The Parable of the Dishonest Steward is not about Honesty

Many People are caught up on the idea of the dishonest steward being dishonest that they miss the purpose of the parable altogether. So here is my version of the parable. Not that I can improve on Jesus’ version. I think some was lost in translation. In Arabic (which is close to Aramaic it’s a little easier).

Jesus said many times that if you use your money here in this world to build mansions they will be no use for you later. If you use this money to build a treasure in heaven (by giving it to Jesus) it will be far more valuable. So it is the wise thing to do. The exact same principle restated is to use this money (which will soon be worth nothing) to make friends (like Jesus) in the afterlife (again by giving it now to Jesus).

It’s like being the IT guy in charge of the website of a very large bank. If he knew he was being fired tomorrow (for whatever reason. Let’s say he was accused by the FCC and the bank would not spend money to defend him. He might even be guilty. It’s not the issue here). But he figured I will never get another job. I will have a criminal record. I will be on welfare for the rest of my life. Today I control millions of dollars. Tomorrow I will have nothing. I can’t transfer money into my own account. That will get caught. I can only adjust other balances. If the computer has a glitch, takes away a couple of zero’s from someone’s account, I fix that. It’s my job. So if you have $ 1,000,000 and the computer messes up and makes it $10,000 I fix that. All adjustments made by me being the IT guy are strictly “legal” and irreversible.  Here’s what I will do I will add money to these 2 guys accounts. They will each find an extra $ 5 million in their accounts and they will know who did it. The first guy owns hotels. I am sure he will let me stay at one of his hotels in Mexico for the rest of my life. The other is the Mexican version of Sam Walton. He will let me shop at his stores for free for food, clothes, and everything else. I will have zero cash, but, I will live happily ever after. I cannot be prosecuted. I will have zero assets so they can’t come after my assets.

The plan was so brilliant. When the board of the bank heard about it they had a good chuckle. One of them said “I wish I was so smart when I was his age”. Another said “It seems that these shady characters are smarter than the more honest ones in their generation”.

So honesty and all that aside (We will talk about honesty later because I do care about it) I just wanted to show you how giving your money to Jesus is just simply the most brilliant financial planning.