Confounding the Arithmetic of the Righteous: An Examination of the Parable of the Unjust Steward

A trademark of Jesus’s earthly ministry was his frequent use of parables as he traveled and taught the masses. Chapter 13 of Matthew’s Gospel offers perhaps the best glimpse at this method, as the Lord deploys no less than six parables in rapid succession. But amid all those stories of seeds, sowers, weeds, and hidden treasure, we are also treated to his rationale for speaking truth parabolically, veiling and unveiling the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven simultaneously (Matt. 13:10–17). What’s important to remember is that Jesus’s parables are less about moralizing his hearers and more about revealing himself to them. The through-line always gravitates toward the fulfillment of God’s words (Matt. 13:34–35), as God’s Son shows the world who he is.

The Parable That Puzzles Us

An element that sets Jesus’s parables apart is the difficulty they often present when it comes to understanding and interpreting them. Even though they aren’t riddles, Jesus still left his audience scratching their heads on more than one occasion. Of all the parables he told, the one that has left his followers perennially baffled is the so-called “Parable of the Unjust Steward” (Luke 16:1–8). Nearly every commentary you might consult will readily admit the oddities and complexities that pervade this text of Scripture. Indeed, there is hardly any consensus to be found for making sense of this story and its details. What are we supposed to do with such a shady character as this “dishonest manager”? Is he an anti-hero or a biblical Robin Hood? Is he a good guy or a bad guy? Is this story only about money, or is it about something else? And how does this story fit in the context of the rest of the Bible?

These are just some of the questions that might surface after reading this story, with most of the strain stemming from Jesus’s words in verse 8, where he says that the boss of the crooked accountant ended up commending him even after he fleeced him for a second time. If not for that detail, Jesus’s story would read very simply and conclude very definitively, highlighting the honest use of wealth. The boss’s applause is a complete reversal of expectations. What’s more, an honest understanding of this parable is only discerned when it is kept intact with the previous entries. Jesus’s brief phrase in the opening verse of the chapter—“He also said” (Luke 16:1)—serves to bridge the ensuing parable with those more famous ones from chapter 15, all of which occurred during the same teaching moment. In other words, the Parable of the Unjust Steward cannot be divorced from the Parables of Lost Things Being Found.

Lost Things and Fraudulent Ledgers

This is where the chapter divisions and section headings in our Bibles can occasionally trip us up. Those markings, while helpful and useful in certain settings, are sometimes counterproductive, especially when they encourage us to treat the feast of Scripture as nothing more than finger food. God’s word is not a loosely compiled collection of stories. Rather, it’s a divinely preserved and composed book of revelation. This is just to say that there’s a reason Luke composed his Gospel in the way that he did; there’s a reason it differs from Matthew’s or Mark’s. Even though they include some of the same stories and events, they were each inspired by Christ’s Spirit to showcase the nature and heart of Christ from a slightly different perspective. It wasn’t merely blind chance that led Luke to follow up the stories of lost coins, lost sheep, and lost sons with the tale of a crafty financial manager.

As strange as it may seem, these stories are meant to go together, like the pieces to a panoramic puzzle. The big question, of course, is how. How do these stories relate to one another? How does a trilogy of parables that convey such sheer grace connect to a parable about the proper use of money? How do we make sense of all this? And what portrait are they supposed to reveal?

Crooked Accounting

Jesus begins his tale with a rich man, whom we’ll call Mr. King, whose general manager or accountant, whom we’ll refer to as Dan, has been accused of “wasting” his money. Of note is the term “wasting,” which means to scatter or disperse—the same term Jesus uses to describe the prodigal son’s financial management practices (Luke 15:13). The long and short of it is that Dan has been embezzling Mr. King’s money, right under his very nose. Mr. King is livid when he’s made aware of this, promptly summoning Dan to turn in his books (Luke 16:1–2). He’s a crooked accountant who has made a habit of cooking his boss’s books for his own gain. But now his game is up, and his stewardship is about to be taken away.

Faced with this piercing disgrace and embarrassment, Dan has a moment of introspection to discern what his next move should be: “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’” (Luke 16:3–4).

