1. Introduction
Interpreters generally regard the story of the ‘unrighteous steward’ in Luke 16.1–9 as the most perplexing of the parables. It has received numerous treatments and a wide range of interpretations.Footnote 1 However, since critics have arrived at no consensus about its meaning, it remains enigmatic.
The present study attempts to illuminate this parable by taking an approach which differs from that of most previous studies. It seeks to set the parable within the context of the early Christian community where it circulated subsequent to the life of Jesus and prior to its inclusion in Luke's gospel. Most previous critics have interpreted the parable within the ministry of Jesus, within the context of Luke's gospel, within the context of the Greco-Roman world in general, or without reference to its context. Rarely, if ever, has anyone attempted to understand how the early Christian community prior to Luke would have read and interpreted this parable.
In keeping with that goal, this study makes no attempt to reconstruct a hypothetical ‘original’ version of the parable that Jesus might have spoken. Instead it interprets the text as Luke probably received it from prior tradition. Most previous critics, assuming that this parable goes back to Jesus, have stripped away one or more sentences from the end of it in order to reconstruct a more original version that originated with Jesus. While this procedure is legitimate, it has led to no certain results. Most critics agree that Luke 16.1–13 consists of a parable with appended sayings. One such saying occurs in 16.10–12 and another in 16.13. Both of these sayings could stand alone, and neither depends on the preceding parable for its meaning. They appear therefore to be related but independent sayings that someone attached to the parable.
Beyond this consensus concerning 16.10–13, no agreement exists on how much of 16.1–9 belonged to the hypothetical original parable. A few critics think that the original parable ended with 16.7, after the steward forgave the debts of his master's debtors.Footnote 2 Most think that it ended with 16.8a, after the master commended the steward for acting so prudently.Footnote 3 Others think that it ended with 16.8b, the comment that ‘the sons of this age are more prudent than the sons of light in their own generation’.Footnote 4 Many others think that the original form of the parable included the application in 16.9: ‘And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the mammon of unrighteousness so that when it is gone they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.’Footnote 5
We need not consider this question further, since our interest lies not in the form of the parable that Jesus might have spoken, but in the form that circulated in early Christianity. For several reasons, it is likely that the parable, as it came to Luke from prior Christian tradition, included the application in v. 9. First, it is not likely that Luke composed 16.9 as an addition to the parable, since this verse shows no affinities with Luke's style elsewhere and exhibits traditional features, such as the Aramaic term ‘mammon’ and the Semitic construction ‘mammon of unrighteousness’.Footnote 6 Nor is it likely that v. 9 circulated as an independent saying that Luke added to the parable. Since it depends on v. 4 of the parable for its meaning, it is unlikely that it ever circulated apart from the parable.Footnote 7 As the application of the parable that Luke inherited, Luke 16.9 has great significance for understanding how the pre-Lukan Christian community read and interpreted this parable.
We will consider four aspects of this parable: the parable proper in Luke 16.1–8, its application in 16.9, its socio-historical setting in the context of the early Christian community, and its interpretation as an extended metaphor.
2. The Parable Proper (Luke 16.1–8)
The parable proper (Luke 16.1–8) develops in four steps: an account of the steward's problem (16.1–2), a soliloquy in which he comes up with a solution (16.3–4), a description of how he implements the solution (16.5–7) and an evaluation of his actions (16.8).
The steward's problem is that he has been fired from his job (16.1–2). He has been working as the steward or manager of ‘a certain rich man’, who presumably owned an estate. The manager of such an estate would often be a household slave, but in this case the steward seems to be a salaried employee, since after his dismissal he is free to go where he wishes.Footnote 8 In the story, the steward is accused of squandering the rich man's possessions. Since the story does not say who made the accusation, this question has no relevance for its interpretation.Footnote 9 Some critics imagine that the accusation was false.Footnote 10 However, since the steward never protests his innocence, it is likely that the charges were accurate.Footnote 11 As a result, the master asks him to turn in the record of his stewardship, informing him that he will no longer serve in that capacity.
