Luke 16 Footnotes

16:8-9 Jesus did not commend the manager’s dishonesty but rather his foresight. The shrewdness of the manager is typical of the “children of this age” toward their own kind, and Jesus’s audience (and even the master in the parable) could, without condoning his activities, smile at how the fox got himself out of a jam. The manager used what resources he had to prepare for his inevitable demise. The point, then, is to ask, if the unrighteous know how to use money to win friends and secure a future, how much more ought the righteous to do so, albeit righteously, helping those in need, and with a view to God’s reward? Verses 19-31 record a second parable illustrating this point.

16:19-24 The opening to this story (“There was a rich man”) indicates that it is a parable (v. 1), and thus the details of its picture of the afterlife should not be taken too literally. Certainly, however, Jesus taught life after death, including reward for the righteous and punishment for the wicked (Mt 8:11-12; 18:9).