God's Economy by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Author:Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Zondervan

CHAPTER 6

Economic Friendship: How Real Security Happens

TACTIC #3: “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves.”

Luke 16:9

I grew up with people who could tell a Bible story like they’d stood there with Peter and Paul. We had preachers who could make you feel the hunger of a prodigal son chewing corn husks in a pig pen. My people know a good story when we hear it, and we always knew the Bible was full of good ones. But I’ll never forget when I started to read the Bible as a teenager and realized that there are some stories in there that no one had ever told me. Jesus’ story about the shrewd manager is one of them.

It’s a story straight from the household economy of the ancient world, and it’s set in what must have been a mighty nice enterprise. When we get some numbers toward the end of the story, some folks who keep an account with this large household owe as much as seven or eight years’ wages.1 To translate that into our contemporary setting, we’re talking about a wholesale supplier that has outstanding invoices in the six-figure range. This is no small operation — it was almost certainly the biggest business in town.

At the head of this household, like a modern-day CEO, there is a rich man — a pater familias supreme. Everyone in town knows him, like people in Seattle know the name Bill Gates. No doubt he makes frequent trips to Jerusalem to hobnob with fellow elites and negotiate important business deals. He is invested in political negotiations and busy with self-promotion. So he needs someone he can trust to stay home and keep things running. Like every great household head in the ancient world, he needs a good manager.

This job of manager was a good one for someone who wasn’t born into the elite class. It took some work to achieve — he had to be literate enough in the language of commerce to deal with basic contracts and handy enough with numbers to keep the books. A full range of people skills, product knowledge, and organizational aptitude were a must. But he also had to know his place. The pater familias usually didn’t mind if his manager took a cut from the customers, but he didn’t want him to incite the masses to revolt. More than anything, he wanted the manager to keep things going and turn a profit for the business. While the position came with privileges, it was also precarious. Managers had to be careful.

The story Jesus tells is about a manager who isn’t careful enough. The head honcho happens to be in town and has either checked the bottom line or heard rumors from his customers. Maybe he’s just paranoid, but he accuses his manager of “wasting his possessions” (Luke 16:1). He calls the manager in and tells him he wants an accounting. Evidently, he gives him some time to get the books together. But the manager knows he’s in trouble.

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