The Way - Day 016 (Luke 16)

Pastor Tom's Journal on Today's Reading:
Luke 16:1-18
 The parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16:1-13 follows Jesus' parable of the lost son (Luke 15:11-32), who had wasted the early inheritance he had received from his father. Continuing the theme of being wasteful with one's life, Jesus tells His disciples about a steward who worked for a rich man, but was wasting the resources which had been given to him (16:1). When the rich man heard of it, he called the wasteful steward to him saying, "What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward" (16:2). Knowing he was now in danger of losing his job, the steward thought, "What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses" (16:3-4). Basically, the wasteful steward was attempting to ensure his own stability in the future if he was to be fired. In order to guarantee that he would have a place to stay, he summoned all of the people who owed his boss money and collected the debt at a discounted rate (16:5-7). By giving these men a lower debt to pay, he bought their friendship and they would now feel obligated to take him in if he was fired. When the rich man heard about the shrewdness of this wasteful steward, he actually commended him for using money to buy friends (16:8a). After telling this story Jesus says, "For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light" (16:8b). This a weird twist in Jesus' teaching because although He does not endorse the wasteful steward's actions, He sanctions the use of earthly money to do whatever it takes to get the news of hope and salvation to all people (16:9). Jesus then instructed the disciples that if they were faithful with a little bit of money, they would be given more to be used toward the greater good (16:10-12). Knowing that the Pharisees were nearby and would misunderstand His teachings, Jesus said, "No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [money]" (16:13). Money was not to be acquired for selfish purposes, as the Pharisees believed (see Luke 16:14), but it was to be used in doing God's will. In essence, Jesus was teaching that the issue with money is not how much a person has, but how a person uses it. The Pharisees immediately reacted to Jesus' words and mocked Him (16:14), but Jesus said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God" (16:15). The Pharisees believed that their riches proved that God had shown them favor, but Jesus was quick to dispel their thinking by reminding them that they did not care about God, but only about impressing people with their money and possessions.
 
Even though the Pharisees believed themselves to be experts in the teachings of the law, Jesus exposed their complete ignorance of Him as the promised Messiah. The Old Testament prophets, including John the Baptist, had declared that this Messiah was coming, but when Jesus came, they denied that He was the one (16:16-17). Rather than accept Jesus' teachings as well as His identity as the Messiah, the Pharisees chose to continue in their own ways. Jesus even provided an example of their misinterpretation of the law saying, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery" (16:18). The religious leaders, including the Pharisees, taught that divorce was acceptable in all circumstances (see Matthew 5:31-32; 19:3-9), but Jesus corrected their thinking in this matter. Ultimately, Jesus wanted the Pharisees to recognize that they were only justifying their own actions while ignoring the true condition of their heart. God is not attentive to those who seek to impress Him (and others) through external works, but He listens to those who come before for Him in humility and with a repentant heart seeking His forgiveness.
 
Luke 16:19-31
Jesus had been teaching regarding a person's view of money (16:1-17) because the Pharisees equated being rich with being righteous. The more money and possessions a person had, according to the Pharisees, the more they had been favored by God. In order to further correct this erroneous thinking, Jesus told what some believe was a parable and others believe is a real life story; either way, the teaching remains the same. Jesus tells the story of a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus who "laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores" (16:19-21). Both the rich man and the beggar eventually died (16:22), but Jesus said that the rich man ended up in Hades (16:23a), which is the place where the unsaved dead go before they are judged at the final judgment (Revelation 20:11-15). When the beggar died, Jesus said that the rich man "saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom" (16:23b). This meant that the beggar ended up in the presence of God following his death. Jesus' implication that the rich man experienced eternal punishment (16:24) while the beggar enjoyed the eternal presence of God would have been scandalous to the Pharisees. The rich man apparently was able to see what was happening with Lazarus, who was in the presence of God, and he asked Abraham to send Lazarus to him "...that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame" (16:24). Abraham quickly responded to the rich man's arrogance saying, "Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us" (16:25-26). Jesus is teaching that hell (the place of the rich man) and heaven (the place of the beggar) are separated from each other and once a person has passed from life to death, he cannot change where he will spend eternity. Abraham emphasizes that our choices about what happens after death are made during life. The rich man chose to be selfish and ignore the needs of others in life, which ultimately led him to eternal punishment. The fact that the man was rich did not cause him to go to hell, but rather his attitude towards his money and, in reality, his failure to repent of sin (16:30b) and believe in God.

Apparently, the rich man did not understand that he could no longer make demands of the beggar so he said to Abraham, "I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment" (16:27-28). Upon realizing that there was no escape from this place of death, the rich man asked for Abraham to send the beggar back to his family in order to warn them about the place of torment. The rich man believed that if someone came back from the dead (16:30), his family could avoid the same fate he had experienced. Rather than grant him his request, Abraham said to the rich man, "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.... If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead" (16:29, 31). Abraham is saying that if the rich man's family will not listen to the truth of Scripture (Moses and the prophets), they will not listen to anyone. Jesus was teaching the Pharisees that Scripture is sufficient to bring salvation to those who will repent and believe. Paul said it best when he wrote, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek" (Romans 1:16). At a deeper level, Jesus was saying that the Pharisees were similar to the rich man because they refused to believe that Jesus was the One promised by God, even though Scripture revealed Him as the One. The Pharisees demanded signs from Jesus to prove that He was truly God and although He had already done miraculous signs, they still did not believe; in fact, He would later bring a dead man back to life, but they would still not believe Him (John 11:45-53; 12:10-11).

Hell awaits all those who refuse to repent of sin and believe that Jesus Christ is God. No amount of money or popularity can change a person's eternal destiny and bring God's favor. Hope and salvation only comes to those who humble themselves before God, confess their sin, and receive the forgiveness of God provided through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.

Dear God, may I never believe that I can earn Your favor through what I have or what I do, but may I always rely on the forgiveness You have freely provided for all who will believe.