In the next part of the story, the steward comes up with a solution to his problem (16.3–4). In a soliloquy, he first identifies the problem: ‘What shall I do? Because my master is taking the stewardship away from me.’ He then rejects two potential solutions as unsatisfactory: ‘I am not strong enough to dig; I am ashamed to beg.’ Finally he comes up with the answer: ‘I know what I will do, so that when I am removed from the stewardship they will receive me into their houses.’ At this point, the story does not indicate what the steward plans to do but says only that his goal is to be received into the houses of some unnamed benefactors.Footnote 12
The third part of the story describes how the steward carries out his plan (16.5–7). He summons each of his master's debtors and reduces their debts. Apparently at this point, the steward has not yet turned in the record of his stewardship and thus still has the ability to act as if he were authorised by his master. The story gives two examples of debts that he reduces: a debt of a hundred jars of olive oil reduced to fifty, and a debt of a hundred measures of wheat reduced to eighty. The size of these debts precludes us from identifying the debtors as poor peasants or small-scale merchants.Footnote 13 The debtors themselves must have a measure of wealth if they are to receive the steward into their houses.
At this point, the nature of the plan becomes clear. By reducing the debts of his master's debtors, the steward hopes to make them friendly towards himself so that they will ‘receive’ him ‘into their houses’. Presumably this means that one or more of them will employ him in the service of their households.Footnote 14 Before he turns in the account of his stewardship, the steward uses his master's finances to make friends so that they will give him a new job.
The fourth part of the story gives an evaluation of the steward's actions: ‘And the master (or lord) commended the steward of unrighteousness because he acted prudently’ (Luke 16.8a). While the master commends the steward's prudence, nothing in the text suggests that he reinstates him.Footnote 15 The success of the plan would result in the steward having a new position with the master's debtors.
Interpreters have given three different explanations as to why the narrator here designates the steward as a ‘steward of unrighteousness’.Footnote 16 First, he may have acted unjustly from the beginning in managing his master's estate.Footnote 17 Second, he may have acted unjustly in reducing the debts of his master's debtors.Footnote 18 Against this view is the fact that the master commends the steward for his actions. Third, he may be a ‘steward of unrighteousness’ not because of any specific impropriety but because he is one of ‘the sons of this age’ and not one of ‘the sons of light’ (16.8b).Footnote 19 Likewise in 16.9, money may be termed ‘the mammon of unrighteousness’, not because it is gained through dishonesty, but because, as a feature of the present evil age, it belongs to the sphere of unrighteousness. Both the first and third explanations probably apply here.
Most critics agree, probably correctly, that the term ‘lord’ in 16.8a refers to the steward's master, as it does in vv. 3 and 5. Jeremias and others took the view that it refers to Jesus, as it does in another parable (Luke 18.8).Footnote 20 Other critics emphasise the ambiguity of the term.Footnote 21
The central question is why the master would commend the actions of his steward. Traditionally, exegetes have distinguished between the steward's dishonesty and his prudence: the master commends him for the latter, not the former. This interpretation is accurate as far as it goes, but it does not explain why the master would commend him for a prudent action if this action were also ethically dubious.
Critics disagree on whether the master commended behaviour that was contrary to his own interests. According to one theory, the steward eliminated his own commission and therefore did not cause any financial loss to his master.Footnote 22 According to another, the steward eliminated the hidden interest in the debt, understood as unlawful usury, thus diminishing his master's profit.Footnote 23 Both theories have been justly criticized.Footnote 24
Others think that the master admired the steward as a sly rogue despite the fact that the master suffered financially through the steward's actions.Footnote 25 John S. Kloppenborg suggests that the master lost honour from the steward's actions but praised the steward anyway and thus freed himself from the social code of honour and shame.Footnote 26 Landry and May think that the steward restored the master's lost honour, thus providing a benefit to the master that outweighed his monetary loss.Footnote 27 Parrott thinks that the master's words should be translated as a question implying that the master did not commend the steward.Footnote 28
The most satisfactory explanation is that given by John K. Goodrich.Footnote 29 He has shown that Roman landowners not infrequently reduced the debts of their tenants because it was in their own long-term interest for their tenants to succeed. From this perspective, the steward's actions were neither dishonest nor injurious to his master's welfare. The master commended the steward because he acted prudently in his own interest but at the same time in the best interest of all other parties concerned as well.
After praising the steward's prudence in 16.8a, the narrator continues with an explanation in 16.8b: ‘For the sons of this age are more prudent than the sons of light in their own generation.’ Interpreters sometimes refer to this sentence as an ‘application’ of the parable,Footnote 30 but no ‘sons of light’ appear as characters in the story. It would be a peculiar application that made the point of the story depend on elements that the story never mentions. It is better therefore to understand this sentence as a justification for the positive evaluation of the steward in 16.8a. Normally one would not expect a Christian narrator to ascribe a positive virtue to one of the sons of this age. The narrator justifies this ascription by limiting the sphere in which such praise applies: ‘in their own generation’, the sons of this age truly are prudent, better than the sons of light at handling matters pertaining to the present evil age.Footnote 31
3. The Application of the Parable (Luke 16.9)
The parable concludes with an application: ‘And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the mammon of unrighteousness so that when it is gone they may receive you into the eternal dwellings’ (Luke 16.9).
