You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Bob Dylan, “Gotta Serve Somebody,” Album: Slow Train Coming, 1979
Yes, you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well it may be the Devil
Or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
Bob Dylan got it right in this case. We are made to serve, made to worship, made to be possessed. The problem comes when we take our possessions, the things made to serve us, and we worship them instead. That’s backwards. We are the Lord’s possession, and the things we own are made to help us serve him. We must intentionally make an effort to serve only the Lord, and not give ourselves to other things.
The parable Jesus teaches in Luke 16 about how we use our possessions is one of the most complex and difficult ones to interpret. It sounds at first like he is commending dishonesty and corruption, but actually he’s doing something more clever than that.
In this parable, there is a dishonest manager who knows he is about to get fired, and so he does some underhanded deals with his employer’s business partners in order to ingratiate himself with them and ensure that he will be able to do business with them again in the future. Verse 8 says that the master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.
If we try to interpret this parable according to other parables about stewardship, where God is the master and we are the stewards, we’re going to be running down the wrong track. That is not the case here. In this case, the master is just as corrupt as the steward. They are both delighting to earn unjust wealth for personal gain. The master doesn’t commend his steward for his dishonesty, but for his shrewdness.
What is shrewdness? It’s a practical wisdom, that can judge a circumstance wisely and turn it to your own advantage.
The key to understanding what Jesus meant by this parable is found in verse 8-9:
For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.
Luke 16:8-9
He wants us to take a look about how the corrupt people of this world can use relationships in the world to secure their own futures. Worldly people are really good at this, but often God’s people are not shrewd enough in their dealings in this world. We need to be shrewd about using relationships and resources in this world, not for personal gain, but to bring about an eternal future and the success of the Kingdom of God in this world.
Jesus is not telling us to be dishonest, but he does want us to be wise. Wealth, politics, and business are in many ways corrupt, unrighteous, and tainted by sin, yet we all have to use it in this world. We have no choice. So be shrewd about using it in an intentional way for the sake of eternity.
Use your possessions, your wealth, your relationships, your talents to build up the Kingdom of God. Don’t keep the rest of your life separate from your faith life. How can you shrewdly use ALL that God has entrusted to you to put it in the service of God and his Kingdom?
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