Ep. 39 - The Shrewd Manager (Don't Love Money)

What Jesus says about what the manager does strikes me as somewhat strange, so perhaps you need to give us the context.

[chuckles] Yeah.

I mean, it, it does look at first sight, doesn't it, as though, I mean, frankly, Jesus is commending dishonesty, is what it looks like at face value.

Yeah.

So we have to dig down a little bit into the culture of the time just to understand what was going on here, because that's definitely not what he's saying.

I think we know enough from Jesus' teaching elsewhere in the Gospels that Jesus never commends dishonesty.

We've said many times before that all Jesus' parables are rooted in everyday life, either events like looking for lost sheep, or sowing seed, or putting yeast into dough, or events that had happened recently, and sometimes issues in life that everybody knew happened, and that's exactly what this story is all about.

In New Testament times, there were many sort of large, wealthy landowners who didn't look after the land themselves, but they had a sort of estate manager, a, a business manager who would look after it on their behalf.

Many of the landlords were absent landlords, by the way, didn't even live within Israel.

And everybody knew, it was like common knowledge that everybody knew, that most of these managers were in it for themselves-

Hmm

... and were making a little bit on the side.

So this parable of Jesus would have brought a smile on the face of his listeners.

They would have thought, "Oh, yeah, yeah, we all know people like that, don't we?" So what's been happening here? It looks like this business manager has been wasting his master's resources, rather like the son wasted his father's resources in the previous parable that we looked at.

Except the difference is The master hears about it.

Now, normally these business managers, farm managers were very good at keeping it all covered up, but the master hears about it, and the manager is about to be fired.

'Cause he's been cooking the books.

Yeah, absolutely, he's been cooking the books, and he's been caught out with his spoon in the pot.

So he has to come up with a plan to secure his future.

He's not gonna get another job easily, no sort of social security payments to look after him.

So what does he do? What he does is to reduce the amounts that are owed by the master's debtors in the hope that then when he's out of a job, they would be favorable to him and would perhaps help him out in return because they would, as it were, owe him one.

So what's he doing here? Well, some scholars think he might have been reducing the additional interest he'd charge, but the figures look so big that that's a bit unlikely.

It seems more likely that what he's doing is saying to himself, "Look, all these debtors owe my master debts that they're never gonna be able to pay off.

So why don't I make as my last act in, in the job here, reducing the amount of their debt so at least the master gets something rather than nothing?" 'Cause at the moment, he's gonna get nothing.

So he calls for each of them to come in, finds out what they owe, and reduces each one so the debt they owe is significantly smaller, and the way the master responds looks like that's the case.

What Jesus says about what the manager does strikes me as somewhat strange, so perhaps you need to give us the context.

[chuckles] Yeah.

I mean, it, it does look at first sight, doesn't it, as though, I mean, frankly, Jesus is commending dishonesty, is what it looks like at face value.

Yeah.

So we have to dig down a little bit into the culture of the time just to understand what was going on here, because that's definitely not what he's saying.

I think we know enough from Jesus' teaching elsewhere in the Gospels that Jesus never commends dishonesty.

We've said many times before that all Jesus' parables are rooted in everyday life, either events like looking for lost sheep, or sowing seed, or putting yeast into dough, or events that had happened recently, and sometimes issues in life that everybody knew happened, and that's exactly what this story is all about.

In New Testament times, there were many sort of large, wealthy landowners who didn't look after the land themselves, but they had a sort of estate manager, a, a business manager who would look after it on their behalf.

Many of the landlords were absent landlords, by the way, didn't even live within Israel.

And everybody knew, it was like common knowledge that everybody knew, that most of these managers were in it for themselves-

Hmm

... and were making a little bit on the side.

So this parable of Jesus would have brought a smile on the face of his listeners.

They would have thought, "Oh, yeah, yeah, we all know people like that, don't we?" So what's been happening here? It looks like this business manager has been wasting his master's resources, rather like the son wasted his father's resources in the previous parable that we looked at.

Except the difference is The master hears about it.

Now, normally these business managers, farm managers were very good at keeping it all covered up, but the master hears about it, and the manager is about to be fired.

'Cause he's been cooking the books.

Yeah, absolutely, he's been cooking the books, and he's been caught out with his spoon in the pot.

So he has to come up with a plan to secure his future.

He's not gonna get another job easily, no sort of social security payments to look after him.

So what does he do? What he does is to reduce the amounts that are owed by the master's debtors in the hope that then when he's out of a job, they would be favorable to him and would perhaps help him out in return because they would, as it were, owe him one.

So what's he doing here? Well, some scholars think he might have been reducing the additional interest he'd charge, but the figures look so big that that's a bit unlikely.

It seems more likely that what he's doing is saying to himself, "Look, all these debtors owe my master debts that they're never gonna be able to pay off.

So why don't I make as my last act in, in the job here, reducing the amount of their debt so at least the master gets something rather than nothing?" 'Cause at the moment, he's gonna get nothing.

So he calls for each of them to come in, finds out what they owe, and reduces each one so the debt they owe is significantly smaller, and the way the master responds looks like that's the case.