A few scholars have proposed alternative translations for the phrase ‘by means of (ἐκ) the mammon of unrighteousness’. Pasquale Colella assumes that the phrase mistranslates an Aramaic original that meant ‘make for yourselves friends rather than (or and not) mammon’.Footnote 32 Mary Ann Beavis takes it to mean ‘make friends for yourselves outside the mammon of unrighteousness’.Footnote 33 David Flusser translates it as ‘make for yourselves friends from the mammon of unrighteousness’, that is, make friends of unbelievers who belong to the mammon of unrighteousness.Footnote 34 All of these proposals are unpersuasive attempts to avoid the most obvious meaning of the statement.
Another line of interpretation also seeks to avoid this meaning by taking the statement as ironic or sarcastic.Footnote 35 However, interpreters who take this view generally find it necessary to reword the statement. Donald Fletcher, for example, rewords it thus: ‘“Make friends for yourselves”, he seems to taunt; “imitate the example of the steward; use the unrighteous mammon; surround yourselves with the type of insincere, self-interested friendship it can buy; how far will this carry you when the end comes and you are finally dismissed?”’Footnote 36 Certainly it is possible to rewrite the statement to make it ironic or sarcastic, but nothing in the statement as Luke gives it suggests irony. As Klyne Snodgrass says, ‘without some textual clue that irony is involved no reader will understand this’.Footnote 37
Two questions of interpretation are most important here: who are the people to whom this exhortation is directed, and who are the people with ‘eternal dwellings’ whom they should befriend with unrighteous mammon? With respect to the first question, interpreters almost universally assume that this exhortation is directed to Jesus’ disciples. Support for this view comes from Luke 16.1, which says that Jesus told this story to his disciples.
With respect to the second question, some interpreters distinguish between those whom the disciples should befriend and those who receive them into the eternal dwellings. In this view, disciples should befriend the poor with donations of money. They will then be received into the eternal dwellings by the angels or God,Footnote 38 or by the personified good deeds of the donors.Footnote 39
These interpretations, however, are contradicted by the parable itself. In it, the debtors who receive financial benefit are the same as those who will receive the steward into their homes. One would expect the same to be the case in the application of the parable as well. Therefore, in an alternative interpretation, the poor who receive alms are also those who, as God's agents, receive the disciples into the eternal dwellings. The eternal dwellings belong to the poor, as the beatitude states: ‘Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God’ (Luke 6.20). With this understanding, a typical interpretation of Luke 16.9 runs as follows: Jesus’ disciples should make friends of the poor by giving them charitable donations, so that in the eschatological kingdom the poor will receive the disciples into the eternal dwellings.Footnote 40
This typical interpretation has some rather odd features. First, it is strange that Jesus’ disciples have no eternal dwellings of their own but must rely on the hospitality of the poor.Footnote 41 One would expect Jesus’ disciples to have their own dwellings in the eschatological kingdom. Second, it is strange that Jesus’ disciples are contrasted with the poor. The whole tenor of the Synoptic Gospels suggests that Jesus’ disciples are the poor, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Even disciples who may have once possessed families and houses and lands have left them behind (Mark 10.28–31). Jesus’ pronouncement ‘Blessed are the poor’ (Luke 6.20) may refer to the poor in general, but, in the context of both Luke and Q, it has followers of Jesus primarily in view, as Luke 6.22 indicates (cf. Matt 5.11).Footnote 42
From these indications, it seems clear that the typical interpretation of Luke 16.9 has gone astray. To get back on track, we need different answers for both main questions of interpretation. First, the assumption that the narrator directs the story to Jesus’ disciples seems to be mistaken. While Luke does identify the disciples as the audience (Luke 16.1), he also portrays the Pharisees and scribes as present and listening (Luke 15.1–2; 16.14). Furthermore, Luke probably did not know to what audience the story was originally directed. He identified the disciples as the audience in his redaction.Footnote 43 If we put aside Luke's editorial comment, a different perspective emerges.
