I believe that when our Lord delivered the parable of the unjust Steward, He had in view this particular evil which is all the more dangerous because it wears the garb of “jealousy for the Lord God.”
If the Apostles, feeling that they formed the personal staff of a King endowed with all power from on high, had not been lifted up and shewn some touch of imperious and exclusive spirit, they must indeed have been more or less than men. That symptoms of such a spirit had appeared and caused our Lord concern may be gathered, not only from the positive instances, such as, the forbidding one who followed not with them to cast out devils in the Lord's name; the demand to be allowed to call down fire from heaven; and the rebuking of those who brought to Christ “their babes that He might touch them;” but, even more certainly, from the repeated animadversions, in the later teaching of our Lord, on personal ambition and the over-straining of authority. Moderation, as to what may be expected from human nature, though not enforced by positive injunctions, is commended to us, after our Lord's way, by a gentle influence everywhere present, and by a current in the teaching setting steadily [pg 389] towards the point in view. Our Lord had been speaking to the people in a series of parables—the lost sheep, the lost piece of silver, the Prodigal Son,—all set in one key, all bearing on the “joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth,”[295] and He then turned to the disciples, with, as I believe, the same thought still uppermost in His mind, and urges them as the “pastors and masters” of the future, not, by insisting on the utmost, to make reformation too hard.
The parable of the unjust Steward was addressed, we are told, to the disciples, and as the disciples had no worldly goods at all, it cannot be the main drift of the parable, as has been sometimes maintained, to inculcate Christian prudence in the use of these. I find in this parable a closing comment in a very terse form; this leads me to suspect that the key to the main purport lies therein. The verse is this, “For the sons of this world are for their own generation wiser than the sons of the light.”[296] The drift of the parable is, indeed, to teach a kind of prudence, but not one in which money is concerned. The administration of property is only the vehicle in which the lesson is conveyed. What I take to be inculcated here is true Christian wisdom as to the exercise of authority—spiritual authority above all. The moral that I discern is this; that the Apostles and their [pg 390] successors may do more good by shewing a little indulgence—by conceding something to weak human nature, not enforcing Jewish formalities, and not insisting too inflexibly upon every point which they think may touch the honour or the privileges of Christ's Church—than by adhering to the strictest regard for observances, and imposing rules for sanctity of thought and conduct with which only a chosen few would be able to comply. How many have been repelled from religion by the rigour, which Priests or Puritans fancied themselves under compulsion to employ, and how has this fretful anxiety for discipline sometimes soured the natures of those who had it in charge!
I proceed to a short examination of the parable, of which I will quote the whole.
“And he said also unto the disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he was wasting his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, What is this that I hear of thee? render the account of thy stewardship; for thou canst be no longer steward. And the steward said within himself, What shall I do, seeing that my lord taketh away the stewardship from me? I have not strength to dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. And calling to him each one of his lord's debtors, he said to the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, A hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take [pg 391] thy bond, and sit down quickly and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, A hundred measures of wheat. He saith unto him, Take thy bond, and write fourscore. And his lord commended the unrighteous steward because he had done wisely: for the sons of this world are for their own generation wiser than the sons of the light. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when it shall fail, they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles. He that is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much: and he that is unrighteous in a very little is unrighteous also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own?”[297]
I do not pretend to have made out for every particular in the story of the parable a spiritual parallel after my own view, indeed I think that interpreters sometimes look for too complete a correspondence. I can quite understand that a detail might be introduced which should give life to the story and so help to fix it in the hearers' minds, which might have no analogue in the spiritual interpretation at all. This parable is, as we are told, addressed neither to the people nor to the scribes, but to the disciples, and, as it must have been delivered during our Lord's journeys in the north of Judæa or its neighbourhood when He was but [pg 392] slightly attended, it is probable that when He spoke it few beside the Apostles were by. One peculiarity, which strengthens my impression that it was uttered for the special benefit of the first hearers of it, is, that it turns on a matter which only those who were conversant with the customs of that place and time could fully understand. We know so little of the way in which estates were managed in Palestine, that the relations between the steward and his Lord are imperfectly conceived, and much of the difficulty of this parable arises from this cause: in the other parables the circumstances forming the shell of the story belong to all countries and all times alike. If now, as I have supposed, the primary use of this parable was for those who first listened to it; if it were specially intended to teach the Twelve and their immediate successors not to make too heavy demands on their converts; then it would matter less, if the story should not be so clear for men of later times.
What I regard as the point of the story is this, that it is just as unwise to exact the utmost that is due in moral and spiritual matters—casting off every one who falls short in conduct or differs in religious views—as it would be in worldly business to stand out always for the utmost penny of your rights. The honesty or dishonesty of the steward is not the central point on which the moral turns, it is his tact in remitting part of his claims [pg 393] with a long-sighted view. I do not think that we need now trouble ourselves with the question of who it is that answers to the “rich man which had a steward;” but that he does not represent Providence is clear from the eighth verse, which includes him among the “sons of this world;” for it is his sense in commending the steward which draws forth the moral, “The sons of this world are for their own generation wiser than the sons of the light.” This rich man's verdict on his steward's conduct may be taken to represent the view which practically minded men, versed in affairs and regarding matters little on their ethical side, would take of the case in hand; in fact he stands for the public opinion of his class.
Next comes the question, What was the business position of the steward? It agrees best both with the circumstances before us and with such extraneous information as we possess, to suppose that the functionary, called here steward, managed absolutely his master's property, and that he was paid by a poundage on the net receipts, or by some similar method, so that his interest and his master's would, generally speaking, coincide. There is no allegation against him of fraud or corrupt bargaining, and indeed, his being in danger of beggary shews that he is not supposed to have made himself a purse. He is charged with having “wasted the goods,” but this may mean in the way of over leniency with creditors or of unproductive outlay, not in [pg 394] that of personal appropriation. He was clearly not treated as though he were liable to criminal prosecution. It is of course meant to represent him as a bad steward, and the word here construed unjust sometimes means little more than bad, as will be seen from Archbishop Trench's note, in the sense of being ineffective and unsatisfactory to his employers.
Dr Edersheim observes as follows:[298]
“It must be borne in mind that he is still steward, and as such has full power of disposing of his master's affairs. When, therefore, he sends for one after another of his master's debtors, and tells each to alter the sum in the bond, he does not suggest to them forgery or fraud, but, in remitting part of the debt, whether it had been incurred as rent in kind or as the price of produce purchased, he acts, although unrighteously, yet strictly within his rights.” His master praised his astuteness, he had kept within the law and so long as this was done the current code of morality was satisfied. It is a point to be noted that no bargain is made with the debtors, he trusts to their gratitude to receive him into their houses.