Learning From a Liar

[TrueTomHarley]

If the unrighteous riches are not of God's making but of this system's, why not use an unrighteous steward to teach a lesson with them? He uses money that is not his to reduce debts and make friends for himself.

If we are debtors to God (who isn't?) we also can use money that is not 'ours' - all of it, since it is not God's idea - to reduce our debts to him and make him a friend. How cool is that?

It's not a strict parallel, but it works in a quirky sort of way.

[Evacuated]

3 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

He uses money that is not his to reduce debts and make friends for himself

Maybe he had overcharged them in the first place.

[TrueTomHarley]

31 minutes ago, Gone Fishing said:

Maybe he had overcharged them in the first place.

With an 'unrighteous steward' you never know.

[Otto]

I thought about this illustration, do we know if the steward had complete control over his masters debts, if so, he had the right to do what he did. it wasn't stealing, what was owed was more than the master had laid out in the 1st place...any thoughts?

[Evacuated]

4 minutes ago, Otto said:

it wasn't stealing

My thought also. Can't see the master commending a thief no matter how clever. Unrighteous just means without faith.

Anyway, the point of the illustration gives a better understanding of what faithful in least or much means. That slant I hadn't actually considered before as the saying has a proverbial status in English.

[TrueTomHarley]

6 hours ago, Gone Fishing said:

That slant I hadn't actually considered before as the saying has a proverbial status in English.

It takes a thief to catch a thief?

The illustration doesn't exactly line up with modern day principles of 'reason.' The components don't dovetail. But it is close enough that Jesus teaches a vital lesson with it.

To me, it indicates that Jesus is not enslaved to today's insistence upon 'reason,' which has not served its world particularly well.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

16 hours ago, Gone Fishing said:

My thought also. Can't see the master commending a thief no matter how clever. Unrighteous just means without faith.

Does that mean that "unrightous riches" is like not having faith in the stock market, but investing in APPLE in the early days when you thought it was a fruit company, like Forest Gump did, and end up a multi-millionaire?

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

10 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

It takes a thief to catch a thief?

Hmmm.. then it is OK to relieve a den of drug dealers from their suitcase full of drug money?

That is CERTAINLY "unrightous riches" if there was EVER "unrightous riches".

[TrueTomHarley]

It would seem so.

[Otto]

1 hour ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Hmmm.. then it is OK to relieve a den of drug dealers from their suitcase full of drug money?

That is CERTAINLY "unrightous riches" if there was EVER "unrightous riches".

Yes I'm sure Jesus had drug dealing dens in mind when he made that quote

[TrueTomHarley]

18 hours ago, Otto said:

I thought about this illustration, do we know if the steward had complete control over his masters debts, if so, he had the right to do what he did. it wasn't stealing, what was owed was more than the master had laid out in the 1st place...any thoughts?

Strictly speaking, the parable doesn't make sense. The master would commend the steward for robbing him blind? These days security guards escort you out the building The Man has downsized you from precisely so that you do not make slick deals with his debtors.

I think it shows that Jesus doesn't really care if the head perceives some discrepancies. He goes straight for the heart. Jehovah's people are not especially 'heady.' We all know it. Far from being embarrassed over it, we should embrace it. When the Bible refers to the thinkers of this world, it is to put them down. We need not emulate them. 

Of course, we have to make some semblance of sense, for Paul reasoned from the scriptures with them for three Sabbaths. The noble Boreans searched the scriptures carefully to be sure they were not being sold a bill of goods. It's simply that we need not shy away from Jesus' methods in going for the heart over the head.

[Otto]

As I said before if a steward has complete control over the debts then he wasn't stealing it wasn't wrong for him to use those debts to his own advantage we can assume but the master as already made profits and the steward was eating into the Masters profits but as I say all assumptions because we don't have enough information. So just take the illustration at face value it was after all an illustration and not an account