At least he’s self-aware enough to know that he couldn’t cut it as a manual laborer, nor would his pride let him become a beggar. With those options off the table, a light bulb goes off in his head. Dan concocts a scheme to surround himself with friends so that he isn’t hung out to dry when he is fired. He hurriedly arranges meetings with some of Mr. King’s highest-paying clients and starts doctoring the books again (Luke 16:5–7). Bob, who originally borrowed one hundred measures of oil from Mr. King, the approximate equivalent of three years’ wages, gets his bill cut in half, while Larry, who originally was on the hook for one hundred measures of wheat, roughly eight years’ worth of wages, gets a discount of twenty percent. These two are, of course, just two examples of Dan’s larger scheme to offer relief to some of Mr. King’s biggest borrowers, who were surely delighted to have their bills reduced.

Dan’s plan is obvious, as it would seem he has made good friends in Bob and Larry, who would support him once he is out of work. But what do you think Mr. King is going to do once he finds out that his crooked accountant has cooked the books once again? Surely, Hell hath no fury that can compare to that looming wrathful display. Even though one would assume this to be the case, in one of the most subversive moments in all of Scripture, Jesus tells his earnest audience that “the master [a.k.a. Mr. King] commended the dishonest manager [Dan] for his shrewdness” (Luke 16:8). Instead of living up to our expectations of justice, the crooked accountant is praised for his cleverness. What in the world do we do with this? There have been several interpretations.

1) Honor Among Thieves

Some scholars and commentators have attempted to make Dan the accountant somewhat of an endearing character by saying the portion he took away from the bills was his own commission. This, however, is an interpretation that exists only in the minds of the interpreters; it’s not in the text. A more reasonable theory suggests that Dan’s scheme involved removing any potential profit Mr. King might have gained from these clients, putting him in a bind. With Mr. King gaining incredible favor by lessening their bills, reversing that might recoup his profit but shatter his reputation. Mr. King’s commendation of Dan, then, becomes one of “honor among thieves.” “Well played,” he might’ve said. This makes the most sense, especially in light of the Lord’s further comments, where he contrasts the “sons of this world” with the “sons of light” (Luke 16:8–9).

Unbelievers are often “more shrewd” or more clever with what they have been given than those who believe, that is, the “sons of light.” This leads him to say that his disciples would do well to “make friends” by employing a similar measure of cleverness or wisdom. Of course, Jesus isn’t endorsing the unethical business practices of this accountant. Rather, he’s condemning the stingy stewardship of the religious debutants in the audience (Luke 15:2).

2) Faithfulness and the True Riches

The traditional application from this parable tells us to make good use of whatever unrighteous wealth we have to our name, so that when this life “fails” and we come to the end of all things, we will be “received” by the friends we have made along the way. “Traditionally,” David Mathewson explains, “Luke 16:1–13 has been understood as portraying a steward who cheats his master but who is commended for his wisdom, a quality to be imitated by Christ’s disciples in their use of material possessions in light of the coming kingdom.” Put another way, those who belong to the kingdom of heaven should steward their money well in the here and now, and then they’ll be greeted in the eternal dwellings by those who have been rescued by it. “If God has given us wealth,” H. A. Ironside comments, “we should use it to His glory in spreading His gospel, and in relieving distressed and suffering humanity.” In other words, if even a crooked accountant knows how to plan for the future, how much more should Jesus’s followers live wisely in light of eternity?

“Jesus uses the parable,” Mathewson goes on to say, “to inculcate in his disciples the need to be equally wise (not dishonest) in their use of material possessions in light of the coming kingdom . . . The master’s praise reflects God’s praise of his followers, the cleverness of the steward emphasizes the need for prudence in Jesus’ disciples, and the debtors’ welcome of the steward reflects the future heavenly reception awaiting God’s followers.”

