So, if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?
Luke 16:11
Money matters to Christians? It sounds so counter-intuitive. However, this verse is precisely why money matters to Christians — or, at least why it should matter. Not because money is important but, rather, because it shouldn’t be important at all. The verse forms part of a wider text, all about money and how believers should manage it in their personal lives. In fact, there is so much to digest in Luke chapter sixteen that it is really quite easy to miss the powerful truth in verse eleven altogether.
The chapter starts off with the parable of the shrewd manager. This is, itself, probably one of the more difficult of Jesus’ parables to understand. In verses one through eight, Jesus tells the story of a manager who appears to have been wasteful with his master’s possessions.
Jesus told his disciples: ‘There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’
Luke 16:1-2
In short, the manager is about to get fired for wasting his master’s possessions. With his impending dismissal looming, the manager seeks out some of his master’s debtors and writes down their debts in order to curry favour with them. This in the hope that, after he is fired, he will have friends in the community who will help him out, in the same way he helped them out with their debts.
The problem is that this manager was inherently dishonest, forgiving debts that were not his to forgive. Yet, instead of having him thrown in jail for the fraud he had clearly committed, the master commends him for acting shrewdly. This part of the parable has always confused me. Why would Jesus commend an act of such blatant dishonesty?
The best explanation I have heard for this is that the master is not commending the dishonesty itself. Instead, he is acknowledging the smart way in which the manager looked out for his own interests. Even though the manager’s actions were illegal and at the master’s expense, the master is still able to show a grudging respect for his employee’s ingenuity.
In fact, Jesus offers a quiet nod to this interpretation of the text in verse eight when he says, ‘For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.’
In other words, we can still acknowledge the shrewd manager’s street-smarts without condoning his dishonest behaviour.
The Reason Money Matters to Christians
Jesus moves straight on from this parable into verses nine and ten…
I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much
Luke 16:9-10
In essence, this is the lesson Jesus wants us to learn from the above parable. His instruction is that we use worldly wealth to gain friends for ourselves. This is why money matters to Christians. Who are these friends? They are the souls we lead to Christ in our time here on earth — the friends we will see again in heaven. This can be achieved through sharing the gospel with our friends and neighbours. However, we should also employ our funds and resources to that end, according to Luke chapter 16.
We do this by using the money we earn, and the resources with which God has entrusted us, to support either ourselves or other ministries and missionaries in an effort to spread the gospel both in our communities and across the globe. Even when we are not directly involved in those enterprises, it is our support that enables the church to reach people in far-flung places with the gospel. We may not see the direct results of our giving here on earth, but it is those friends who will be there one day to welcome us when we leave this earth and enter into eternal dwellings. It is in this context that money matters to Christians.
As I thought about it, I came to understand how nicely this lesson actually ties in with the preceding parable. Who is the master — or the rich man — in Jesus parable of the shrewd manager? Of course, it is God himself. So then… who is the manager?
You and I are the managers in the context of this passage. And the Master has given us:
- Income and resources and
- The job of managing said income & resources…
… for his Kingdom. As such, how we manage our money matters to Christians!
Now each of us has a question to answer. How well have we managed the income and resources with which God has blessed us?
Many of us, like the dishonest manager, may find ourselves accused of wasting our master’s possessions. How so? Easy! When I consider how much money I have earned over a lifetime versus how much I have given to God’s kingdom, the numbers are actually quite pitiful. The trouble is I never realized money matters to Christians. I am sure that many believers, like me, have found themselves so financially stretched that they couldn’t spare any of their income for Kingdom purposes at all.
My heart goes out to sincere believers who find themselves in so much financial stress that they genuinely don’t have so much as a dime to spare for charity or Kingdom giving. I can relate. I have, personally, spent years in financial struggle with barely any money and certainly none left over for Kingdom giving. However, when I look back on those years, I can now see how unwise I was in managing the little I had. Poor career choices, opportunities squandered, and money I wasted in bad spending habits all contributed to my financial state at the time. Not that I lived an extravagant lifestyle. I simply made poor choices that left me in a constant state of financial struggle. All because I never realized money matters to Christians.
