A manager caught wasting his master’s money, about to be fired, spends his last hours on the job slashing what other people owe — and gets praised for it, not punished. A rich man in purple and fine linen steps over a starving beggar lying at his own gate every single day without ever once really seeing him. And when the beggar dies first, everything about who has the advantage reverses so completely that the rich man ends up begging the poor man for a single drop of water on his tongue.
A study in Luke 16 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 26 min read
He That Is Faithful In That Which Is Least
“There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward.”
Luke 16:1-2
“Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.”
Luke 16:3-4
“So he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty.”
Luke 16:5-6
“This unfaithful servant made others sharers with him in his dishonesty. He defrauded his master to advantage them, and by accepting this advantage they placed themselves under obligation to receive him as a friend into their homes.”
Ellen G. White · Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 367
“And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.”
Luke 16:8
“The worldly man praised the sharpness of the man who had defrauded him. But the rich man’s commendation was not the commendation of God. Christ did not commend the unjust steward, but He made use of a well-known occurrence to illustrate the lesson He desired to teach.”
Ellen G. White · Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 367
The single hardest thing about this parable is remembering that Jesus is not holding up dishonesty as the model. He is holding up urgency — the steward’s sudden, total clarity about how little time he had left to secure his future, once he could no longer pretend the reckoning wasn’t coming.
“And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.”
Luke 16:9
“God and Christ and angels are all ministering to the afflicted, the suffering, and the sinful. Give yourself to God for this work, use His gifts for this purpose, and you enter into partnership with heavenly beings. … To you these dwellers in the eternal tabernacles will not be strangers.”
Ellen G. White · Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 373
Money that cannot be kept anyway — “mammon of unrighteousness” that fails at death whether anyone plans for it or not — is nonetheless capable of buying something eternal, if it is spent on people instead of hoarded for self.
“He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?”
Luke 16:10-11
Money, in this teaching, is never the real test. It is only the smallest, most visible category of a much larger question — whether a person can be trusted with anything at all that ultimately belongs to someone else.
Ye Cannot Serve God And Mammon
“No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
Luke 16:13
“And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him. And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.”
Luke 16:14-15
Found in no other Gospel, this brief exchange names exactly why the previous parable landed so poorly with this particular audience — they had built entire reputations on precisely the kind of public, esteemed wealth the parable had just quietly exposed.
“The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it. And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.”
Luke 16:16-17
A new era of preaching does not, in this teaching, erase the law that came before it — the two stand together rather than in competition.
“Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.”
Luke 16:18
This site’s own study of Matthew’s fifth chapter already covers this same teaching on marriage in fuller detail. Here in Luke it appears compressed to a single verse, sitting almost as an aside between the parable of the unjust steward and the parable still to come — a reminder that faithfulness in the small print of a marriage vow is no less a test of stewardship than faithfulness with money.
Between Us And You There Is A Great Gulf Fixed
“There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.”
Luke 16:19-21
“He did not treat the beggar with violence or require him to go away because the sight of him was disagreeable. If the poor, loathsome specimen of humanity could be comforted by beholding him as he entered his gates, the rich man was willing that he should remain. But he was selfishly indifferent to the needs of his suffering brother.”
Ellen G. White · Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 261
The rich man’s sin in this parable is never described as cruelty. It is described as indifference — a man who never once actively harmed the beggar at his gate, and never once thought of him as anything more than furniture.
“And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.”
Luke 16:22-23
Before going further, it is worth being precise about what this parable is and is not teaching. Ellen White is explicit on this point:
“In this parable Christ was meeting the people on their own ground. The doctrine of a conscious state of existence between death and the resurrection was held by many of those who were listening to Christ’s words. The Saviour knew of their ideas, and He framed His parable so as to inculcate important truths through these preconceived opinions.”
Ellen G. White · Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 263
Jesus is not here revealing new information about the state of the dead. He is doing what a parable always does — borrowing an image already familiar to His hearers, in this case a popular Jewish picture of the afterlife, to make a moral point His audience could not miss. That point is stated plainly a few lines later:
“He used the prevailing opinion to convey the idea He wished to make prominent to all—that no man is valued for his possessions; for all he has belongs to him only as lent by the Lord. … Christ desires His hearers to understand that it is impossible for men to secure the salvation of the soul after death.”
Ellen G. White · Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 263
The parable’s real subject is probation, not physiology — that this life, and this life only, is the time given to prepare for eternity, and that no possession, position, or family name can purchase a second chance once it has closed.
“But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.”
Luke 16:25-26
“‘Father Abraham,’ he prayed, ‘have mercy on me.’ He did not pray to God, but to Abraham. Thus he showed that he placed Abraham above God, and that he relied on his relationship to Abraham for salvation. … But the rich man prayed to Abraham, and his petition was not granted.”
Ellen G. White · Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 263
Even his final request reveals the same misplaced confidence that shaped his whole life — trusting in his family name and his standing rather than in God Himself.
“Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.”
Luke 16:27-29
“And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”
Luke 16:30-31
“When the rich man solicited additional evidence for his brothers, he was plainly told that should this evidence be given, they would not be persuaded. His request cast a reflection on God. … Light has been given them, but they would not see; truth has been presented to them, but they would not hear.”
Ellen G. White · Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 264
The closing line of this parable would prove itself true in a way none of Jesus’s first hearers could have missed: John’s Gospel records that a man named Lazarus — a different Lazarus, of Bethany — did in fact rise from the dead, and the chief priests responded not with repentance but by plotting to kill him all over again.
