1 And he said also to [his] disciples, There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and *he* was accused to him as wasting his goods.
2 And having called him, he said to him, What [is] this that I hear of thee? give the reckoning of thy stewardship, for thou canst be no longer steward.
3 And the steward said within himself, What shall I do; for my lord is taking the stewardship from me? I am not able to dig; I am ashamed to beg.
4 I know what I will do, that when I shall have been removed from the stewardship I may be received into their houses.
5 And having called to [him] each one of the debtors of his own lord, he said to the first, How much owest thou to my lord?
6 And he said, A hundred baths of oil. And he said to him, Take thy writing and sit down quickly and write fifty.
7 Then he said to another, And thou, how much dost thou owe? And he said, A hundred cors of wheat. And he says to him, Take thy writing and write eighty.
8 And the lord praised the unrighteous steward because he had done prudently. For the sons of this world are, for their own generation, more prudent than the sons of light.
9 And *I* say to you, Make to yourselves friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, that when it fails ye may be received into the eternal tabernacles.
10 He that is faithful in the least is faithful also in much; and he that is unrighteous in the least is unrighteous also in much.
11 If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who shall entrust to you the true?
12 and if ye have not been faithful in that which is another's, who shall give to you your own?
13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and will love the other, or he will cleave to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
14 And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things, and mocked him.
15 And he said to them, *Ye* are they who justify themselves before men, but God knows your hearts; for what amongst men is highly thought of is an abomination before God.
16 The law and the prophets [were] until John: from that time the glad tidings of the kingdom of God are announced, and every one forces his way into it.
17 But it is easier that the heaven and the earth should pass away than that one tittle of the law should fail.
18 Every one who puts away his wife and marries another commits adultery; and every one that marries one put away from a husband commits adultery.
19 Now there was a rich man and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, making good cheer in splendour every day.
20 And [there was] a poor man, by name Lazarus, [who] was laid at his gateway full of sores,
21 and desiring to be filled with the crumbs which fell from the table of the rich man; but the dogs also coming licked his sores.
22 And it came to pass that the poor man died, and that he was carried away by the angels into the bosom of Abraham. And the rich man also died and was buried.
23 And in hades lifting up his eyes, being in torments, he sees Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
24 And he crying out said, Father Abraham, have compassion on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering in this flame.
25 But Abraham said, Child, recollect that *thou* hast fully received thy good things in thy lifetime, and likewise Lazarus evil things. But now he is comforted here, and *thou* art in suffering.
26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm is fixed, so that those who desire to pass hence to you cannot, nor do they who [desire to cross] from there pass over unto us.
27 And he said, I beseech thee then, father, that thou wouldest send him to the house of my father,
28 for I have five brothers, so that he may earnestly testify to them, that they also may not come to this place of torment.
29 But Abraham says to him, They have Moses and the prophets: let them hear them.
30 But he said, Nay, father Abraham, but if one from the dead should go to them, they will repent.
31 And he said to him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, not even if one rise from among [the] dead will they be persuaded.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Luke 16
Commentary on Luke 16 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 16
The scope of Christ's discourse in this chapter is to awaken and quicken us all so to use this world as not to abuse it, so to manage all our possessions and enjoyments here as that they may make for us, and may not make against us in the other world; for they will do either the one or the other, according as we use them now.
Luk 16:1-18
We mistake if we imagine that the design of Christ's doctrine and holy religion was either to amuse us with notions of divine mysteries or to entertain us with notions of divine mercies. No, the divine revelation of both these in the gospel is intended to engage and quicken us to the practice of Christian duties, and, as much as any one thing, to the duty of beneficence and doing good to those who stand in need of any thing that either we have or can do for them. This our Saviour is here pressing us to, by reminding us that we are but stewards of the manifold grace of God; and since we have in divers instances been unfaithful, and have forfeited the favour of our Lord, it is our wisdom to think how we may, some other way, make what we have in the world turn to a good account. Parables must not be forced beyond their primary intention, and therefore we must not hence infer that any one can befriend us if we lie under the displeasure of our Lord, but that, in the general, we must so lay out what we have in works of piety and charity as that we may meet it again with comfort on the other side death and the grave. If we would act wisely, we must be diligent and industrious to employ our riches in the acts of piety and charity, in order to promote our future and eternal welfare, as worldly men are in laying them out to the greatest temporal profit, in making to themselves friends with them, and securing other secular interests. So Dr. Clarke. Now let us consider,
Luk 16:19-31
As the parable of the prodigal son set before us the grace of the gospel, which is encouraging to us all, so this sets before us the wrath to come, and is designed for our awakening; and very fast asleep those are in sin that will not be awakened by it. The Pharisees made a jest of Christ's sermon against worldliness; now this parable was intended to make those mockers serious. The tendency of the gospel of Christ is both to reconcile us to poverty and affliction and to arm us against temptations to worldliness and sensuality. Now this parable, by drawing the curtain, and letting us see what will be the end of both in the other world, goes very far in prosecuting those two great intentions. This parable is not like Christ's other parables, in which spiritual things are represented by similitudes borrowed from worldly things, as those of the sower and the seed (except that of the sheep and goats), the prodigal son, and indeed all the rest but this. But here the spiritual things themselves are represented in a narrative or description of the different state of good and bad in this world and the other. Yet we need not call it a history of a particular occurrence, but it is matter of fact that is true every day, that poor godly people, whom men neglect and trample upon, die away out of their miseries, and go to heavenly bliss and joy, which is made the more pleasant to them by their preceding sorrows; and that rich epicures, who live in luxury, and are unmerciful to the poor, die, and go into a state of insupportable torment, which is the more grievous and terrible to them because of the sensual lives they lived: and that there is no gaining any relief from their torments. Is this a parable? What similitude is there in this? The discourse indeed between Abraham and the rich man is only an illustration of the description, to make it the more affecting, like that between God and Satan in the story of Job. Our Saviour came to bring us acquainted with another world, and to show us the reference which this world has to that; and here is does it. In this description (for so I shall choose to call it) we may observe,