THE GOSPEL OF LUKE: - Vital Christianity

118What we do with what we've been given determines what we'll get.Let's take a look at the situation when Jesus makes the shocking revelation:“ Jesus told his disciples: ‘There was a rich man whose manager was accused ofwasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hearabout you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot bemanager any longer'“ (vv. 1-2).Here they are told to be trustworthy and shrewd with what little they have in this world sothey can have true riches in heaven. In no uncertain terms, He tells them,"You cannot serve both God and money."A manager is being fired by his master. Being told to bring the books into balance beforeturning them over for a final accounting, he faces a serious situation. He’s too old for manuallabor and too proud for welfare, so he asks his master’s debtors to come in and review theiraccounts with him. In private meetings he has the debtors write down their accounts to a morefavorable amount. In so doing he earns points with both the debtors and his master. How couldthis be?It was against Mosaic Law for Israelites to charge one another interest on credit extended(Dt 23:19), but many merchants got around this restriction by overcharging for goods andservices, taking excess profits in lieu of interest. (You can see a current example in the autobusiness. That 0% financing you got is really a loan whose interest is paid by the manufacturerout of excess profits added to the price of vehicles specifically for the purpose of funding suchincentives.)The manager had apparently dealt unfairly with the master’s debtors, tacking on excessprofits in lieu of interest. From the story, there’s no indication the master either instigated orcondoned any over charging. Its discovery may even be one of the reasons for the manager’ssudden loss of position. Perhaps he was using these add-ons to compensate for the losses ofwhich he was being accused."The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away myjob. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg—I know what I'll doso that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much doyou owe my master?'