Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
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PARABLE OF THE SHREWD MANAGER
Luke 16:1-15
Today's message is about the parable of the deceitful
manager, I want to read from Luke 16:1-15
1 Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose
manager was accused of wasting his possessions.
2 So he
called him in and asked him, `What is this I hear about
you?
Give an account of your management, because you
cannot be manager any longer.' 3 "The manager said to
himself, `What shall I do now?
My master is taking away
my job.
I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to
beg -- 4 I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job
here, people will welcome me into their houses.' 5 "So he
called in each one of his master's debtors.
He asked the
first, `How much do you owe my master?' 6 "`Eight hundred
gallons of olive oil,' he replied.
"The manager told
him, `Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four
hundred.' 7 "Then he asked the second, `And how much do
you owe?' "`A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied.
"He told him, `Take your bill and make it eight hundred.'
8 "The master commended the dishonest manager because he
had acted shrewdly.
For the people of this world are more
shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people
of the light.
9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain
friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will
be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
10 "Whoever can be
trusted with very little can also be trusted with much,
and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be
dishonest with much.
11 So if you have not been
trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust
you with true riches?
12 And if you have not been
trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give
you property of your own? 13 "No servant can serve two
masters.
Either he will hate the one and love the other,
or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve both God and Money."
14 The Pharisees,
who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at
Jesus.
15 He said to them, "You are the ones who justify
yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts.
What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's
sight.
"Much debate has taken place over the meaning of today's
parable.
Every one of the resources I consulted made a
comment about the difficulty of this text.
For the first
four centuries, the early church made few references to
it, probably because they found the parable as perplexing
as we do today.
The immediate question we ask is, Why?
Why is this such
an infamous parable, that theologians and preachers
across the centuries don't seem to know what to do with
it?
Why is it that Christians across the board don't like
to hear about the dishonesty of a manager who has been
found out by his master?
Why is it that we don't want to
hear about self-denial in this age in order to store up
eternal riches?
Let us look at the parable, and see what Jesus is saying
to us today.
We are not told, how the steward wasted his masters money
- only that he did.
He was consequently fired from his
job and the owner demanded a final account.
So he sat
down and thought about his options.
He did not have a
strong back, so he ruled out physical labour.
And he was
also too proud to go panhandling.
So, he secured his
future by making friends with his master's debtors by
cutting their debts.
We would have expected the owner to punish his manager
for this dishonest action.
In fact it seemed as if he was
adding insult to injury.
But surprisingly, the master
commended the steward for such a shrewd action.
Let us keep in mind here that it is the owner in the
parable, and not Jesus, who applauds the shrewd business
manoeuvre of the manager.
The manager acted with prompt
foresight in order to be prepared for what was to come.
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