Entrusted means are to be used to His glory for the salvation of men, women, and children by making known the gospel to every creature. Appreciation for His sacrifice and great love in drawing sinners to Himself is shown by presenting self as His servant and all that is owned as His, and by sending forth gifts and offerings with praise and thanksgiving from the lips.
Answering For Stewardship
Every person must answer individually to God for the means, talents, opportunities, light, and advantages entrusted to him, for God keeps an individual account in which nothing entrusted is omitted, including talents left unused. The question of how much is owed to the lord is the question of that debt of stewardship to God — how much is owed to the Lord — and each person's use of what is entrusted shows whether he is a faithful steward or has diverted God's goods to selfish purposes. Those entrusted with light and advantages must answer by reflecting that light in words and example and by returning to God the fruits of His vineyard, while those who never received the light are not held answerable for it. All possessions and resources are God's entrusted goods, with the whole life belonging to Him, given to be used where most needed, especially to save souls, and people are accountable for investing them in God's work and helping others become loyal to His kingdom. The calling to account tests whether conversion and religious principles are sound and whether a person is loyal to God, with Christian service as part of that test.
Unfaithful stewards who misuse the Lord's funds and divert resources from His work will have to answer for their conduct and for the harm their choices have done to God's work in the judgment and at a future settlement of accounts. That reckoning prompts those entrusted with responsibility to consider what account they will give for resources diverted from God's work. Those who have withheld what belongs to God should make restitution where possible, and where they cannot they should humbly seek pardon through Christ, acting faithfully while mercy is still offered and wrongs can still be made right. Claimed inability for Christian effort is never made by God but is produced by personal inactivity and perpetuated by deliberate choice, and those who excuse themselves are already realizing the removal of their entrusted talent. Continual misuse quenches the Holy Spirit who is the only light, and being cast as an unprofitable servant into outer darkness is Heaven's seal upon the choice made for eternity.
Many professed Christians are unprepared to answer what they owe from entrusted means, especially whether they have set aside anything for charity and faithfully given tithes and offerings, because they have not considered the Lord's dues and claims and have neglected duties in gifts and offerings.
Faithful Use Today
Earthly possessions are the least, the unrighteous mammon, and that which is another man's because they are lent by God and do not belong to the steward. To make friends of them is to use means to God's glory here and impart freely to advance His cause, which lays up treasure in Heaven, so that when earthly possessions fail Jesus and angels receive the faithful into everlasting habitations. Faithfulness in earthly possessions proves true to profession, while withholding from God what He lent proves unjust and unfaithful in the things of God in every respect. Life here is probation to see if worthiness for eternal life will be proved, for redemption has been purchased and is ours to receive, yet if unfaithful in managing what God lends here He will never give the true riches and the immortal inheritance. Loving the world and serving mammon is incompatible with serving God and having the love of the Father.
Entrusted money is to be used wisely for God's work, invested to spread the gospel, carry truth to those who have not heard, and help people prepare for the future eternal home. It is not to be wasted on display, speculation, buildings that do not glorify God, or extravagant spending to impress the world. Christ gave all He possessed and endured suffering and death to secure salvation, and His love calls for a life consecrated to His service shown in reverent, grateful offerings and in the use of means and influence for others.
Facing what is owed should break selfish habits and the bonds of selfishness through self-restraint and generous giving. God has granted countless privileges and blessings, and people depend on Him for every earthly good and even for breath, so the debt is great and calls for acknowledging His claims and meeting the rightful claims of God and humanity. This means economizing in spending, laying aside extra ornaments and extravagant dress for plain durable clothing, bringing appetite into subjection, and giving offerings to help remove debts from churches and to advance the cause of truth. It includes returning the tithe He has reserved and giving offerings from what He has provided, including support for missionary work at home and abroad.
Recognizing how much is owed because of many sins and for the freely given gospel feast should deepen indebtedness. Presenting that question fully makes the gospel invitation more profound. Such gratitude moves to reverent, grateful offerings and to using means and influence to carry the gospel to others.
