Today’s scripture: Luke 16:1-9 (ESV-text and audio) (KJV) (The Message)
As you read, consider: What might God be saying to me? Summarize your thoughts in a sentence or two.
My thoughts (Rebert Ferguson):
Our reading today finds Jesus teaching another valuable but difficult parable. This story of a crooked accountant who used some “creative bookkeeping” techniques seems to fly in the face of all the things we think we know about the teachings of Jesus.
This man has been stealing from his boss. Once the boss catches on and fires the dishonest employee, he decides to pull one last scam. Faced with losing his steady income and realizing that he was too old to earn a living through manual labor and too proud to beg for money on the street, he decides on an unethical but ingenious plan. The steward calls together some of the people who owed his boss money. He asked them how much they owed his boss and one by one he had them to change the amount owed on their account statements and he did likewise on his statements of their accounts. Obviously, the customers were grateful for this break. So grateful, in fact, that these customers had a new debt of gratitude owed to the crooked accountant, and when he needed a favor — which was likely to happen soon — these customers would be right there to help him out.
Clearly, the man was using the company’s capital to build up a reserve of personal favors so that when he lost his job he would be able to find another one. His boss quickly saw what he was doing, too, and he had a most unusual reaction — he praised his accountant’s ingenuity and shrewdness.
Now neither Jesus nor the boss ever praised deceitfulness, dishonesty, or creative bookkeeping. But both of them recognized the accountant’s vision. When faced with a serious problem, he did not hide, blame somebody, run to the bottle or jump off a cliff. Instead, he faced his problem and came up with a shrewd way to solve it. Jesus commended him because, as soon as he saw his problem, he became solution-oriented.
We are often shrewd, if not down right crafty, in winning friends and influencing people for the sake of status, popularity, political elections, or even success on the job. But when it comes to Kingdom building work — sharing the Gospel, or bringing souls to Christ — are we equally as shrewd and creative?
The lesson of this parable that resonates with me is that as passionate as we are in accomplishing our worldly goals, we should be equally so in our pursuit of glorifying God. As we learn in 2 Corinthians 4:18, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Thought for the day: Am I as dedicated to the success of God’s Kingdom as I am to my own kingdom?
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.