Luke 16:7
Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.
The verse records the steward telling a second debtor who owed a hundred measures of wheat to take his bill and rewrite it for eighty. By cutting the debt he robbed his master to favor the debtor, made him a partner in the fraud, and bound him to take the steward into his house when the stewardship was lost. The trick was dishonest and unfaithful, and Christ did not approve the dishonesty but held up the foresight that used present means to provide for the future. What is entrusted is lent by God for blessing others and advancing His cause, not for selfish use, and only by freely imparting it now can provision be made for eternity. Those who so use earthly goods make friends who will welcome them into the everlasting habitations, and faithfulness in that least proves worthy to receive the true riches as their own.
The Steward's Dishonest Reduction
The verse records a second dealing in which one who owed a hundred measures of wheat is told to take his bill and rewrite it for eighty. The cut from one hundred to eighty was a dishonest change of the recorded obligation, helping the debtor while defrauding the master. By accepting the benefit the debtor was made a sharer in the dishonesty and was placed under obligation to receive the steward as a friend into his home after the stewardship was lost.
Facing dismissal, unable to dig and ashamed to beg, the steward resolved to avoid working, begging, or starving by securing reception into houses. He therefore used his lord's goods still in his hands to provide against future want, working on a new plan of imparting to others instead of gathering for himself so as to gain friends who would receive him when cast out. Those goods had been entrusted for benevolent purposes and for the benefit of others, not for the steward's own enrichment, but he had used them for himself with thought only for the present and no provision for the future.
The act belonged to dishonest and unfaithful handling after wasting what was entrusted, and tampering with such practices leads onward into greater evil. Christ did not commend the dishonesty or living for selfish interests, and the shrewdness was praised by a worldly man, not by God. The stewardship pictures Israel, delivered from bondage in Egypt and made depositaries of sacred truth and entrusted with the living oracles to communicate light for the blessing of the world, yet using these gifts to enrich and exalt themselves, and it pictures the Pharisees whose stewardship was soon to be taken from them. The dishonest reduction exposes the selfish, avaricious, impenitent, proud and covetous spirit of the scribes and Pharisees and of the Jewish nation in serving mammon instead of making mammon serve the interests of God's kingdom, while publicans recognized their own dishonest practices in the picture and had their attention arrested to learn spiritual truth.
Faithful Use for Eternity
Earthly possessions are the least things, the unrighteous mammon, lent by God and belonging to another, and wealth is no proof of godliness. What is entrusted must be used judiciously to God's glory, not spent for selfish purposes, for show, or for speculation, but to advance His cause, to save souls, to spread the truth, to build Christ's kingdom, to serve others, and to help people prepare for the eternal home Christ has promised, thus laying up treasure in heaven. People must turn from being absorbed in temporary affairs and make provision for eternity, for only by seeking the good of others can they benefit themselves, and only by imparting God's gifts in the present life can they provide for eternity.
Those who so impart freely make friends who may welcome them into the eternal tabernacles and the everlasting habitations when earthly possessions fail, making friends of Jesus and angels who will receive the faithful steward. Faithfulness in earthly things proves profession true and proves worthy on probation and trial for eternal life, so that God can entrust the true riches and the immortal inheritance purchased by Jesus as one's own. Withholding from God what He lent, selfish grasping of riches and selfish use of them, and worldly ambition and greed prove unfaithful in everything, for unfaithfulness in little things means unfaithfulness in larger matters and disqualifies for higher trusts and forfeits the immortal inheritance.
Those in peril of being put out of their stewardship by God often do not realize their danger as does a man in financial embarrassment setting to work to save himself from utter ruin. If they saw their danger and where their course was leading they would change the order of things. Riches obtained by robbery and unjust dealing bring no lasting gain. What is entrusted must be put to active Christian effort and not neglected while caring for self. Claimed inability for the work is never made by God but is produced by a person's own inactivity and perpetuated by deliberate choice, and continual misuse quenches the Holy Spirit, the only light, and already realizes in character the sentence to take away the entrusted talent, sealed for eternity by casting the unprofitable servant into outer darkness.
The unfaithful servant neglects the claims of God without feeling any wrong and spends life caring for himself, yet enjoys the services of religion and loves to hear the gospel preached and therefore thinks himself a Christian. Though he knows the blasphemer, the murderer, and the adulterer deserve punishment, he will be as surprised as the servant in the parable to hear the sentence to take the talent from him, because like the Jews he mistakes the enjoyment of blessings for the use he should make of them. No one can serve God and mammon, and if anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him.