The Difficulty
A manager is accused of squandering his master’s property and told he’s fired. Before handing over the books, he summons his master’s debtors and reduces their bills — writing off 50% of one man’s oil debt and 20% of another’s wheat debt — so that when he’s unemployed, they’ll owe him favors. Then the master “commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” And Jesus concludes: “Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth (mammona tēs adikias), so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” Is Jesus praising a crook? Is he telling his disciples to be dishonest with money? Why does the master — apparently a stand-in for God — commend fraud? This is widely considered one of the most difficult parables to interpret in the entire New Testament.
Responses
Shrewd Not Dishonest (Praise for Prudence)
Summary: The master commends the manager’s prudence and foresight, not his dishonesty; Jesus is teaching disciples to be as strategic about eternal things as worldly people are about temporal ones.
The traditional reading (Augustine, Chrysostom, Calvin, Wesley, and most popular preaching) holds that Jesus is not endorsing the manager’s ethics but his wisdom. The argument is a fortiori: if worldly people are shrewd about their short-term interests, how much more should believers be strategic about eternal realities? Wesley’s classic sermon “The Use of Money” draws directly from this passage: gain all you can (honestly), save all you can, give all you can. The “unrighteous mammon” doesn’t mean dishonestly acquired wealth but wealth as such — money is “unrighteous” because it’s the coin of the fallen world, but it can be redirected toward eternal ends through generosity.
Strengths
Consistent with the broader Lukan theology of wealth (cf. Luke 12, 14, 19). Matches the application in 16:10–13 about faithfulness in small things. Long pedigree across traditions. Preaches well as a stewardship text.
Weaknesses
Minimizes the actual dishonesty in the story — the manager is squandering someone else’s property to secure his own future. The “admire his shrewdness, not his methods” framing can feel like a dodge. The parable’s strangeness deserves more engagement than “it’s just about being prudent.”
Further Reading
- Wesley, Sermon 50: “The Use of Money” — the classic Methodist application
- Augustine, Sermon 113 on Luke 16 — the patristic foundation
- Darrell Bock, Luke 9:51–24:53 (Baker Exegetical, 1996), on Luke 16:1–13
- I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (NIGTC, 1978), pp. 614–20
Canceling Usury / Forgoing His Commission
Summary: The manager was not stealing; he was either canceling illegal interest charges or forgoing his own commission — making him righteous, not dishonest.
J. Duncan Derrett’s influential 1961 proposal argues that the manager was canceling usurious interest charges that his master had illegally added to the bills (Torah forbids charging interest to fellow Israelites, Deut 23:19–20). By canceling the usury, the manager was restoring the debts to their Torah-legal amounts — making peace with God and his neighbors at the expense of his master’s unjust profits. A variation (Joseph Fitzmyer) suggests the manager was forgoing his own commission built into the bills. The debtors’ gratitude makes sense because the manager was giving up something legitimately his, not stealing from his master. The “dishonest manager” label refers to his earlier reputation, not to this particular action.
Strengths
Explains why the master would praise rather than prosecute. Grounds the parable in first-century Palestinian economic realities. The usury prohibition is real and the manager’s restoration of Torah legality is theologically significant.
Weaknesses
The text calls the manager adikias (“of unrighteousness”) even after the bill-reduction scheme. If the cancellations were lawful, why is this called “unrighteous mammon”? The theory requires unstated background that Jesus’ hearers would have had to infer. Many scholars have found it creative but ultimately unconvincing.
Further Reading
- J. Duncan Derrett, “Fresh Light on St Luke XVI: The Parable of the Unjust Steward,” NTS 7 (1961): 198–219 — the foundational article
- Joseph Fitzmyer, “The Story of the Dishonest Manager (Luke 16:1–13),” Theological Studies 25 (1964): 23–42
- Kenneth Bailey, Poet and Peasant (Eerdmans, 1976) — Middle Eastern cultural reading that adopts a similar approach
Economic-Critical / Subversive
Summary: The parable exposes and subverts an exploitative economic system; the manager is a Robin Hood figure whose actions undermine his master’s wealth-extraction.
Scholars like William Herzog (Parables as Subversive Speech), Luise Schottroff, and Mary Ann Beavis read the parable as social critique. The master is a wealthy absentee landlord exploiting peasant debtors with oppressive rents. The manager, facing his own imminent poverty, identifies with the peasants for the first time and uses his brief remaining authority to redistribute wealth downward. The master’s grudging praise (“he had acted shrewdly”) is the praise of one operator for another’s cleverness, not moral endorsement. Jesus’ application — “make friends with unrighteous mammon” — is a radical call to use wealth not to climb the ladder but to create solidarity with the poor. This fits with Luke’s consistent pattern of economic reversal (the Magnificat, the Beatitudes, Lazarus and the rich man in the very next passage).
Strengths
Fits the broader Lukan theology of wealth and reversal. Takes the first-century economic context seriously. The immediate literary context (Lazarus and the rich man follows directly in Luke 16:19–31) is all about wealth and the poor.
Weaknesses
Requires reading the master as negative when the parable’s structure suggests a positive figure. The application in 16:10–13 about “faithfulness in small things” fits awkwardly with a Robin Hood reading. May project modern economic ethics onto the text.
Further Reading
- William Herzog, Parables as Subversive Speech (Westminster John Knox, 1994), ch. 9
- Luise Schottroff, The Parables of Jesus (Fortress, 2006)
- Mary Ann Beavis, ed., The Lost Coin: Parables of Women, Work and Wisdom (Sheffield, 2002)
Shocking Comparison / Rhetorical Exaggeration
Summary: Jesus is deliberately using a shocking, uncomfortable example — the parable’s weirdness is the point.
Klyne Snodgrass, Amy-Jill Levine, and many modern commentators argue that Jesus frequently uses morally ambiguous or outright dishonest characters to make his point (the unjust judge in Luke 18, the friend at midnight in Luke 11). The “shock value” is intentional. Jesus is saying: even this guy, a dishonest crook about to lose everything, had enough sense to think about his future and act decisively. How much more should you — with eternity at stake — act decisively about what really matters? The parable isn’t meant to be mined for a one-to-one allegorical correspondence; it’s meant to disrupt complacency. The discomfort readers feel is the intended effect.
Strengths
Respects the parabolic genre’s power to shock. Consistent with Jesus’ pattern of using anti-heroes. Avoids the false choice between “the manager was secretly righteous” and “Jesus endorsed dishonesty.” Freeing for preachers.
Weaknesses
Can feel like a way to avoid interpretive difficulty. If every hard parable is “just meant to shock you,” interpretation becomes impossible. Still leaves the practical question of what “make friends with unrighteous mammon” actually means.
Further Reading
- Klyne Snodgrass, Stories with Intent (Eerdmans, 2008), ch. 15 — the best single treatment
- Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus (HarperOne, 2014)
- Arland Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus (Eerdmans, 2000), on Luke 16:1–9
- David Landry and Ben May, “Honor Restored: New Light on the Parable of the Prudent Steward,” JBL 119 (2000): 287–309