In short, I was wasteful with my master’s possessions. How does this happen? For me, it all started because I laboured under the misapprehension that the money I earned and the things I owned belonged to me, and not to God. Only when we come to understand that all we have and all we own belongs to our creator can we grasp why money matters to Christians. We are not managing it for ourselves!
The truth is God blesses us with the money we earn and the things we own. All of it. He is the master and we, his servants, are called to manage those funds on his behalf. Yes, of course, this money is there for us to pay the rent as well as to feed and clothe ourselves and our children. However we are also called to manage these resources wisely so that we have funds available for kingdom-giving as well as seed that we can sow for future harvest, which will enable us to increase our kingdom-giving over time.
Sadly, for many years, in my walk as a Christian, I wasted my master’s possessions. Instead of setting aside even a little and giving to the Kingdom… Instead of saving as I ought and investing my money so that it would grow like seed and produce a future harvest… I spent every penny I earned, living from pay-check to pay-check. Consequently, every time I received an increase, that money was already lost to expenses and debt I had racked up over the preceding year.
As such, I find the words in Luke 16:10 deeply challenging. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.
What is the very little, and what is the much? The answer lies in verse eleven. So, if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth — the very little — who will trust you with true riches? The much! This is why how we manage our money matters to Christians.
Jesus is not talking about volumes of wealth here. He is not saying that we need to be found trustworthy with a little money before we can be trusted with much money. In the context of this verse, all our worldly wealth is the very little. That is all we have, and all we earn. The very little!
Conversely, Kingdom riches is what Jesus meant when he spoke about trusting us with true riches — the much in Luke 16:10. It was a preacher who showed me the frightening truth in this verse. He did this by way of illustration, using his own life and ministry as an example.
In his sermon, he shared how he had long felt the call to ministry. However, he was shackled by his monthly expenses and could see no way to fulfil this calling as he had a relatively high-powered job and a move into ministry would mean a massive pay-cut. He had a family to care for and a mortgage to pay. Bills mounted up each month. As such, he could not see his way clear to enter the ministry as he would never be able to keep up with his monthly costs.
So it was that he languished in a career he did not enjoy, knowing full well that he was not living the life to which God had called him. On top of this, the massive stress of his job left him plagued by depression and anxiety. Without realising it, he had fallen into a trap. While he had never thought of himself as the wasteful manager, this is what he had become. The fact that he was unable to get a grip on his personal finances proved to be the very thing that prevented from embracing his true calling to ministry. He never understood how money matters to Christians.
Fortunately, over a period of time, he reduced his expenses and found ways to live on a far lower income. I have no doubt this was a hard journey for him and his family. However, instead of spending every penny that came in each month, he found ways to economise. In other words, he became trustworthy in managing the little — his worldly wealth.
And so it was that an opportunity finally presented and he moved into full-time ministry. The move no longer required the massive pay-cut, as he had already reduced his expenses and changed jobs in the interim. By becoming trustworthy in managing the very little — his worldly wealth — he had positioned himself to grasp the opportunity to manage true Kingdom riches when it presented. Thus, he transitioned smoothly into his new role in full-time ministry. This is Luke 16:11 in action; if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?
This leaves only one question to answer. How do we become trustworthy in managing the very little? To put it another way, what does trustworthy financial management look like in a Christian household? Fortunately, there are innumerable Bible verses that show us how to manage finances in our day-to-day living. Sadly, these are not widely taught in the modern church, but they are there if you choose to look for them.
You could start by trawling this blog to see what the Bible says on the subject. There are loads of articles that examine what the Bible teaches about wise financial conduct.
Alternatively, why not check out The Wise Man & the Fool. This short parable tells the story of two friends. One lives according to the word of the Lord and the wisdom of Solomon in the way he manages his money, and the other does not. It covers many of the same verses you will find in this blog albeit, all in a single succinct novella.
There is also a free companion book available on this website. You are welcome to download it on its own. That said, it is specifically written as a companion to The Wise Man & the Fool itself so will contain some references to the other book that may lack context if you have not read it.
Happy reading!