Third passover until Jesus' arrival at Bethany
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The Unrighteous Servant
Jesus said to his disciples:
There was a rich man who had a steward. This steward was accused of wasting his goods. And the rich man called in the steward, and asked about the rumors he was hearing.
And he required an accounting, and told the steward that he could no longer manage his affairs.
The steward said to himself:
What should I do, since my job of managing this rich man's estate is going to be taken away. I am not strong enough to get a job digging up fields and I am too ashamed to beg.
I know what I will do while I still have authority over my masters financial matters.
Then he called on each person that owed his rich employer money and asked them how much they owed.
He went to one debtor and asked:
What do you owe?
The man replied:
I owe 450 gallons of olive oil.
The steward said:
Here, I will reduce the debt to 225 gallons of olive oil.
He came to another person that owed his master and asked:
What do you owe?
The man replied:
I owe a barn full of wheat.
The steward said:
I will reduce the debt to a half barn full of wheat.
The steward did this with all his master debtors, putting all of them in debt to him.
When the rich man discovered what his dishonest steward had done he commended the unrighteous steward for his shrewdness:
For the sons of this world are wiser than the sons of light.
Then Jesus said to them:
Use the resources you have been given in such a way that you will have a reward in the future, for this world will fail you.
He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much: and he who is unrighteous in a very little is unrighteous in much.
If you have not been faithful in the temporal and the transitory, who is going to trust you with true lasting riches? If you have been unfaithful using someone else’s possessions, who is going to trust you with your own?
No servant can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and material possessions.
The Pharisees, who loved money, scoffed at the teaching of Jesus.
And Jesus continued teaching them.
Jesus said:
You justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts.
Don’t you understand that those things that are exalted by men are an abomination in the sight of God?
For everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery.
And the person who marries the one who has been divorced from the husband commits adultery.