The debt each must reckon before demanding what others owe includes robbing God by withholding full, loving service and failing to use the abilities and advantages He has given. Recognizing this debt calls for humility and for blotting out claims against others rather than exacting payment from them.
People must cooperate with God as they sow and He gives growth, for He provides sunshine and rain that make crops grow for both the just and the unjust. So they must cooperate with Him in cultivating righteousness, fulfilling neglected duties, remaining faithful to baptismal vows, and bearing fruit for His glory. Those entrusted with light and advantages must answer by reflecting that light in words and example and returning to God the fruits of His vineyard, while those who never received the light are not held answerable for it. Faithfulness to the end is rewarded with a crown of glory and a home in heaven.
Owing life itself, with Jesus giving His precious life as sacrifice so none perish but have everlasting life, requires no longer making an idol of self at the cost of eternal life in the kingdom of God. It requires receiving converting power on the heart to expel selfish pride and supply the love of Christ, giving heart obedience to the law of God for present and eternal good, and waking from spiritual lethargy into spiritual resurrection. It requires filling an appointed place in the world and doing long-undone work for the Master, rendering to God time, strength, and physical and spiritual powers in useful exercise as a vessel unto honor, and answering for accountability for all benefits in preserving life, because none are their own but are bought with a price.
Gratitude for Christ becoming poor that people might receive eternal riches and dying that they might have life should move Christians to follow His example and share saving truth with others. Such service develops character, strengthens faith, steadies zeal, and deepens love for God, truth, and those who are perishing, and through these labors many are saved.
Facing removal for wasting what was entrusted to him, the steward begins a scheme to be welcomed into homes by calling each debtor to himself and asking the first what he owes as the opening move toward altering the accounts. The dealing is dishonest, taking from his master to favor the debtors and thereby bind them to receive him as a friend. What is held up for learning is not the fraud itself but foresight and prudent calculation in providing for the future. The question of what is owed reaches beyond the story, for all that anyone has and is belongs to God as rightful owner, so the debt cannot be fully measured. Every person must therefore give individual account for means, talents, and opportunities entrusted to him, and prove faithful by using what is lent here to God's glory and the good of others that it may become treasure in heaven.
The Steward's Dishonest Plan
After wasting his lord's goods he was called to give an account of his stewardship and faced removal, with labor, begging, or starving before him, and being unable to dig and ashamed to beg he resolved that when put out they might receive him into their houses. To secure that reception he determined to make friends who would take him in rather than dig or beg or starve.
He began carrying out the plan by calling every one of his lord's debtors to himself and asking the first how much he owed to his lord. That questioning was the opening step toward falsifying the bills, beginning the dishonest changes and reductions of their debts that would win him their favor. The call was fraud, for he robbed his master to benefit the debtors and made them sharers with him in dishonesty. By their accepting the advantage he placed them under obligation to receive him as a friend into their homes and welcome him there.
What is held up for learning is not his dishonesty or living for selfish interests, which are not commended. The example lies in foresight in making provision for the future and prudent calculation in administering an entrusted estate, applied to using entrusted money wisely for God's work rather than wasting it on display, speculation, or buildings that do not glorify God. The publicans recognized the dishonest practices in the story as resembling their own, and some learned spiritual truth from that likeness.
Whom The Parable Exposes
The goods in the steward's hands had been put there to be used for kind, generous ends, but he turned them to his own account to make himself rich and great. That trust stands for the gifts of God and the sacred truth given to Israel and to the scribes and Pharisees to be a blessing to others, which they mishandled for self-advancement while serving mammon instead of making mammon serve the interests of God's kingdom on earth.
With that stewardship about to be taken away, the only way left to provide for what lay ahead was to spend what God had lent in doing good to others, for giving out those gifts in this life is the path to lasting benefit in eternity. In this way the story turns the mind away from treating present, passing interests as supreme and presses for provision for eternity, bidding hearers to employ their means for God's work rather than for selfish ends, a demand that cuts directly against the wish to keep money for oneself.
