He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.”

This passage gives many folks fits. The troubling verse is, “The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.” Shouldn’t the master be furious and in no mood for commending anyone?

Sure. The parable doesn’t say that he wasn’t furious; it just makes the specific point that the master recognized the shrewdness of the manager’s scheme. In modern terms, he might have said, “You clever son of a gun.” Don’t be distracted by things that aren’t in the parable. It makes one point and that’s it.

But what’s so shrewd about the manager’s scheme? If that’s the point of the parable, what is the point?

The manager converted something of no value (to him) to something of value. It’s as if you figured out how to do something in a Monopoly game so that your Monopoly money became real money. Imagine you’re playing Monopoly and you own Boardwalk and Park Place. Another player offers to trade you all four railroads plus $100 (not $100 Monopoly money, but real dollars) for Boardwalk and Park Place. If you accept the offer, you have converted play assets into real assets. Sure the properties are worth a lot more than $100 in Monopoly money, but everything in the whole game isn’t worth $100 real money.

That’s the idea here. The master’s money was useless to the manager. With his write-downs, he has converted something of no value (to him) into tangible assets. Compared to heaven, worldly wealth is as useless as Monopoly money.

Jesus calls worldly wealth unrighteous wealth, and says that we should focus on trying to convert it into something useful.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” – Matthew 6:19–21 (ESV)

People who do good things with the resources God has entrusted them with will be given more resources to work with. That’s the point of the parable of the talents.

The weekly study guides, which include discussion questions, are available for download here:

https://www.ailbe.org/resources/itemlist/category/91-deep-studies