This interpretation fits well with Jesus’s words in the next section, where his apparent commendation of wealth is tempered just a bit, before any of his disciples get the wrong idea of what he means by “make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth” (Luke 16:9–12). They can—and should—use what financial blessings they have to “make friends,” to make disciples, but that doesn’t mean money should get an inordinate priority in their hearts. It cannot be paramount. It can’t be the god we serve (Luke 16:13). Money is a terrible master, cultivating and fostering all manner of evil. But, even still, that doesn’t mean money itself is evil. It all comes down to faithfulness. Are you living faithfully with what you’ve been given? Are you stewarding well what has been entrusted to you? If you can’t even be trusted to steward the “unrighteous wealth” that is here on Earth, what makes you think you can steward the eternal riches of grace?

3) Stewardship and the Scandal of Grace

It’s this theme of “stewardship” or management, though, that allows us to properly distill this text. After all, a moral lesson about the proper use of money, as true as it is, is still a jarring sequel to the Lord’s trio of parables about grace. What’s the connective tissue between a story about a lost sheep and a story about the right way to budget your personal finances? In other words, while the traditional way this parable is interpreted is not wrong, there’s a deeper truth here for us. This story isn’t really about a crooked accountant, nor is it merely about financial planning. Rather, like the rest of Scripture, this story is about Jesus. The Author of the Parable of the Unjust Steward is none other than the one the Pharisees called “mad” and insane; the one they called a “glutton and a drunkard” (Luke 7:34; John 10:20; Matt. 11:19).

To the religious aristocracy, Jesus was a rogue agent, a grifter of divine truth, and a trouble-maker to be marked and avoided. They couldn’t deny what he was doing or the impact he was making, but they also utterly despised everything he said and did (Luke 15:1–2). From their perspective, Jesus of Nazareth was wasting the treasures of God’s kingdom on sinners by rearranging the law, breaking the Sabbath, and recklessly forgiving folks who didn’t deserve it. In other words, in the eyes of the scribes and the Pharisees, Jesus was a crooked accountant.

The True Steward of Heaven’s Grace

The twist, of course, is that Jesus is no rogue. He is the true and faithful Steward of the Father’s grace (John 17:4–8), the one who comes and does what we could never do by ourselves or for ourselves. Through this parable, therefore, Jesus deploys the story of a rogue accountant to uncover the stingy and sinister stewardship of the Pharisees. Although they had been entrusted with the truth of God and the heavenly kingdom, they had devolved into “lovers of money” more than anything else (Luke 16:14), treating God’s grace, which he intended to be dispensed prodigally, like Scrooge’s stacks of coins. Thus, for a clique of tight-fisted religious types who prided themselves on piety and prestige, Jesus relays a story that ruffles their feathers, that demonstrates what grace looks like to a bunch of stuffy and stingy penny-pinchers. “It is not about how we should respond,” William R. G. Loader trenchantly notes, “but about Jesus and what he is doing.”

Loader continues like this: “It is his response to those who accosted him as treacherously selling short the holy Law of his Master and as falsely claiming to represent the Master, by declaring reduction of debts to debtors, release of sins to sinners. Jesus responds to such accusations by telling the story of the rogue praised by his master. The ironic twist of the story is that Jesus is no rogue at all as he declares divine grace and that he will receive his Master’s approval… The parable of the unjust steward is an example of Jesus’ use of a story to shock people and so break open their awareness for new insight. Accused of unauthorised and scandalous behaviour, in offering God’s grace freely outside the prescribed pattern of the Law to sinners and no-goods, Jesus provokes his hearers with the story of a rogue who, despite all, received his master’s approbation.”

What looked like crooked accounting in Jesus’s lavish welcome and extension of forgiveness to the poor and destitute was, in fact, the unfolding of the very economy of heaven. He’s the one who bears the loss and sweeps away our debts—not fraudulently, nor by cooking the books, but by faithfully living and dying in our place. In so doing, the Father commends him by raising him from the dead. The gospel of God is a message all about the roguishness of grace, which, as Loader beautifully concludes, “confounds the arithmetic of the righteous.” Such grace shocks us still, offending our sense of fairness and shredding the ledgers we painstakingly maintain by gesturing to heaven’s true and better Steward, who spent all of himself to cancel your debt forever.