The parable exhorts its audience to make friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness, that is, by means of money, seen as a necessary evil of the present unrighteous age.Footnote 44 This exhortation implies that the audience had access to such money. Theoretically individuals with even a small amount of money would qualify. However, if the story were directed to such people, we would expect the protagonist of the story to be poor, like the poor widow who gave all that she had to God (Mark 12.41–4). In that story, the choice of a widow as the protagonist is no accident. As the epitome of poverty, the widow serves as an example not only for the wealthy but also for other poor people, encouraging them to contribute out of their own poverty. Likewise, the choice of a steward as the protagonist in the parable of the unrighteous steward probably tells us something about the audience to which it is directed. As an agent accustomed to dealing in large financial transactions, the steward serves as an example for other people who control wealth, encouraging them to use that wealth in a similar way.
It seems likely, therefore, that this parable was directed to the rich or to those who managed their wealth. If so, it is significant that the gospels generally present the rich as outsiders rather than insiders.Footnote 45 They distinguish the rich from Jesus’ disciples. The rich man in one story fails to become a disciple of Jesus precisely because he will not give up his wealth (Mark 10.17–22). The rich whom Jesus excoriates in the woes against the rich are clearly outsiders (Luke 6.24–6). The rich fool who dies before he can enjoy his wealth (Luke 12.13–21) and the rich man who is tormented in Hades (Luke 16.19–31) are negative examples of the rich who retain their wealth and thus fail to become disciples of Jesus. The only good rich person is one like the tax collector Zacchaeus, who gives half of his belongings to the poor (Luke 19.1–10).Footnote 46
If the parable exhorts rich outsiders to make friends by means of their unrighteous money, this brings us back to the second question of interpretation, namely, who are the friends that they should cultivate? According to the parable, they should befriend those who have access to eternal dwellings. And who would have such dwellings if not the poor disciples of Jesus? While it is the poor who will inherit the kingdom of God (Luke 6.20–1), the gospels place Jesus’ disciples squarely among the poor. Jesus promises them that since they have abandoned all to follow him, they will have eternal life in the age to come (Mark 10.28–30). In the present age, the disciples may be last in terms of wealth and status, but in the age to come, the roles will be reversed: the first will be last and the last will be first (Mark 10.31). In Luke's view, such reversal of fortune would begin immediately after death, as the parable of the rich man and Lazarus illustrates (Luke 16.19–31). While the rich man goes to the flames of Hades, the beggar Lazarus goes to ‘Abraham's bosom’, where he receives those good things that he lacked in life. Such reversal of fortune would no doubt continue in the new age, when the kingdom of God would be established on earth.
In all likelihood therefore, this parable exhorted the rich to use their wealth to make friends of Jesus’ poor disciples. How then should they do so? Zacchaeus the tax collector provides one example when he gives half of his belongings to the poor (Luke 19.1–10). The unrighteous steward, however, provides another kind of example. He befriends his master's debtors by reducing their debts.Footnote 47 No doubt the disciples of Jesus would have appreciated either form of financial benefit. However, this particular story focuses on debt reduction. The meaning of Luke 16.9 thus runs as follows: rich outsiders should use their unrighteous wealth to make friends of Jesus’ poor disciples, specifically by reducing their debts, so that in the eschatological kingdom Jesus’ disciples will receive these benefactors into their eternal dwellings.
4. The Setting of the Parable in Early Christianity
The occurrence of the Aramaic term ‘mammon’ in Luke 16.9 indicates that this parable circulated among Aramaic-speaking Jewish Christians in Palestine. Gerd Theissen has suggested one possible setting for Palestinian traditions relating to possessions, wealth and poverty, namely, the ministry of itinerant Christian charismatics in Palestine in the first century.Footnote 48 According to Theissen, sayings that urge renunciation of possessions, as well as renunciation of home and family, reflect the ethical norms of these wandering preachers. While we can agree that some sayings of this type may have come from this context,Footnote 49 those passages that express concern for the poor or advocate using possessions to benefit others probably reflect a setting in a settled community. The parable of the unjust steward fits better into this latter context than in the context of radical itinerancy. It is likely that it reflects the efforts of Palestinian Christians to enlist the financial support of wealthy patrons outside the community.
The church in Jerusalem apparently concerned itself with finances from the beginning.Footnote 50 According to Acts, the Jesus people in Jerusalem practised community of goods. Members of this community sold their possessions, including their lands and houses, and either distributed the proceeds to those in need or brought the proceeds to the apostles to distribute (Acts 2.44–5; 4.32, 34–7). As Luke describes it, the entire community, not just itinerant charismatics, participated in this practice of selling possessions and giving to the needy.
