During His lifetime, Jesus told many parables and gave examples to represent the Kingdom of heaven and its meaning for us.
We all heard about the parable of the sower, the wedding banquet, or the ten virgins. Still, one of the parables considered among the hardest to understand is the parable of the unjust steward in Luke chapter 16. There, Jesus talks about a steward who was about to be removed from his position of stewardship for not administering his master's goods properly. The parable tells us that after acting in a certain way, he was praised by his master and regained his trust. This is just a parable, and it’s not meant to be taken literally, but it is given to us as an example of how God’s Kingdom functions.
We all know that this parable addresses selfishness expressed through the love of mammon, which the Pharisees had. This refers to loving riches and material possessions. We understand this from verse 13, which states: “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
But what if there is also a spiritual meaning to the parable that relates to spiritual selfishness? The Bible states that all people owe a debt to God because of their sin. We all have sinned before God. The parable speaks of servants who owe a debt to a master, representing God.
The unjust steward enabled them to reduce their debts, as shown when he instructed them to record fifty or eighty instead of the hundred measures of oil or wheat they owed his master.
“So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ (Luke 16:5-6)
That points out that he helped them somehow. He couldn't help them with the whole sum, because no one can help a person with the whole debt they have toward God. Only God can forgive them through the sacrifice His Son made. The partial help the steward offered doesn't suggest that a person alone can forgive someone’s sins or fully help them, or that they need to pay the debt themselves. This is a parable and a comparison. The persons owing always remained with something they needed to sort out with their master. We know that Christ forgives our sins and debts.
The Bible tells us as well that we need to carry each other’s burdens.
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)
The steward represents a person who leads others to the One who can forgive their sin and pay their debt completely. He shows them the way and makes it easier for them to get to the Savior. This is the way a person helps others. He is not the solution to their problem, but he leads them to the solution. He is not the fountain but leads them to the fountain where they can quench their thirst.
The master, seeing what the unjust steward had done, was pleased and commended him because this is what God is pleased with and what He requires from us—to reach out to others for Him. That’s why we shouldn’t be spiritually selfish; we need to share with others what we’ve received from Christ. The steward was called unjust because even if a person strives to live a righteous life, no one is completely righteous before God, and we will not be saved by our righteousness but by His. One of the reasons why his master was about to remove him from his position wasn’t because he probably didn’t live an apparently righteous life, but because he didn’t administer his master’s goods in a proper way. If we are believers, God entrusts us with His goods and wants us to administer them in a proper way. He is immensely rich in mercy, love, and many other things He has stored in heaven. He wants to entrust them to us.
What the unjust steward did was an expression of love. The Bible says that love covers a multitude of sins, and love is God's ultimate expression toward us.
Love is one of the highest attributes of God, and it is related to perfection in Scripture. A perfection not acquired by us but by God, who first demonstrated it by dying on the cross. Paul said that if someone has the gift of prophecy, knowledge, or great faith, but lacks love, they are nothing.
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