Luke 16:1-7

(Luke 16:1-7)

And he said also unto his disciples, 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. 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. 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.  Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.

The unrighteous steward expended the owner's property by arbitrarily forgiving the owner's property. But the owner sees this unrighteous steward and says, "Well done." In order for us to understand this parable, we must understand the characteristics of the characters. Master means God. So God wants to get rid of the debt.

In Matthew 18:23-35, the content of the debtor of 10,000 talents is found. A government official owed the king 10,000 talents, and the king urged him to pay the debt, but he said he had no ability to do so, so the king felt pity and canceled the debt. When this official resigned from the king and went home, he found a man who owed him a debt of 100 denarius (very little money), and demanded that he pay it. However, when another officer reported this to the king, the king was angry and imprisoned the officer who owed 10,000 talents in prison and prevented him from coming out of prison until the debt was paid off. With this parable, Jesus said, "We must forgive our brother's sins."

The second person was the unrighteous steward, who was managing the wealthy's wealth. It is the fact that in this world the unrighteous steward is “I”. It means that neither my body nor all the wealth I have in this world are mine. A similar parable is found in Luke 12:16-21. As the farmers grew more produce, they built more warehouses, filled them with food, and said, "Now I have enough food, so if I eat and live there will be no problem." Jesus said, ``But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? 』. It means that all wealth in this world is not mine.

The unrighteous stewards who live on this earth do not have all their property, but, like mine, call it to multiply it. Proliferation of wealth, strictly speaking, does not mean that everyone increases, but that of others decreases as mine increases. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the Bible says that the rich man went to hell and Lazarus went to Abraham's bosom. The rich man would have been greedy for the world, and Lazarus would have been so because there was nothing of the world to greedy.

Someone accused the rich man of an unrighteous steward using the rich man's property to unjustly accumulate his or her own property, take another's property, etc. The steward unjustly accumulates wealth by receiving excessive interest and taking part of the wealth of the wealthy man lent to others. When the owner learned of this, he asked to settle the transaction in order to end the transaction with the unrighteous steward. When the unrighteous steward was fired, he expected nothing to do afterward, so he came up with the trick, but in order to be seen later by those who owe it to the owner, the owner's debt is forgiven. But when he sees this situation, the rich man praises him.

By the way, the rich wants the debts of those who owe him to go away. Does it make sense? God is praising the unrighteous steward. Jesus came to this world to redeem sinners. He came to relieve the debts of repentant sinners. What the unrighteous steward did is in line with what Jesus did.

By the way, what does God's word “make friends with unrighteous wealth” mean, and what does it mean “when unrighteous wealth is gone, they will receive you as an eternal dwelling place”? 『Unrighteous Riches』 is a fleshly body that hides the sinful nature (greed) inherited from parents. By the way, he said, "Make friends with unrighteous wealth" because he leads me to an eternal dwelling place (heaven).

My friend is Jesus Christ, who came as a sinner in this world and died on the cross. Can unrighteous wealth and Jesus Christ, who died on the cross, be friends? In John 15:13-14

 『Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. So in Romans 6:3-4, ``Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 』Those who die with Jesus on the cross become Jesus' friends.

Jesus said in John 15:14-15, ``Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. '
If we want to be Jesus' friends, we just need to do what Jesus commanded. What he commanded is in John 15:12, ``This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 』 In John 15:18-19, "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 』 There will be nothing more pleasing to God if we, as unrighteous riches, use our time, money, and power for those who owe Him because they do not know Him, and make them return to Him. But the world will hate those who preach God.

In John 15:26-27, ``But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning. 』 When we speak about God's Word and Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit gives power and the Holy Spirit testifies of Jesus Christ.