In stating that the believers were of ‘one soul’ (Acts 4.32) and had ‘all things in common’ (Acts 2.44; 4.32), Luke portrayed the Jerusalem community in terms drawn from Greek ideals of friendship or utopian society; and in claiming that no one among them was needy (Acts 4.34), he drew on the utopian hope of ancient Israel described in Deuteronomy 15.4.Footnote 51 Some critics think that Luke invented this picture of communal sharing by taking isolated instances of giving and elevating them to the level of universal practice.Footnote 52 Clearly not all members of the community could have sold their houses, or they would have had no place to stay.Footnote 53 However, though Luke may have idealised the picture, it need not be entirely fictitious. According to Philo and Josephus, the Essenes of that time practised community of goods.Footnote 54 The same was probably true at Qumran, though this conclusion has been disputed.Footnote 55 It is not implausible, therefore, that the early Christian community in Jerusalem practised some form of communal sharing that involved selling one's possessions and contributing to a common fund.Footnote 56
The exhortation ‘Sell your possessions and give charity’ in Luke 12.33 probably had its original setting in this context.Footnote 57 Giving alms or charity (ἐλεημοσύνη) was a traditional pillar of Jewish piety, and several passages in Matthew and Luke-Acts refer to it.Footnote 58 However, only Luke 12.33 makes selling possessions the prelude to giving charity. While normal Jewish charity would not require one to sell possessions, such a practice matches Luke's description of the communal sharing in Jerusalem, where believers sold their possessions and distributed the proceeds to the needy (Acts 2.45).
While the Essenes apparently instituted a communal system that worked over a prolonged period, we have indications within the New Testament that the system instituted in Jerusalem proved inadequate. Three factors may have contributed to its problems.
First, in an agrarian economy, in which most people gain their livelihood through agriculture, a communal effort would have limited success without farmable land. If the Jesus people converted their fields into cash, as Luke indicates, the community would soon find itself without the means to support itself.Footnote 59
Second, at some point during the years 46–8, Palestine experienced a famine.Footnote 60 At that time, it became necessary for churches outside of Palestine to support Christians in Judea. Luke records that the church in Antioch sent a charitable contribution to bring financial relief to ‘the brothers dwelling in Judea’ (Acts 11.27–30; 12.25). Likewise the apostle Paul relates a meeting with the apostles in Jerusalem, at which they urged him to ‘remember the poor’, which Paul says he was eager to do (Gal 2.10). Paul did remember the poor by raising a collection from the churches that he had established in Asia Minor and Greece, which he then carried to ‘the poor among the saints at Jerusalem’ (Rom 15.26). Paul mentioned this collection several times in his letters,Footnote 61 referring to it as an ‘offering’ or ‘gift’ that would supply the ‘needs’ of the saints in Jerusalem (2 Cor 9.1, 5, 12). He praised those who gave from their own ‘deep poverty’ to share in this ministry to the poor in Jerusalem (2 Cor 8.1–4).Footnote 62
A third problem with the Jerusalem system was that it did not appeal to those who had the most to contribute: the wealthy. In order to become fully integrated into the community, the wealthy would have to sell their possessions and become part of the communal system. A rich person who chose to retain his or her possessions would not have found a comfortable fit in this community. The story of the rich young man illustrates this point (Mark 10.17–27). When he is told that he must sell all that he has and distribute to the poor in order to become a follower of Jesus, he goes away disappointed because he does not wish to divest himself of his property. While this story is set in Jesus’ lifetime, it would have served in the Jerusalem church as a negative example story. The young man's response would represent the reaction of many wealthy people to the requirement that they sell their possessions and give to the needy in order to become part of the community.
Faced with this reaction from the wealthy, the Jesus people apparently looked for alternative ways that the wealthy could contribute to the support of the community. The story of Zacchaeus shows one way. As a chief tax collector, Zacchaeus is a wealthy man. Though he does not sell all that he has, he gives half of it to the poor. This seems to suffice, since in the story Jesus proclaims that Zacchaeus’ household has received salvation as a result (Luke 19.1–10).
