The Very Incongruous Parable of the Shrewd Steward
John Taylor, May 10, 2025
"I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings." (Luke 15:9, NIV)
The book about near death experiences (NDE's) that I am reading uses this anti-commercialist lesson within a parable to back up the scriptural validity of these eyewitness accounts of brushes with heaven. It does this to counteract the tendency of many Christians to declare these experiences to be not glimpses of heaven but rather the work of witchcraft or the devil.
Some NDE accounts describe a kind of welcoming committee into heaven made up of old friends and relations who have pre-deceased the dying person. The quote in our headpiece, Luke 15:9, advises us to use our wealth here on earth to make friends so that when we die, when we no longer need that wealth, we will be welcomed into "eternal dwellings." The better use we have made of our worldly means, the larger and warmer the welcoming party into heaven will be.
This quote is part of perhaps the most challenging of Jesus's parables, that of the Dishonest Manager, in Luke 16:1-13. It tells the story of a steward who is fired for dishonesty. I am guessing that even in ancient times they had to give every employee two weeks notice. So, while still working the same job, the Dishonest Manager comes up with a cunning plan.
Like most in management, he was too old and weak to do manual labour. So he knows that he will have to stay with what he is most experienced doing, which means that he will have to keep serving the same clientele. His plan is to build up what present-day accountants call "goodwill" among his former clients as a provision for his future. He offers a discount to all who owe money to the owner, his boss. They will have to pay less if they pay off the debt right away.
Why does Christ's owner praise this ostensibly dishonest ploy? Some say that the bargain he strikes to the "accounts receivable" enhanced the owner's reputation for generosity (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Unjust_Steward). But I wonder if the debts in question were bad debts, write-offs, in which case the owner benefited by at least getting something out of the initiative. The point seems to be that the shrewd steward's clever ploy served a double purpose, it benefited the owner and also built up goodwill for his own future dealings in the industry. Dishonest as he may have been, he learned how to become a good steward.
The final lesson of the parable is that good deeds and clever initiatives on earth make us friends in the next world. They forge friendships with God and His angels, both now and in our "eternal dwellings." This is surely the original insurance or pension plan. Heaven is our ultimate "retirement," the place we ready ourselves for after our exit from bodily life.
I am reading right now the ultimate mystic's mystic, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. He makes this point about the puzzles in scripture, of which this parable is one:
I am reading right now the ultimate mystic's mystic, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. He makes this point about the puzzles in scripture, of which this parable is one:
"I doubt that anyone would refuse to acknowledge that incongruities are more suitable for lifting our minds up into the domain of the spiritual than similarities are." (Pseudo-Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy, p. 150, para 141b, https://dokumen.pub/pseudo-dionysius-the-complete-works-0809128381.html)
Perhaps the ambiguity of this parable -- is the steward shrewd or dishonest? -- is part of the point. He cheats but later shows such initiative that he gains the praise of his former boss. Such an "incongruity" actually enhances the lesson. Believers, true believers, are not meek, mild, saintly and sanctified, other-worldly, starry-eyed idealists passively waiting on heaven. They move fast and break things. They care a great deal about getting things done. Their desperate drive to force a good outcome where there is little hope pays out in the end.
It often happens that worldly people are better exemplars than they know.
It is often told that a gossip complained to Abdu'l-Baha that a man had gambled all day and all night, and the Master praised the man's virtue of steadfast persistence. So it often happens that the God intoxicated lover shows single minded virtue that seems crazy to the worldly minded. Abdu'l-Baha praised this in an early believer, Mírzá Muṣṭafá Naráqí.
"It was in the days of the Báb that he first set his lips to the intoxicating cup of spiritual truth, and he had a strange tumult in his brain, a fierce yearning in his heart. In the path of God he threw down whatever he possessed; he gambled everything away, gave up his home, his kin, his physical well-being, his peace of mind. Like a fish on the sand, he struggled to reach the water of life." (Abdu'l-Baha, Memorials of the Faithful, https://www.bahai.org/r/243927413)
As Baha'is, though, there is no incongruity or ambiguity about the reality of heaven as a reward. The next world is our goal no matter what, whether we show hustle or not. Abdu'l-Baha says,
"That individual, however, who puts his faith in God and believes in the words of God—because he is promised and certain of a plentiful reward in the next life, and because worldly benefits as compared to the abiding joy and glory of future planes of existence are nothing to him—will for the sake of God abandon his own peace and profit and will freely consecrate his heart and soul to the common good. “A man, too, there is who selleth his very self out of desire to please God.” (Qur’án 2:207) (Abdu'l-Baha, Secret of Divine Civilization, https://www.bahai.org/r/219775018)
Here are two alternate translations of the passage in the Quran that the Master cites,
"And of mankind is he who would sell himself, seeking the pleasure of Allah; and Allah hath compassion on (His) bondmen." (Qur’án 2:207, Pickthall)
"And there is the type of man who gives his life to earn the pleasure of Allah: And Allah is full of kindness to (His) devotees." (Qur’án 2:207, Yusuf Ali)
