The Parable of the Shrewd Manager (study these verses)
1Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.'
3"The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg— 4I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'
5"So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'
6" 'Eight hundred gallons[a] of olive oil,' he replied.
"The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.'
7"Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?'
" 'A thousand bushels[b] of wheat,' he replied.
"He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.'
8"The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
10"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?
13"No servant can serve two masters. Either he will the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
14The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. 15He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight.
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6 comments:
this is my favorite passage out of the New Covenant. I think what I like about it so very much is how paradoxical it is. Jesus uses a scoundrel to represent a Godly perspective and principle. Everytime I study it I feel like I gain a new perspective. Lately the thing that has been rivoting to me is the way Jesus sums up the principle of the story in verse 10. The "very little" does not refer to anything other than our worldy wealth, he goes on in vs. 11 to explain that if you haven't handled worldy wealth well, then you will not be entrusted with true riches. Kingdom riches. So how does one use their worldy wealth well? You may have to re-read the scripture again to answer this. I will tell you, it is one of the strangest things I think I have ever heard Jesus to say (as far as our western Christian perspective is concerned)...
If you don't forward this fwd on to your own blog within three days of reading it, you will begin to grow thick black uncontrollable nose hairs. Be ware of not forwarding the fwd.
One uses worldly wealth well by purchasing a Playstation 3 and inviting one's buddy over to play it.
hah, that's exactly it...
you sure the playstation 3? What about the Wii, I always thought you were a nintendo guy?
You're the one that took greek, you tell me.
are you kidding me, I didn't take greek.... They told me I couldn't when I got a "D" in my grammar class at Ozark... Darn jerks. Now I'm having to take a Greek Tools class just to get into my Masters...
Even so, since you did appeal to my high knowledge of the biblical languages... The words for worldly wealth are ad-ee-kee'-ah mam-mo-nas', or unrighteous mammon. Stay with me here. The Wii is the Nintendo's new system, interestingly enough, the letters Wii also stand for something else. Anyone ever heard of World War Two (WII - here in order to make this leap I am using the two "i's" to represent not only the "2" in world war two, but also as a square of the W, thus providing the 2 W's needed for World War 2)? When it all comes down to it, what was World War Two all about?
Well, it was simply about money, power and world domination. Unrighteous Mammon. Thus, when Jesus speaks of the "Unrighteous Mammon", he is speaking indirectly of the Wii, through world war two. It is Peshur, an interpretation agent used by the essenes. Meaning, this (present day thing) is that (old thing).
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