Meddling with dishonest ways carries onward into deeper wrong, so that those in tempting callings may move from a first crooked step to still greater crimes, and riches gotten by robbery and unjust dealing yield no enduring gain. In impenitence, pride, and covetousness the Jewish nation was traveling a road to ruin, and all who stand in danger of being removed by God from their stewardship are in the same peril without perceiving it. A selfish clutching of riches and a selfish spending of them shows unfaithfulness to trust and unfits for higher trusts, since unfaithfulness in small things means unfaithfulness in great, and every life is on trial over whether worldly ambition, greed, and seizing every advantage for self alone shall mark it. The warning agrees fully with 1 Timothy 6 that men can be fooled into thinking gain is godliness and wealth proves God's favor, and it teaches that those charged with blessings and responsibilities must handle them faithfully because neglect ends in loss.
How Much Is Owed
The question of what is owed to the lord means everything possessed comes from God, who is the rightful owner of all things and of the whole universe, so the debt cannot be fully measured, told, or computed. No part of the being has not been redeemed and nothing in possession is not already His, making the indebtedness total and for everything. The debt includes life itself and every earthly good and privilege, with dependence on Him for all blessings and even for breath. He provides sunshine and rain that make crops grow while people sow and cooperate with Him.
The price of redemption cannot be computed, for He bore sins in His own body on the tree with pierced hands and spiked feet, suffered agony, gave Himself as ransom to deliver from going down to perish eternally, was delivered for offenses and raised for justification. He became poor that people might receive eternal riches, and died that they might have life. He gave His precious life as sacrifice so none perish but have everlasting life.
Tithes and offerings are the specified goods, with every specification given by God in every dispensation, to be returned as tokens of loyalty and submission to His sovereignty and as acknowledgement that the goods are entrusted. What is owed in this respect is not hard to find, comprising the tithe He has reserved and offerings from what He has provided, including support for missionary work at home and abroad. When the specified tithes and offerings are brought the giver is free to retain the remaining portion, and He promises to bless and increase the substance of those who consecrate them to Him unto abundance.
When God calls for what is His, it must not be selfishly grasped as one's own, kept back, or used for other purposes instead of the salvation of souls, a course by which thousands of souls are lost. Entrusted means are to be used to His glory for the salvation of men, women, and children by making known the gospel to every creature. Appreciation for His sacrifice and great love in drawing sinners to Himself is shown by presenting self as His servant and all that is owned as His, and by sending forth gifts and offerings with praise and thanksgiving from the lips.
Answering For Stewardship
Every person must answer individually to God for the means, talents, opportunities, light, and advantages entrusted to him, for God keeps an individual account in which nothing entrusted is omitted, including talents left unused. The question of how much is owed to the lord is the question of that debt of stewardship to God — how much is owed to the Lord — and each person's use of what is entrusted shows whether he is a faithful steward or has diverted God's goods to selfish purposes. Those entrusted with light and advantages must answer by reflecting that light in words and example and by returning to God the fruits of His vineyard, while those who never received the light are not held answerable for it. All possessions and resources are God's entrusted goods, with the whole life belonging to Him, given to be used where most needed, especially to save souls, and people are accountable for investing them in God's work and helping others become loyal to His kingdom. The calling to account tests whether conversion and religious principles are sound and whether a person is loyal to God, with Christian service as part of that test.
Unfaithful stewards who misuse the Lord's funds and divert resources from His work will have to answer for their conduct and for the harm their choices have done to God's work in the judgment and at a future settlement of accounts. That reckoning prompts those entrusted with responsibility to consider what account they will give for resources diverted from God's work. Those who have withheld what belongs to God should make restitution where possible, and where they cannot they should humbly seek pardon through Christ, acting faithfully while mercy is still offered and wrongs can still be made right. Claimed inability for Christian effort is never made by God but is produced by personal inactivity and perpetuated by deliberate choice, and those who excuse themselves are already realizing the removal of their entrusted talent. Continual misuse quenches the Holy Spirit who is the only light, and being cast as an unprofitable servant into outer darkness is Heaven's seal upon the choice made for eternity.
