03.10. Making Friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness.

Making Friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness.

Luke 16:1-12. The Parable of the Unjust Steward has been a puzzle to many, and our Lord’s injunction to his disciples to "make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness" remains to some an exegetical stumbling-block. There are difficulties in the passage of our present study, but there is nothing which should cause much trouble. The steward whose conduct is described was an agent or factor rather than merely a house steward. The management of affairs was left in his hands. Doubtless he had power to make contracts, fix prices and rents, and generally act for his master. The case of Eliezer in the house of Abraham (Genesis 24:1-67) or Joseph in the house of Potiphar (Genesis 39:1-23) may parallel that of the steward. Clearly a man in such a responsible position who abused his trust had much opportunity for fraudulent gain. This steward was accused of wasting his lord’s goods, we know not how. Accordingly he was asked to give a report and statement of accounts, and received intimation of dismissal. To make provision for the future, he then determined to place his master’s debtors under an obligation to himself, and made an agreement with them whereby a large proportion of the indebtedness was written off.

Exactly what the cunning arrangement involved is not indicated. Many believe that the debtors were tenants who were wont to pay a proportion of the harvest as rent, and that in the past the steward had charged to them the higher amount stated and paid to his lord the lower figure, pocketing the difference. This is possible. Others imagine that goods had been sold, and bills or notes of hand taken in acknowledgment of the indebtedness. It should be noted that the narrative does not represent this reduction of debt as an illegal or even a secret act. It was doubtless the case that while he was yet steward the man could legally fix and adjust prices, and there was no danger of his master’s being able to proceed against the debtors for the greater amount. The bargain was valid, and the debtors or tenants remained permanently benefited. Needless to say, in their eyes the steward made no immediate gain out of the present transaction. The view that he let the debtors know of his position and won them over by hope of personal gain to be participators in fraud must be dismissed from our minds, though some commentators evidently accept it. The lord and the Lord’s comments.

Jesus said: "His lord commended the unrighteous steward because he had done wisely." "His lord" of course means the steward’s master, and not the Lord Jesus. "Prudently" is a better translation than "wisely." It will be noted that the use of this word carries with it no commendation or condonation of the steward’s wickedness. The foresight and prudence even of an evil man may be praised. The lord of the parable is represented as having wit enough to appreciate the shrewdness and foresight of his employee even while that is directed against himself.

"The fraud of this ’steward of injustice’ is neither excused nor palliated" by Christ. "The lesson to us is analogous skill and prudence, but spiritually employed." The words which immediately follow are the words of Christ. "The sons of this world," he says, "are for their own generation wiser than the sons of the light." This verse is frequently misquoted and as frequently misunderstood. Our Lord neither meant nor said that the sons of this world are wiser than the sons of light. The poorest Christian is a much wiser man than the greatest person in the world who rejects Christ, and nothing in the text suggests the contrary. But "for their generation" the children of the world are wiser or more prudent. There are two ways in which this verse has been interpreted. One, that the sons of the world are wiser in worldly things than Christians are in the same worldly things. This may be true, but surely that is not the meaning. Rather, the sons of the world "make better use of their earthly opportunities for their own life time than the sons of the light do for their lifetime, or even than the sons of light do of their heavenly opportunities of eternity." Many illustrations of this appear. Contrast the diligence and singleness of aim of the successful business man of the world with the half-hearted service we often give to Christ and the church. We are familiar with the saying that if an earthly business were run as the church is it would inevitably become bankrupt. The church seeks to win men from sin--contrast the comparative attractiveness of church and picture show, chapel and hotel bar. The chief thing in our Lord’s word seems to be that the children of the light "give not half the pains to win heaven which the children of the world do to win earth--that they are less provident in heavenly things than those are in earthly--that the world is better served by its servants than God is by us." "The zeal and alacrity of the ’devil’s martyrs,’--’says Farrar, "may be imitated even by God’s servants." A friend of money?

It is Luke 16:9 which has caused most discussion, and which comes within the class of ambiguous texts. According to the Common Version, the Saviour added: "I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." The Revised Version has some alterations, notably "by means of" for "of," and "it" for "ye."