The parable of the unrighteous steward fits into this same context. It demonstrates yet another way in which the wealthy might contribute to the support of the community without becoming actual members of it. The parable implies that some of the Jesus people in or near Jerusalem owed debts, perhaps as tenant farmers, to wealthy landowners.Footnote 63 As tenants of this kind, they would owe the landowners part of the produce, such as oil or wheat. The parable suggests that these wealthy landowners, or their agents, should reduce the amount that the tenants owed.Footnote 64 In using their ‘unrighteous mammon’ in this manner, they would make friends of the Jesus people. When Jesus returned and established the kingdom of God, the tables would be turned. The rich and powerful would be humbled, and the poor Jesus people would be exalted and granted ‘eternal dwellings’. At that time, because their former creditors had treated them well, the Jesus people would receive them into their households.
If this understanding is correct, this parable was directed to wealthy people with whom the Jesus people had economic ties, people whom they would encounter regularly in their day-to-day business affairs. Such wealthy individuals may or may not have been sympathetic to the Jesus movement, but they did not wish to join it if they had to sell all that they possessed and give away the proceeds. This parable encourages such individuals to use their wealth in another way to benefit the Jesus people. Such an arrangement would benefit both sides. The Jesus people would gain financial assistance from the wealthy that they otherwise would not receive. The wealthy, in turn, could participate in the salvation to come without completely divesting themselves of their worldly possessions in the present. While the story encourages the wealthy to make this exchange, we cannot say whether it ever persuaded any of them to do so. They may have responded like the Pharisees who hear the parable in Luke's account: labelled by Luke as ‘lovers of money’, they simply mock the idea (Luke 16.14).
5. The Parable as Extended Metaphor
Most previous interpretations of this parable have been influenced by the theory of Adolf Jülicher, who maintained that Jesus’ parables had a single point of comparison. According to this view, the early Christians misunderstood the parables as allegory, a series of metaphors with multiple points of comparison. Therefore any parable with multiple points of comparison represents a later allegorical revision of Jesus’ original parable.Footnote 65 Most critics today have concluded that Jülicher was wrong to exclude allegory from parables that Jesus might have spoken.Footnote 66 However, he was clearly right that the early church understood the parables to have multiple points of comparison.Footnote 67 The parable of the steward is no exception. The application in Luke 16.9 treats this parable as an extended metaphor with more than one point of comparison. The steward is analogous to those outside the Christian community who had or managed wealth, the debtors are analogous to early Christians who owed them, and the master is analogous to God.
From the perspective of early Christians, the steward in the parable was analogous in several respects to wealthy outsiders. First, just as the steward managed not his own wealth, but the wealth of his master, so the wealthy did not own their wealth, but merely functioned as stewards of resources that God entrusted to them.Footnote 68 The parable implies this analogy, and the saying that follows the parable confirms it (Luke 16.10–12). It presupposes that those with ‘unrighteous mammon’ have been entrusted with it, presumably by God. Second, just as the steward was ‘unrighteous’, so too were the wealthy and their wealth: they were ‘the sons of this age’ who belonged to the sphere of unrighteousness and dealt in ‘the mammon of unrighteousness’. Third, just as the steward was judged by his master for squandering his goods, so the wealthy stood under the judgement of God for wasting his goods, which they should have shared with the poor.
The debtors play less of a role in the parable than the steward. They have one feature in common with the early Christians: both groups owed debts. In the application, the early Christians owed the wealthy. However, since the wealthy were merely stewards of God's resources, in effect they owed God, just as the debtors in the parable owed the master rather than the steward.
The master in the parable is analogous to God in two respects. First, just as the master fired the steward for squandering his possessions, so in the coming kingdom God would take away the possessions of the rich because they failed to use them to help the poor. Second, just as the master in the parable commended the steward for reducing the debts of his tenants, so God would look favourably on the rich if they reduced the debts of the early Christians in Palestine.Footnote 69
These correspondences between the parable and the world of early Christianity make possible the main point: the steward's action in his situation could serve as an example for wealthy outsiders in their analogous situation. Just as the steward used unrighteous mammon to win friends in order to ensure his future, so should the wealthy use their wealth to make friends of the Jesus people in order to secure their own eschatological future.
6. Conclusion
Traditional explanations of the parable of the unrighteous steward raise the question of how an unethical character could serve as a positive example for Jesus’ disciples. The interpretation proposed here avoids this problem, since the steward serves as a model not for disciples but for wealthy outsiders. The solution that the steward finds for his problem in the story serves as a positive example for the wealthy in their own analogous situation. Like the steward who lost his job, the unrighteous wealthy would face a bleak prospect when their wealth ran out, either at death or at the arrival of God's kingdom. While the parable does not condone their unrighteousness, it does suggest a course of action by which they could use their unrighteous mammon prudently to prepare for the eschatological future.