Many professed Christians are unprepared to answer what they owe from entrusted means, especially whether they have set aside anything for charity and faithfully given tithes and offerings, because they have not considered the Lord's dues and claims and have neglected duties in gifts and offerings.
Faithful Use Today
Earthly possessions are the least, the unrighteous mammon, and that which is another man's because they are lent by God and do not belong to the steward. To make friends of them is to use means to God's glory here and impart freely to advance His cause, which lays up treasure in Heaven, so that when earthly possessions fail Jesus and angels receive the faithful into everlasting habitations. Faithfulness in earthly possessions proves true to profession, while withholding from God what He lent proves unjust and unfaithful in the things of God in every respect. Life here is probation to see if worthiness for eternal life will be proved, for redemption has been purchased and is ours to receive, yet if unfaithful in managing what God lends here He will never give the true riches and the immortal inheritance. Loving the world and serving mammon is incompatible with serving God and having the love of the Father.
Entrusted money is to be used wisely for God's work, invested to spread the gospel, carry truth to those who have not heard, and help people prepare for the future eternal home. It is not to be wasted on display, speculation, buildings that do not glorify God, or extravagant spending to impress the world. Christ gave all He possessed and endured suffering and death to secure salvation, and His love calls for a life consecrated to His service shown in reverent, grateful offerings and in the use of means and influence for others.
Facing what is owed should break selfish habits and the bonds of selfishness through self-restraint and generous giving. God has granted countless privileges and blessings, and people depend on Him for every earthly good and even for breath, so the debt is great and calls for acknowledging His claims and meeting the rightful claims of God and humanity. This means economizing in spending, laying aside extra ornaments and extravagant dress for plain durable clothing, bringing appetite into subjection, and giving offerings to help remove debts from churches and to advance the cause of truth. It includes returning the tithe He has reserved and giving offerings from what He has provided, including support for missionary work at home and abroad.
Recognizing how much is owed because of many sins and for the freely given gospel feast should deepen indebtedness. Presenting that question fully makes the gospel invitation more profound. Such gratitude moves to reverent, grateful offerings and to using means and influence to carry the gospel to others.
The debt each must reckon before demanding what others owe includes robbing God by withholding full, loving service and failing to use the abilities and advantages He has given. Recognizing this debt calls for humility and for blotting out claims against others rather than exacting payment from them.
People must cooperate with God as they sow and He gives growth, for He provides sunshine and rain that make crops grow for both the just and the unjust. So they must cooperate with Him in cultivating righteousness, fulfilling neglected duties, remaining faithful to baptismal vows, and bearing fruit for His glory. Those entrusted with light and advantages must answer by reflecting that light in words and example and returning to God the fruits of His vineyard, while those who never received the light are not held answerable for it. Faithfulness to the end is rewarded with a crown of glory and a home in heaven.
Owing life itself, with Jesus giving His precious life as sacrifice so none perish but have everlasting life, requires no longer making an idol of self at the cost of eternal life in the kingdom of God. It requires receiving converting power on the heart to expel selfish pride and supply the love of Christ, giving heart obedience to the law of God for present and eternal good, and waking from spiritual lethargy into spiritual resurrection. It requires filling an appointed place in the world and doing long-undone work for the Master, rendering to God time, strength, and physical and spiritual powers in useful exercise as a vessel unto honor, and answering for accountability for all benefits in preserving life, because none are their own but are bought with a price.
Gratitude for Christ becoming poor that people might receive eternal riches and dying that they might have life should move Christians to follow His example and share saving truth with others. Such service develops character, strengthens faith, steadies zeal, and deepens love for God, truth, and those who are perishing, and through these labors many are saved.