There are some people who apparently think it impossible that Jesus advised the making of friends either of or by means of the mammon of unrighteousness, and some desperate expedients have been taken to remove the thought that he did so. One noted interpreter tried to solve the problem by translating as a question and giving an interpretation as follows: "Shall I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness? Nay, rather I say, He that is faithful in a little is faithful also in much," etc. Others who have hesitated to deal thus with the passage have been completely puzzled. A great advance towards a reasonable interpretation is made when we realise that "the mammon of unrighteousness" simply means money. It need not be money wrongfully acquired. It is called "mammon of unrighteousness by a figure of speech (metonymy), the qualities which characterise its common use being transferred to the thing itself." Weymouth translates, "the wealth which is ever tempting to dishonesty." The abuse of riches is more common than their proper use. As Dr. Marcus Dods says, "Take any coin out of your pocket and make it tell its history, the hands it has been in, the things it has paid for, the transactions it has assisted, and you would be inclined to fling it away as contaminated and filthy." No wonder that such expressions as "filthy lucre" or "mammon of unrighteousness" came to be employed even when there was no implication that in the particular case under notice there was any wrongful acquisition or expenditure.

Trench rightly rejects the view that wealth unjustly gotten, by fraud or violence, is referred to, saying: "The words so interpreted would be easily open to abuse, as though a man might compound with his conscience and with God, and by giving some small portion of alms out of unjustly acquired wealth make the rest clean unto him. But plainly the first command to the possessor of such would be to restore it to its rightful owners, as Zacchaeus, on his conversion, was resolved to do; . . . and out of such there could never be offered acceptable alms to him who has said, ’I hate robbery for burnt-offering.’ Only when this restoration is impossible, as must often happen, could it be lawfully bestowed upon the poor." But how could Jesus tell us to "make friends of" money, seeing that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil"? The word for "of" is "ek," meaning literally "out of," and the Revised Version translates "by means of." A man uses his money well, to help his fellows and relieve the poor, can make true friends by means of his riches. By prudent foresight the steward of the parable provided by use of unrighteous mammon friends who would later receive him; in a higher and better sense may Christians make friends with their money.

It be seen that there would be no special difficulty even if the meaning were "make friends of money." The man who lives to make money, who uses fraud or deceit in its acquisition, who spends it in riotous living, or who uses it selfishly, does not make money in the best sense his friend. It is injuring him as an enemy would harm him. But money may be made a friend, and become a minister of good both to him who gives it and to him who receives. We turn mammon into a friend, as well as make friends by means of it, "when we use riches not as our own to squander, but as God’s to employ in deeds of usefulness and mercy."

Received into heaven. The friends made by the steward received him after his dismissal, and we are to make friends by means of money "that, when it shall fail [or, ye fail], they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles." It matters little whether the reading be "it," referring to money, or "ye, in allusion to the death of the disciples. Our use of money presumably ends with death. But many readers are left wondering who are the people who are to receive us into heaven, or the eternal tents. There are two explanations which seem worthy of note. One naturally refers the "they" to the nearest preceding plural noun, "friends" and though there is no pronoun at all in the Greek text very many expositors give this interpretation. Weymouth definitely translates "friends who . . . shall welcome you." Those who oppose this view generally point out that our reception into heaven is not by the favor of men, and so God and Christ are often said to be meant. Others refer us to the angels who carried Lazarus into Abraham’s bosom. There is no incongruity in thinking of those we have helped as at least welcoming us in the life beyond, and it is certainly true that this view fits well, and perhaps best, with the analogy of the action of the friends of the steward. Dr. Marcus Dods expresses the meaning thus: "The parents whose closing years, you watched and sheltered at the sacrifice of the opportunities of your own youth, the children for whom you have toiled, the friend or relative whose long sickness you brightened and rewarded by unwearied affection, the acquaintance you kept from poverty by timely intervention, the lad whose whole life you lifted to a higher level by giving him the first step--all those whom you have so loved here that your service of them has been ungrudging and unthought of--these are they who will receive you into everlasting habitations."

It may be better, however, to regard the expression as being made with an impersonal sense (as in Luke 12:11; Luke 23:31). The underlying meaning is clear. It is the great lesson of Matthew 25:34-40, that they who will be accepted at last will not he those who have made a mere profession but those who feed the hungry, care for the poor, visit the sick, and minister to the needy ones whom Christ calls his brethren. The literal truth is that "the heart of love which prompts and induces us to do good to the poor fits us for heaven."