HELP NEEDED!

Hugo McCord

A question has come about the parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16:1-13. The parable is clear to everybody except for two mystifying verses, 9 and 11. In the KJV they are:

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. ...

If therefore ye have not been faithful in unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?

The KJV has the word “ye” in v. 16 where Luke wrote “it” (eklipe).

In the NIV verses 9 and 11 are:

I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. ...

So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?

The NIV has the phrase “worldly wealth” where Luke wrote “dishonest wealth” (mamona tes adikias).

The NRSV has an accurate translation of Luke’s words:

And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may receive you into the eternal homes. ...

If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?

Unthinkable! A command from Jesus to his disciples (16:1) to buy friends is bad enough, but to do it with money gained dishonestly is even worse! I have checked to see if any Greek manuscripts give a wholesome meaning to Luke 16:9, 11, but unsuccessfully.

Since Jesus was and is “holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26), and very particular to do everything right (“to fulfill all righteousness, Matthew 3:15), and was the embodiment of “truth” (John 14:6), the meaning that comes to my mind from a above accurate translation of Luke 16:9, 11 cannot be what Jesus meant. I need help!

Also, another thought in these two verses strikes me the wrong way. If Jesus has now gone “to prepare a place” (John 14:2) for his disciples, why would he say that earthly friends, bought with dishonest money, will welcome them into “eternal homes”? If Christians are to be honest, being taught neither to lie nor to steal (Ephesians 4:25, 28), are they to be “faithful with the dishonest wealth” or will they have nothing to do with “dishonest wealth?” Jesus’ apostle wrote that we should “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness” (Ephesians 5:11).

If I need help, I am not alone. One of the miraculous visions given to Daniel left him as confused as I am. He writes,

Then I, Daniel, was exhausted (“done in,” margin, NASV) and sick for days. Then I got up again and carried on the king’s business; but I was astounded at the vision, and there was none to explain it (Daniel 8:27).

However, there is rejoicing in that God did not expect the impossible from his dedicated servant Daniel. Beyond any question, Daniel had been taught by his parents how to be what God wanted him to be (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). Their teaching to him was clear and understandable, a “lamp” for his “feet,” a daily “light” for his “path” (Psalm 119:105).

Undoubtedly many verses in Daniel’s Bible were beyond his comprehension, but what he needed to know to be well pleasing to his heavenly Father was clear and he was obedient (cf. his determined abstinence from “the king’s dainties” and “the wine which he drank,” Daniel 1:8). Three times every day he was on his knees “giving thanks” to God (Daniel 6:10).

At one special time, the Father’s heart was deeply touched as in heaven he listened to Daniel’s prayer. Immediately the Lord dispatched the angel Gabriel “to fly swiftly” to Babylon to tell Daniel that he had put heaven into action:

O Daniel, ... at the beginning of your prayer a word went out, and I have come to tell you, because you are greatly beloved [hamudhoth, “very precious”] (Daniel 9:21-23).

In a general sense all human beings are “greatly beloved” and “very precious.” “Children are the heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward” (Psalm 127:3). But, dependent on their attitude and conduct, some are more precious than others. Daniel always had the right attitude and behavior. In like manner, every human being can be especially precious if he so chooses, for God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34-35).

The criterion for God’s appreciation is not birth or race or wealth or education, but a person’s love for God with “all that is within” him (Psalm 103:1), with his soul, his heart, and his strength (Deuteronomy 6:5). That kind of person always has an open line to the heavenly Father (1 Peter 3:12). Prayers, not merely by Daniel, nor merely by miraculously endowed first-century elders (James 5:14), but by 20th century Christians, have “powerful results” (James 5:16).

As a man like Daniel could have a vision he could not understand (Daniel 8:27), so are there verses of the Bible that many people in our time do not understand. Long before the New Testament was written, Isaiah had predicted the coming of Christianity. It would be “the way of holiness,” a roadway on which “the redeemed” would walk (Isaiah 35:8).

What sinners would need to know to enter “the way of holiness” would be so simple and understandable that “wayfaring men, even fools,” would “not err” (Isaiah 35:8, ASV). Fools? He was not talking about insane people, for of course God’s mercy will take care of them. Isaiah’s word is ‘ewilim (a plural word). In Job 5:2 an ‘ewil (a singular word) is coordinate with a potheh, a simple person, and also in Proverbs 8:5: “Understand prudence, O simple ones! O foolish ones, be of an understanding heart.” This means then that the ewilim of Isaiah 35:8 are plain, unaffected, simple people, not insane.

The mighty B-D-B lexicon (p. 17) errs is saying that the ewilim are “always morally bad.” Gesenius (p. 19) changed the “always” to “sometime.” But the main thing is that common, everyday people will not miss “the way of holiness,” will “not err” (ta’ah). Some theorize that another meaning of ta’ah, “to wander,” is correct for Isaiah 35:8. If so, one may accidentally wander into “the way of holiness,” which is non-sensical. Delitzsch rejected the meaning of wandering in Isaiah 35:8, making his translation to say, “Whoever walks the road [the wayfaring man], even simple ones, do not go astray.”

Delitzsch’s translation is shown to be accurate in the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prediction in Christianity as one reads of thousands of everyday people being “baptized” (Acts 2:41). Furthermore, this concept of the simplicity of the gospel fits into the fact that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). A loving God would not make the way of salvation so complicated that plain, uneducated sinners could not understand it.

In truth, one can say that in both the Old and the New Testaments “the opening of” God’s “words sheds light, giving understanding to simple people” (Psalm 119:130). Though I do not understand Luke 16:9, 11 (and, for that matter, much of the book of Revelation), I am not worried, for “as a father is tender toward his children, so Yahweh is tender to those who reverence him” (Psalm 103:13). He knows that “the mystery of religion is great” (1 Timothy 3:16, too great for me wholly to comprehend.

But as to what I need to do to be saved, the Father knows I can master that subject, and so bluntly says to me, “Be not foolish, but understand what is the Lord’s will” (Ephesians 5:17). He knows that by my studying the book he has sent from heaven that I can “understand” enough of the “mystery of Christ” (Ephesians 3:4) “to be well-pleasing to him” (2 Corinthians 5:9).