Count Your Time, Not Money - Part 4

Count Your Time, Not Money - Part 4

In Part 1 and 2, we talked about the importance of counting our time and making our money count, instead of counting our money. In Part 3, we shared briefly on the Parable of the Unjust Steward.

The parable is a continuation from the parable of the lost sheep. In other words, Jesus' heart was set on 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐝𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐭. He wasn't teaching us to grow our finances to become financially independent. He was showing us true  stewardship in the light of the Kingdom.

Right before this parable, the prodigal son squandered his father's wealth 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 the house. He was lost but repented and humbled himself, and is thus found. Now in this parable, the steward squandered his master's wealth 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 the house. He was lost but didn't repent, because of his pride (Luke 16:3), and is thus put out of stewardship (16:2, 16:4).

In the parable of the lost son, Jesus focused on those 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 the Father's house: the 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 (Luke 15:1), who were welcomed by the Father. In this parable of the unjust steward, Jesus spoke about those 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 the Master's house: the 𝐏𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐬 (Luke 16:14-15), whose stewardship was rejected by the Father. They were supposed to be entrusted with God's riches (God's Message) since they knew the Law. But they failed to be His stewards by "wasting his goods" (Luke 16:1).

Note: I know that many of us have been taught on finances with this Parable of the Unjust Steward (Shrewd Manager). But we miss out the main point because we did not read in full context of why Jesus said what He said, as well as the audiences of those days.

𝐑𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫: Jesus' main heart for this parable was set on the Kingdom and the Lost!

The prodigal son loved money. Sinners too. But when he realised his wrong, he did not justify himself before men, so that he could be justified before the Father. That's true repentance. For sinners return to God. 

Jesus is a master story-teller. He contrasted it with the unjust steward. Just as the unjust steward loved money, the Pharisees too, loved money (Luke 16:14). When his wrong was found out, the unjust steward justified himself before men in order to be highly esteemed by them (Luke 16:4-7), the Pharisees did likewise (Luke 16:15). That's an abomination in the sight of God and their end will be as in the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31).

Note: In the original Greek manuscript, there is no division of chapters and titles. It's a string of messages.

I can go on and on, because this parable is SO RICH and interconnected with the series of parables Jesus taught! We must not brush off any bible passage as though we already knew it. The key to understanding is to keep asking the Holy Spirit to teach us as though we do not know everything.

Question: Is there something about finances in the Parable of the Unjust Steward? Yes! We will have to look at it in Part 5. I wanted to cover it in this post, but man.... it's just too hard to put everything together.